Alok has been busy continuing to tear down the house. What I have been doing you may ask? Starting a business (www.cfdcquincy.com) and working on roller derby stuff (www.darkriverderby.com). Just in case you care ;-) (Oh, and avoiding an asthma attack). Here is how things are lookin':
OK, he didn't do this, but check out the multi-layer icicles. Here is the work:
Pile of lathe in the foyer... look ahead to the bare walls
Living room walls... notice the pocket doors. The one of the left is the original butternut, the one on the right is mustard colored butternut.
The walls in the living room
Hidden pocket doors.... living room sans wall
The butternut wood, hidden pocket doors. See that wire going through it on the left? They actually drilled through the pocket door in order to put a thermostat on either side of the wall. This is one of the most ridiculous things I have seen. Given the quality of this house, that is saying a lot.
Close up on the ridiculous destroying of doors
We haven't destroyed everything! This weird, little heater thing is still here. Still with wall and wallpaper behind it.
Dining room wall. This goes into the kitchen.
View from dining room into the hallway we tore out (with the basement stairs) and into the apartment.
View from hallway into living room
Another hallway view into dining room/living room
View from the dining room into the living room
The rest of the butler pantry wall came down. That is some siding paper you are seeing.
Here is a video tour, which gives you a better picture of what we're dealing with:
Good thing I'm a psychologist and not a videographer.
In other news, we got our first heating bill with our new furnace. We have a gas furnace that only is meant to heat the downstairs and we have no system upstairs (although heat rises). The house is about 4200 sq ft. Any guesses to how massive our first bill was? (given the open walls, etc).
Jessica
$300?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is about $700 for heating without insulation. Now that you have made the wise decision to remove the plaster, I would recommend you doing wet spray in insulation. It's about the same price as you buying rolls of insulation, but it will seal up the house so much better. Spray insulation will fill the smallest of voids that the rolled insulation couldnt fit into.
ReplyDeleteAdam is closer (although on the Price of Right, Purvi would win). $600. A bit high given that we are broke, but actually not too bad given our lack of insulation, etc.
ReplyDeleteAdam- do you have any recommendations for types of spray insulation? Did you do this yourself or would you recommend we have someone do it? We are still working on the electrical, Alok wanted me to ask if doing the spray would interfere with that. Thanks!!
You will want to do a spray insulation that goes in wet. It seals up the best. This is a task that will have to be hired done, but they are usually very reasonable. It would have cost me more for myself to by rolls of insulation than it was for them to come spray it. As far as electrical or plumbing, go ahead and do all of those rough-ins. You have to have all your work in the wall cavities done before they insulate. It will not harm any of that work. Most new homes do the wet cellulose insulation. I will get you a few phone numbers when you are ready. I don't have Craig Karsten's on me right now. He owns Insulation Systems with his brother. They do a lot of houses in Quincy. Awesome to work with, very good prices. Remember don't forget cable tv, telephone, internet when doing your electrical rough-ins. If you are going to add any outside lights, be sure to do them now as well.
ReplyDelete