We have walls.

Yes, that's right, we now have actual walls. Not lines on the floor, not pieces of 2x4 nailed in place, but actual real walls.


Walls that look like walls. Walls with openings that one can lookout of.

(Although, we are not putting windows in between rooms. This actually just me looking thru what will eventually be medicine cabinets on the other side.)

We have walls that have insulation in them. You may be wondering why we are insulating interior walls, as they do not really need to be. We decided that since bathrooms have tile, and tile is not very sound absorbent, we would insulate around the bathrooms so that one can still sleep in the bedrooms while someone is singing in the shower.


We also have a wall with an opening for a window to the outside. This is the window that I found back when we were tearing out the bathroom. As soon as it is nice outside, it will become an actual window, rather than a window-looking-at-siding.

We also got the support for the new master bathroom tub built. It may rather look like a playpen, but trust me, eventually there will be a tub there.

It just happens to be located in the first floor den at the moment. :)

Oh I wish I were...

an Oscar Meyer wiener...

Much to my surprise when returning from a shopping trip to the grocery store, the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile was parked just a few blocks from my house!


This is something that you don't see everyday. It was just parked in front of a house along the curb, just as any other car would be. Does the driver live in the house? Maybe they were just visiting? My curiosity was greatly aroused, and I spent the rest of the day wondering what it was like to drive the Wienermobile, and what kind of job requirements there are beyond a driver's license and clean driving record. Hmmm, maybe I should look into this further.

The Next Day

Since I did not ski the Birkie, I still wanted to enjoy some of the winter activities that the general area offered. I wanted to go snowshoeing. I brought the snowshoes in the car, just in case.

We found a nice little park along the road home that had some snowshoeing trails. The one we took went along a little creek, and then went along the Birkie trail. This was very good information to have if I am ever again the official photographer. I can snowshoe into the race course and take some pictures.

I was having all kinds of fun with my snowshoes - running and skipping along the trail.

Nate, however, was not in the same state of mind. His legs were sore from the day before, but we figured it was a good idea for him to get out and walk a bit, so that he didn't get leg cramps from all of the sitting in the car. So, he let me have all of the fun and just made sure that I didn't get hurt. We both made it home just fine.

Birkie Fever

This weekend we took a break from all of the uproar in the house. We headed up north to the Birkie. For those of you who are not susceptible to Birkie fever, this is THE main cross-country ski race in the US - officially known as the American Birkebeiner.


It is a 50km ski race through the woods of northern Wisconsin. People of all shapes, sizes, and abilities (even some Olympians) and from all over the world ski this race. I, however, am not one of them. My husband, and about 30+ of his college buddies do this race every year. Most of them are abnormally good atheletes (not of the cross country ski variety, but in other sports) so they are able to just drop everything and ski each year. This year is the 12th year that they have been attempting this endeavor.

Last year I did try to do the short version of the race (23km), the Kortelopet. I finished, albeit almost last. Third from last to be exact. It took me 4h 32m to finish my race. It took Nate about the same amount of time to finish his 50k. Thus, this year I volunteered to be official photographer for our group.


When you get to the Birkie, you must park your car in a field with thousands of others.


Then you get on one of a gazillion yellow school busses, complete with skis and poles. This makes for a very challenging ride, as you must keep your equipment to yourself and not poke anyone unintentionally.You get off of your bus and trek your way to a line of hauling trucks, some of which are semi-sized, and toss in your bag of "things for after the race", and hope to see it at the finish line.



Once all of this is accomplished, you get to the starting line with the thousands of others who ski at about your ability. They let the faster skiers start first, so as those of us who are beginners won't trip them up and ruin their race. Nate is in the middle of the start times, and some of the others in our group are in the top 3 and 4 of the start times.


Then it's off to the races. You must ski and ski and ski and ski and ski until you think your legs will fall off. After a bit you do come to some food and water stations, where there are volunteers to lie to you and tell you it's not much farther to the end so that you will keep going and not collapse in their arms.

Here's Nate at about the halfway point. He was going along pretty well considering we'd only been out skiing about 3 times the entire winter.

In addition to the regular racers, there are also some costumed skiers that appear every year. They are the Birkebeiners and the Princess Ingrid. They are chosen each year to represent the legend of the Birkebeiners carrying Prince Haakon to safety in Norway. I was lucky enough to see them skiing by this year.

Finally, when you think you can go no further and you will collapse where you stand, you see in the distance, the crowds of Main Street. This means the Finish Line is in sight, and you can soon stop skiing!! There are people on Main Street that are spectators, there are people who live in the area, and people that are barely moving whom you know have just finished the race known as the Birkie.

