Friday, January 8, 2010

House remodel

My plan was to build new walls for the second floor of the house while the roof was still on, then take off the roof, erect the walls, and put the roof back on. Then I found that the 2nd floor was so uneven and poorly constructed that we would have to take the whole floor up and replace it before the walls were built. Since the roof was sitting on the floors, it had to come off first. Here's how the second floor looked before we got started:



Sadly, you can't see how the floor goes up and down with each floor joist.













So, the roof came off:





First the tin,













Then the rafters. That's what's all stacked up there.













And the floor was replaced.











We had wonderfully sunny weather through all of this. In fact, Jamie's head was burned to a crisp. As soon as the floor was redone, we started on the walls, one or even half of one at a time. Once the walls were up, we built the floor for the 3rd floor and then put the roof back on. However, long about the time that the second wall went up, it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Every day it rained. We bought a ginormous tarp that quickly tore and the rain came through. A lot. We had to set up some pretty creative ways to keep the water from running straight down into the sheetrock and insulation downstairs. More on this later.


Still alive

So, you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. Life has been a little bit crazy. Here's what happened since April. We bought the house and started MAJOR renovations. Things snowballed a bit, and we're still working on the remodel. I got a job teaching 7-12 choral music at Norwood Norfolk High School. We got pregnant and had a baby. I think that's about it. I'll try to post more details on the various topics.