Weeds, Trees and Grass!

When we moved to this house, the property seemed very small... On our first visit we actually thought that our yard ended at the back of the sheds on the property. It turns out that we purchased approximately 320 feet in depth of yard at 60 feet wide. The sheds are only about 100-110 feet away from the front yard so that leaves me approximately 210 feet of overgrown brush, weeds, trees and grass (4 feet high) to clear and cut!I started by clearing out a path from the sheds and cleared out land to the firepit. At the time I only had an electric weedwacker... It couldn't handle the job and I ended up burning out the motor, it was time to upgrade to my new gas powered weedwacker. The new weedwacker cut through the majority of long grass and weeds. I was able to collect all the cuttings and dump them into the 'forest' part of our yard, we have about 50 feet of 'forest' that I will leave alone to grow, attract and keep wilderness feeling. I ended up with a ton of stones and rock. The small stones will go onto our property marking natural stone walls and the larger rocks I will use to build a retaining wall so that I will have a more level back yard space to add a firepit, childrens play set, trampoline etc... It started getting cold outside because of the end of season so I stopped clearing the yard so that I could complete other jobs like laying a unilock patio/enterance and vinyl siding a shed so for now its time to play!

 

Bedroom Addition

We bought this two bedroom house because of its size and the layout, allowing us to easily renovate and add another bedroom. We are a four person family and we need three bedrooms.  The only two rooms were upstairs so we worked with the house layout and our renovation required the livingroom be split in half to add our third bedroom on the main floor. We went this route because there is also a closet under the stairs and therefore the room gets its own closet without the extra thought or work. First, I needed to expose the post and beem that was through the livingroom, a perfect starting point and easy to work off of. Once the drywall was removed and the post / beam was visible it was time to mark out and cut a slot in the laminate flooring for the new wall base plate. This was simple to mark out, all I did was hung a string on either side of the beam and dropped it to the ground, leaving enough room for the door.  I marked out where the string touched the floor and that was the width and location I wanted to cut the base plate slot. Then drew a chalk line, set my saw depth for 1/4" and cut away!

I measured out my wall's length and height (minus 1.5" to add thickness to the beem and width of the door) because the beam was just above 80".  Then layed out my studs and plates on the floor. I nailed the studs between my top and bottem plates together while it was laying down on the floor. I raised the wall into place and nailed it to the floor joist, post and the beam. I set the electrical box in place and left the outside wall exposed so the electrician could access it easily. For the short wall along the stairs, I decided to remove one of the old closet doors (there were two) but I did the same thing building with the wall except built its height to the ceiling joists because there was no beem across that side.  I needed to come back afterwards and run some 2x4's between the studs along the stairs to edge for additional drywall support and kick strength because I noticed the kids moving the wall slightly along the stairs. I slipped the door into the door slot and screwed the hinge side directly to the post using a level then closed the door and slipped shimms between the other side door trim and stud creating an even gap from the top to bottem. I also added shimms across the top of the door. Finally, to add door trim, baseboard, drywall putty, prime and paint! I am saving that job until I add drywall to the remaining walls and ceiling so I can do the finishing touches to this renovations at once.

Fresh Paint

One of the temporary but necessary jobs that we wanted to do before living in the new space we purchased was to paint the upstairs bedrooms and hallway ceiling and walls. It's only temporary because all the walls require insulation and we will be removing the old wallboard and replacing it with drywall. We wanted the rooms painted in a color that we could live with and also something suitable to our childrens tastes. The bedrooms walls were initially dark colors and poorly painted, we new that we had to lighten them up to make the small size bedrooms appear larger and brighter. We actually painted the walls after I had removed all the old flooring but before I installed my laminate flooring so I wouldn't make a mess on my new flooring job. Because my daughter is a 5 year old there was no other choice for her bedroom walls, she wanted the world famous Pink! My 3 year old son loves the outdoors and enjoys playing in the trees and grass so I knew right away that he would love a natural looking green, we went with a shade of green that we made from a darker shade for sale as an off color. I added some Base white to lighten and achieve the effect we were looking for.  Both the bedrooms turned out great and the kids love them!

