Little Festivus Miracles

It looks like fate has had some pity on us in the end, and there have been a few minor miracles keeping my glass half full these last few weeks.

Aside from all the progress that we've been making, especially considering the fact that we can only work a few days a week on the house, we've had a couple of financial breaks. The electrical rewire ended up costing well under what we'd expected, as in, several thousand dollars less. Then the CH/A guys called to discuss repairing the cracks in the ceilings that they caused. I realized that they just wanted us to pay, so they offered to knock $200 off the bill if we'd let it go. After drywalling the entire kitchen for about that much, I think it's safe to say that we were well overcompensated for that little annoyance.

We also discovered a really great equipment rental tip-- this is probably something you all already know, but I was pleased to discover that renting things on Saturday morning at our local place gets us a one-day special-- they're closed on Sundays, so they don't charge for that day. 2 for 1!!! I have already reserved the edger and square buffer to be picked up Friday afternoon. I requested online that we have the edger from Friday to Monday; but when they called to confirm, they told me it wouldn't be "due back" until Wednesday since they're closed for Christmas and Christmas Eve. I'm not sure whether we'll be charged for those days or not, and he didn't say one way or the other. I have my fingers and toes crossed that they treat the holidays like Sundays. Either way, it needs to get done this weekend, so now we can take our time.

When we're finished with the floors, I'll be sure to post a breakdown of the cost. We had a floor refinisher give us an estimate-- to do the whole house, except laundry and bathroom (so around 1100-1200 ft2), was going to cost ~$3800. Whatever happens, we just hope we come in under the cost of a professional.

Another little bit of pleasure comes courtesy of my mother and PorchSwings.com. My mother is giving us a porch swing for Christmas and this is the one we've picked out:
The porch swing at my mother's house was built in about the 1880s by her grandfather or great grandfather-- I lose track!-- it's a little creaky, but in excellent condition even when you don't take into account the fact that it gets daily use all year long. Sigh. If I can't have that one, this one will have to do!

And finally, my sister and I leave for England on December 31 to scatter our father's ashes. My dad built houses and renovated most of the major historic homes in town at one point or other, and so it's really a shame that he's not been around to help us with this, since he passed away in February. But we'll get to end the holiday season with him in his and my favorite city in the world.

It truly is a Festivus miracle!

At a steady clip

First of all...drumroll....The electrical inspector signed off!!!!

That doesn't mean we're done with the city-- we still have to have the mechanical inspection (for the newly installed HVAC) and then the final...but that's one MAJOR step!!!!!

Other things are moving along as well. This last weekend saw the painting of the walls-- a sandy, adobe sort of color in the living room and office-- Caramel, from Lowe's Eddie Bauer Craftsman Collecction-- and green in the dining room-- Ruskin Room Green from the Sherwin Williams Arts & Crafts collection. We painted all the rooms with Valspar primer, which didn't coat very consistently, but it did the trick of toning down the dark colors that were already there. Luckily, the actual colored Valspar paint went on very thick and smooth; the Sherwin Williams Classic 99 paint, however, went on very streaky. The dining room will therefore likely need a second coat. In other words, I highly recommend the Valspar Signature stuff. And with a mail-in rebate (and a 10% off coupon), it was cheaper than the SW, even though the SW was already on sale AND I had a 5% off coupon. Still, the Ruskin green was just what we wanted, so I'm not too disappointed. Here's before and after of the living room (sorry-- camera phone again):

We finally gave up on getting the chair rail paint line eliminated. I simply reached a point where I couldn't stand the thought of wasting any more precious time futzing with something that probably wasn't going to be noticeable to anyone but us and would be deal-withable later. Screw it.

And the dining room was also a lovely success:


I know that the actual colors don't translate well, having gone through the camera and different computer monitors...But you can see how much lighter we went and what a difference it makes. It was a little like getting a haircut, though-- you know how the minute you decide to cut your hair, people start complimenting you on it? Yeah, that's how it went with the paint. Everyone who came into the house looooved the colors it was already painted. And while I could have totally lived with them, I really thought that it made the rooms feel a little cave-like.

I swear, though, the POs did some weird painting-- like painting the side of the trim the same color as the wall, and the casement windows in the dining room are also the same color as the wall, even though the trim surrounding them is the color of the rest of the trim. Who knows. Much shaking of my head.

Next painting step will be to paint the trim an antique white semi-gloss. And we have great brushes for it! I now know why my father always painted rooms with a brush and never with a roller-- he bought $40 brushes and they're worth every penny. We only used them this time for getting close to the trim. But while Adam and I complained of brush strokes in the green paint with our cheap $7 brushes, my mother had no problems because she used what she was calling the Magic Brush. And it was magical.

All trim work from here on out is to be done with a Magic Brush.

And stupid me, I forgot to take pictures of one of our biggest accomplishments-- the upper cabinets are mostly installed. Because we replaced the plaster with sheetrock, they don't fit into the space in quite the same way. I believe much shimming will be needed.

I will have pics of the cabinets soon-- hopefully with them totally in place. We also sanded the cabinet facings. The wood is really pretty-- hard maple, maybe?-- so we thought we might just put a clear-coat on them. I've also found a company that would make doors for something like $500 total, so we may just opt for new doors altogether, rather than sand the ones we have and don't like.

Adam spent today at the house edging the kitchen floor-- he says it's coming out pretty well, so hopefully there'll be pics of that coming soon.

We've decided to make the end of January our final goal of getting completely out of the rental. I was a little upset about it, but as long as things are moving steadily, I'm happy with whatever.

Electrical Updates

Well, the electrician has gone as far as he can until the final inspection. He ran all the wires, added new boxes where necessary, and wired up our cheap, $4 light fixtures from Lowes. So before the final inspection can happen, we have to show that all the wires will be covered up, which means getting a lot further with the kitchen-- as in, getting the actual walls up.