Utilities R Us

This week was the week of getting new utilities - new plumbing and electrical! And boy, did we need it.

First, the electrical:

We started out with some Old electrical parts. We had knob-and-tube with the ceramic insulators all over the house. This was kind of assumed based on the earlier incident with the cutting of wires.

We had wires just hanging out in the middle of doorways, as well as randomly ending within wall cavities. We were in dire need of an upgrade. So, we upgraded not only the wiring inside the house, but also the wiring outside the house. We now have wonderful 200amp service! This required the utility company to shut off the electricity outside at the pole and keep it off most of the day. We decided to run errands, as there's not much you can do these days during winter with the electricity off.

In order to make sure that the new electrical service didn't set the house on fire, we got a humongous new piece of pipe down the side of the house, and giant-sized wires to go with it.

My favorite bit is that we now have a new electrical panel - 42 breakers in all! There are so many breakers, that we've only used up about half thus far. Seeing as we do have quite a ways to go, that is a good thing.


Next were the plumbing updates:

First we had to remove the old plumbing from the tiny bathroom that we had ripped out. As this bathroom had been installed eons ago, we were not exactly sure what we'd find. And of course, this included a unwanted surprise...

Once we got all of the old plumbing removed, including the waste line, we found out that the previous installers had just cut most of the way thru several floorboards in order to make the plumbing fit underneath the floor. This meant that the area of the house that the tub had been sitting on had really no support from below. It was a very good thing that the tub was so small that no one took a bath in it, as they may have fallen down into the living room below!

So, the end result is that we had to go in and support the cut-thru floor joists so that the new clawfoot tub we are putting in won't fall thru either.

As a part of the upstairs move of the bathroom parts, we had to cut thru the plumbing stack on the first floor, necessitating yet another piece of wall/ceiling to be removed in the den. At the rate we're going, we'll end up with all new sheetrock in the den too!


Here's the upstairs plumbing all new and improved. We were able to put the lines for both of our new bathrooms into the same wall, as they are sharing a wall. This let us save on costs. However, one thing that you cannot see in this picture is the fact that the plumber very nicely put in all of the lovely new piping, but in the WRONG place! All of the plumbing was over one stud cavity to the right, meaning things (such as sinks, toilets, and tubs) wouldn't fit along the wall as they were supposed to. A call to the plumber to come back next week to fix this.


One thing that did get put into the correct location is my water heater, water softener, and laundry. All of this moved from one side of the basement to the other. The new location should give us hot water to the upstairs faster than before. You can also see how lovely the new PVC piping is - red for hot, blue for cold, and white for the waste line. Who knew that plumbing could look like this?


Additionally, I got a laundry tub. This is one of those things that a girl does not realize she will miss until she does not have one. This house did not come with a laundry tub! No where to empty mop buckets, wash out a sweater, or clean paint brushes. Now we have a double bowl one, and I LOVE it! I can wash out brushes in one side and have something soaking on the other. I can do the laundry and empty the mop bucket all at once! No more random things soaking in my kitchen sink. No more mixing drywall compound in the bathroom. Yay for laundry sinks!!

Closets

If you have ever lived in an old house, you know that closet space was not generally the priority it is today. You may have even read my earlier post on the excitement that I had with my new closet this past summer.

In our house, the Master Bedroom had one of the smallest closets of all the bedrooms. 3' x 3' with a door in one wall. We had already decided to enlarge it slightly to be 4' x 5' and move the doorway to be able to actually put hanging rods into it that allow you to put normal sized hangers on them. In showing off our "progress" to my father-in-law, he suggested that we see what was behind the lathe wall in the closet that had the stairway under it. What a great idea!


The ceiling for the stairs form a triangle, which would maybe allow for shelving in the closet. I started pulling off the lathe to look, and found nothing but empty space.


This means that we can: 1. put the new heat vent through that space into the Master Bedroom, 2. put shelves and a hanging rod on that side of the closet also.


It is still not enough space for all of the clothes for the both of us, but it is much more than we had before. And now I have a place to put my shoes and bags.

Another wish I had put into our remodel plans was to get a linen closet. As right now, I have no place to store any bed or table linens. Especially placemats. We have several sets of placemats, as I like them quite a bit. However, there are no drawers or cupboards in the entire house in which they fit. Not one! So, I specified a linen closet with shelves that will fit the placemats. And I got one! We had just enough space at the end of the hall to turn around the old bathroom door so that it opens into the hall and use the space as a linen closet. I also splurged slightly and had it lined with cedar particle board. It smells quite yummy now.

