2 months!

September 21, 2010

So, we've officially had our lovely money pit of a house for two months. On this two month-aversary, we are so happy to announce the discovery of some guests..... termites. That's right, folks. We paid for a termite inspection only to find out that termites were chomping down on that pole that was failing to hold up the porch above the house. We called the inspector that did our inspection, and they have allegedly agreed to treat the termites at a fraction of the cost. I will update you all on that. The nice thing for the inspector is that the termites have now taken up residence by walking across our front windows since their pole was cut off, so now they can't be missed.

The good news is that we have a new pole, some of the jacks have been removed, and (most importantly to Alok) the gap in the front of our house has been closed. Woo hoo. Here are the pics:


front with new poles, the jack is still under the main part of the house, straight ahead. BTW, there was mail in that mailbox again


the gap is closed!


front of the house


I believe we may need to replace this board.


Alok checking it out and trying to get the mail


Boards for the new deck


We ordered 14 tons of dirt to try to keep the water away from the house


front of house

Unfortunately, we also had additional water from the recent rain. This area here (above the landing) is still leaking for obvious reasons. There should be siding where the tar paper is. Our siding is historically protected (aka a pain to try to replace).



View from the inside

This leak here is in the laundry room and is getting worse. We have no idea what's wrong. We've had the chimney near here tuckpointed and had the flat roof tared (for a second time):





We may have to rip off the lovely paneling in the laundry room to see what's up with the wall here. Alok said he has an idea about where to put the paneling. I said that's fine as long as it's not on another wall. If paneling leaves, it should leave for good!


Newly tuckpointed chimney


Area where the flat roof is off the laundry room

We also had these supports put in here in the old master bedroom closet to help continue to support this area






This is the master bathroom. We had the old bathtub removed.

My mom and Alok also worked on wallpaper removal in the apartment while I was in Chicago. Here is the progress:









I like all of the pictures with little random pieces pulled off. I don't know what happened.

My mom also removed some weeds while we were gone. Here is the where we are now:





I'm too tired to track down before pictures, but trust me, there's a big change ;-)

I also had to share a picture of the apartment toilet, which we are obviously replacing:


yes, there is a brick and foil in there....

So, I'll close this post with a review of what we've done in 60 days:

-stripped off all wallpaper off the first floor, except the apartment
-stripped off the wallpaper in one upstairs hallway
-removed all but one air conditioners (this one goes through a wall, we'll wait until we get siding)
-got a new roof (JDS construction)
-got new gutters (Peters)
-found mold in nearly every room (well, not quite every)
-destroyed the mold (well, kind of)
-gutted the master bedroom/bath
-gutted the apartment bath
-gutted the wall with the big window on the landing
-gutted 3 other water damaged closets
-got a washer and dryer (they were on clearance or we would have held off)
-discovered another good 6 feet off our back patio
-destroyed some ivy/weeds
-got rid of the spiral staircase/holy tree coming through our porch
-discovered 1 good and 1 mutilated set of pocket doors
-tore down the massive bookshelf in the first room
-gotten quotes for about everything we possibly could (including the unbelievable $40K one for painting)
-had 1 chimney tuckpointed (to try to prevent the laundry room leak)
-had our two flat roofs "sealed" by the roofer.... and then had them "resealed" so that they actually didn't leak (or so we thought)
-discovered a ton of stuff in the walls- that was pretty cool
-discovered the words "I will kill you all" on the ceiling (my personal favorite)
-replaced the poll so our house doesn't fall down
-jacked up the house so it doesn't keep falling down
-closed the gap that Alok was obsessing over ;-)
-got new supports in the master bedroom so that area doesn't fall down
-did some other random gardening
-met some lovely neighbors :-)
-bought a very cool stained glass window that is still sitting in the antique store in Payson (we should probably go get that)
-discovered termites
-discovered that our whole house is slowly sinking into the ground
-ripped up the front deck
-bought new front deck boards
-ordered 14 tons of dirt
-ripped up a zillion bushes (ok, not that many, but a lot)
-discovered our basement leaks
-discovered yazoo
-found some cool history on the family/house, although I need to get back on it
-found some really "creative" ways to solve household issues, all of which we're trying to correct
-discovered that there is duct work throughout the whole first floor, with the exception of the new addition to the kitchen, although it has a crawl space
-picked out new paint colors for the outside of the house
...... I'm sure there's more

Notice that most of this involved destruction. Hopefully at our 90 day review we will have some additional construction that has taken place.

That's all for now. Things will be a bit slow this week, but more to come.

Jessica