So far, the money has totaled around $5000. More things were grandfathered in than were expected, and we asked for the bare minimum. Putting in a new 200 amp box and wiring our new heat pump cost $2k. And the rest of the house was about $3k-- lots of our outlets are in the floors because of the masonry walls, and they were left there; we also had smoke detectors hard-wired in, which is code but which is also going to totally suck the first time I burn some toast.

Now, we haven't had the final inspection yet, and once that is done, there may be more things needed that could cost extra. But we're keeping our fingers crossed that this is at least the bulk of it...

Progress!!

After staying out far too late with good friends on Friday, I had a bit of a slow start getting to the house Saturday morning. I think I've mentioned before that we currently live about an hour away, and so we have very little idea of what's happening in the house during the week. And when we're in town, we stay with my mother a few blocks away.

So it was with a big fat smile on my face that I unlocked the door to the house Saturday afternoon to see...wires! lots of em! Apparently, the electrician was able to start work on the house this week and that is the one thing holding us up, really. Lots of outlets are in the floor and so we can't very well do the floors until everything else is done; can't paint until we know where new outlets will be cut into the walls; can't close up the kitchen walls until the electrical inspector signs off on them. It's one big chain reaction, and it starts with the rewire. We're one step closer!

Then I got a little further back into the house and also saw that some changes we'd asked the CH/A installer to make were done...at least the biggest ones. It was very, very exciting.

However, without any electricity, we're a bit limited in our projects. So this weekend, we sprayed down the screened porch and finished scraping, and spent Sunday painting trim. And it's amazing how much better it looks. Who knew a good scrubbing and some white paint would make such a difference! Still no after pics yet-- have to replace some ceiling panels and rotted trim...and still need to rescreen, but you can see what we started with:

The weekend update

While I can't say it was a good weekend, I can at least claim to have been productive.

I met with the electrician by myself Friday. Adam is sick, so he kept his germy self at our rental home all weekend, and here is what I found out. We can save some time and money by stripping all the outlets, switches, light fixtures, ceiling fans, etc. Easy enough...We also talked cost. Lots of the outlets are in the floor (because of the aforementioned concrete walls-- bad for rewiring, great for insulation.) and these outlets are on a couple of circuits that run under the floor. The lights and switches are on other circuits that run overhead in the attic. Our city ordinances want each room to be on its own independent circuit. That means using up one entire circuit and breaker slot for 2 or 3 outlets and a light. That seems a bit much to me. But because the house is old, some things may be grandfathered in. Until the inspector comes and helps us parse through that, and the electrician actually gets started, we won't know how much money this whole thing's gonna run. He has said, though, that it should be less than the $9400 original estimate. Fingers crossed-- and I'll keep the blog updated on that. I had the hardest time getting even a rough idea of cost when we bought the house, so hopefully this will give someone else at least a figure to work from. (and FYI-- house is about 1460 ft2 with a mixture of plaster walls, sheetrock over plaster, sheetrock over concrete and a completely exposed kitchen. Also has a ~250 ft2 detached garage and shop. Dunno if we'll be wiring that or not...)

It could also be a week or so before he gets started-- this wasn't in anyone's plans.

So I got moving on it this weekend. I managed to get all the switches and outlets unhooked; and I got the blades and lights unscrewed from the ceiling fans. Boxes and ceiling lights/fan motors are next.

Maybe it's all for the best, since this seemed to be the PO's idea of a job well done:Nevermind the bad patch or the splice that I had to cut through because they didn't use a little splicer cap-- it's the newspaper that's shoved around that splice that makes me confident in this sample of DIY handywork.

Also in weekend news-- finally mowed the yard. Now that we've moved into a neighborhood where the residents take care of their grass, we had to step up and buy a mower. I took breaks from the electrical to put the thing together, and when I lost my light in the house (no electricity=no after hours work!), I mowed the yard. And I have to say that it was the most fun I've had trimming any grass.

When a city ordinance is not your friend

See all those wires? That's the good old knob and tube that's been the bane of my existence for quite some time now.

We knew it was there when we bought the house, but most of the modern major appliances had been put on newer circuits and the wires were 12# quality copper. Most importantly, estimates ranging from $9-14k for a total rewire made us that much more fond of those old wires.

One of the biggest factors in the high cost was the fact that interior side of the exterior walls are all concrete/mortar with sheetrock on top of that. The time and cost of mortar bits to bring all the outlets from the floor and into the wall added a lot to the cost. Not to mention the local ordinances that go so far above and beyond national code...

So we decided to upgrade the old fuse box and the service (from 100 to 200 amp) and add 2 new circuits for CH/A and be done. We'll get to the rewire when we have a little more money. And here's where all the trouble began.

Our local ordinances state that if you alter more than 50% of the wiring of a house, you are then obligated to bring the rest of the house up to code. It also says that the box and circuits for CH/A constitute 50%. I'm not sure how they justify that, considering it is neither 50% of the materials, the labor, nor the cost...But when the inspector came out, he saw that we had also taken all the plaster off of the walls of the kitchen. Plaster was crumbling off, the holes were patched with sheetrock-- it needed to come down. He decided that this was a kitchen remodel and with the exposed wires, it would have to be brought up to code...therefore exceeding the 50% rule, therefore requiring a full rewire.

The electrician tried to get us out of it by rerouting unnecessary circuits and we took our case to the board of appeals, but no such luck. So this afternoon we meet with the electrician to get our homework assignments: anything we can do to the house that will make his life easier, the job quicker, and in turn cost less money.

I imagine our weekend will largely be spent on this. Guess the porch rescreening will have to wait.