Things to consider before painting any room are to make sure your walls are flat. Tape off everything you don't want painted, remove socket and switch covers, cover floors/furniture and other than that sometimes no additional prep work is required at all to paint a wall, if there are pin holes - they will most likely be fine, just paint over them. If you have screw holes, marks, scratches or dents you want to slightly scuff them up with sandpaper, then smooth out and use some thin drywall putty over the holes, dents and marks. If you have bumps or bubbles on the wall you can sometimes push them back in with the butt end of a screwdriver, sand them down smooth and add drywall putty when necessary. If you see where the drywall pieces meet (from a past poor putty job) then use a wide drywall trowel and smooth it out on both sides. Sand the dry putty with a fine sandpaper gently. Things that look like they might show on a surface all can often be manipulated enough until they feel smooth and flat, most likely you won't see it on the wall after that point. Always brush off the excess drywall dust before you start to prime and paint, sometimes the dust fills the holes and when you paint it rolls right out leaving a mark or small inperfection on your surface.  Priming a wall prior to painting will help fill any small little marks that are hard to see with the naked eye. If your doing lots of drywall putty sanding make sure to have a well ventilated room, sometimes a shop vac will help during sanding.

Laminate Flooring

One of the first jobs necessary before we moved into this house was to remove all the old stinky, stained carpet and replace it with laminate flooring.  Lucky for us only the upstairs had carpets but somebody actually placed laminate flooring over top (to cover) the old hallway carpet! We wanted to remove all the stinky old house smells so the old carpet and laminate had to go. It really didn't take too long to remove the laminate and carpet that was there, the longest part of the whole removal was pulling out the tack strip.

The handrail was removed before I could pull the last strip of laminate and completely expose all of the carpet in the hallway. After removing all of the carpet and tack strip, there was a low spot in the center of the hallway so I needed to remove all of the quarter inch plywood including an old carpet runner and expose the sub-flooring. Would you believe that I needed to remove 3 layers before exposing the sub-floor! There were so many nails! 

At last it was time to start from scratch, I opted to reinstall new quarter ply to bring the hallway up to the same level as the bedroom flooring. This way I could run my entire floating laminate floor through the doorways and have the hallway and bedrooms completed without a single seam.  Make sure to have your underlayment larger than the floor (so it runs up the wall approx. 2" to prevent moisture.

You can remove the extra underlay after the laminte is installed. The job worked out great as I choose to do the hallway in a dark color and the bedrooms in a light color by simply installing the bedroom laminate directy on to the hallway laminate.  This is an easy process to complete, but just make sure to cut the bottom of the door frames so that you can slide the laminate under them and creating a seamless look. Other then that, read the instructions, you must install the floor a quarter inch from each wall (acheived by spacers or a small cut piece of laminate). To snap the pieces together you can use a laminate installation tool or easily use a scrap piece of laminate and gently tap it so that you don't tear up the edges of your new floor.

Always remember to be safe not sorry! When working with power tools or any tool, proceed with caution! It is possible to get severely injured even the smallest of jobs! So just be careful.

Introduction

This is a jouney how I (an average 28 year old guy) and my wife maintain, fix, repair and renovate our 100 year old family home. We purchased this house in August 2008 for a low price as there is tons of updating work and repairs that are required to make it a safe, efficient and comfortable, modern house. We plan to do all the renovating ourselves while following the city building codes and without outsourcing contractors unless they are absolutely necessary to keep the job safe and legal.

We will be renovating this house from the foundation, up. Everything, including actual foundation repairs, insulating the floors and walls, renovating the kitchen and bathroom, new flooring, drywall and doors in every room, updating windows and siding, repair the roof, fixing facia and unvented soffit, resurfacing the driveway, adding unilock patios and retaining walls, clearing out the overgrown yard, grass seeding, fix and repair sheds, new fireplace and patio.

Any plumbing and electrical repairs should be contracted to a qualified professional. Make sure to do your research before hiring a contractor to do any job. Ask if they have a plumbing or electrical certificate plus their experience and any referrals. You often get what you pay for so I recommend that you get several quotes, compare and hire somebody with experience who gives an average quote. ALWAYS make a paper contract before you give them any money, otherwise you may end up paying much more than quoted and worse be left with an incomplete or unsatisfactory job.