An additional positive is that we now have a painted Master Bedroom. This means that it will become a giant storage closet, as I now have to clean out yet another room.


An amusing note about the paint, is when I took out the wall over the stairs, apparently, at one time the hall had been painted almost the same color we just painted our bedroom.


Apparently paint colors come back into fashion, just like clothes. Who knew?

So much for Progress.

Oh well, that's all I can say. There was progress made last week in the rebuilding manner, only seems that it has been counteracted in progress made this week in the destruction manner again. This week the destruction outweighed the reconstruction.

Let's see, where to start. Hmmm, we had to move all of the furniture out of our den in order to cut a large hole in the ceiling from one side of the room to the other. This is to install support beams in order to help support that floating 2nd floor we found.


Unfortunately, after cutting the hole in the ceiling, the beams didn't fit, due to the slope of the roof line on the addition. This meant that we had to lift the giant laminated beams into the air and through a 2nd floor window. Then we had to cut the outside stud walls in order to put the beams in place. Now, however, it seems that the 2nd floor is actually supported quite well, and the beams look rather impressive. It feels sort of too bad that they will be covered with drywall and tile.


We had to cover up 2 outside windows on the house with plywood, as those windows are going away and new ones of a different size shall be installed. It's a bit too cold to peel the siding off the house right now, so up the boards go until warmer weather.



I should say that I feel that we are contributing so well to the look of our neighborhood. We have a dumpster in the driveway, 2 boarded up windows that can be seen from the street, and 3 mattress/boxspring sets stored on our front porch.


At least we have a building permit stuck to the window indicating that hopefully this will only be a temporary situation. If it isn't at least 1 member of this household may go mad.

We also started taking apart the trim on some of the doorframes, in order to straighten them out a bit. We thought their lopsidedness was due to the age of the house. Not so!


Someone, who must've been drunk at the time, actually put in shims to MAKE the doorframes 2" off of level!!


And, after having in 3 plumbers to give quotes on the work, it looks like we will be taking out more of the den ceiling, and some of the walls in order to fit everything in. The electricians will need to cut holes in more walls and pull up some of the attic floor. When will it end?

Making Progress, I think.

So after a few weeks of mostly destructive actions, this week has been somewhat more satisfying, as some actual visual progress has been made.

Progress:
We framed in the new closet, including the pocket doors. We are reusing old doors from elsewhere in the house as the pocket doors, so they will all match.


We have all of the drywall up in the Master Bedroom. This, however, was also not without incidence, as due to the unintentional cutting of an earlier set of wires in the floor, the drywall had to be put on hold while the electrician figured out what was wrong. This resulted in my coming home (after a few days out of town), to a 2x4 board holding up the ceiling in my kitchen! Apparently we now have new wiring in the overhead lights on the 1st floor, and they had to take out part of the ceiling in the kitchen to fix it.


The paint color for the Master Bedroom and Bath has been chosen after painting several large squares around the room. It took quite a few squares, as each color was a little bit off of what my mind thought it should look like.



Destruction:
Of course, there is still more destruction ongoing. With the new shower installed, we can now demolish the old bathroom.

It proved to be quite interesting. After removing the current tub surround, I found a layer of drywall, and then some very pink plastic tile. We think it's from about 1950 or so. How pretty.


Removing the old tub proved to be much harder than it looked. The tub was of a fiberglass type or vinyl of some sort. Usually this means that one can just give a big tug and out it pops. Not in this case! First we tugged, then we pried, then finally we got it slid out far enough that I could get in behind it and push. Over it went, and aha! The reason the tub was so hard to move is that whoever put it in place had affixed an entire bag of concrete to the bottom!


Additionally, I discovered that the tiny window in the bathroom had once been a bit bigger, as is evidenced by the only insulation we've found thus far. AND, I found a matching window opening that used to be in one of the bedrooms before it had become part of the bathroom. This means that we can reuse the window we had to remove and put this bedroom back to the way it was long long ago. You can see the old window opening where the wood is a bit lighter in the background.


I also found some evidence of the fire that the house had in 1970. It was hit by lightning then and the attic and roof burned. It has since been redone and a new roof line built. We even have the article in the local newspaper that shows the firemen fighting the fire.

So, now I have managed to put holes in 3 of the 4 four bedrooms that we started with. Onward!