The Living Room

Carl fell in love with the big combination living room/formal dining because when he stands outside in the backyard, he can see through the house and onto the bay. We just use it as a living room even though there is a big dining room overhead light.  As we remodel, in each room we want to keep parts of the original decor or cabinets (parts we like) and change or update as we would like.  We have not planned to update the living room just yet but some things had to be changed already. For instance, for energy conservation, new windows were put in. Windows for the whole house was a big dollar item, but well worth it.  We have a less obstructed view and energy savings were significant.

Below are random shots of the living room before any changes.

In order to work on the Love Shack, we had to get the wood burning stove out of the Love Shack and into the living room.  So, Carl had to tile part of the floor and wall. We will be focusing on the Love Shack for awhile, so living room progress will be minimal for the next 6 months. We are going to try to get the stove hooked up in time to use on some of the colder coastal nights.  The humidity on the coast intensifies the cold.

The Love Shack

One of goals for the garage is to add a bathroom to the extra room in the garage.  Carl calls this room "The Love Shack." The previous owner had used this space as a little workshop, a place to clean vegetables, and a place to store his fishing items. Since the main house only has two bedrooms, it is hard to comfortably sleep more than 2 guests.  We did have beds in the Love Shack, but if a person had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, he had to go outside and walk to our back door, unlock the door and then use utility room  restroom.  Not many enjoyed this process.  Since our friends live over 3 hours away and daughters and our siblings and their families live out of state, we need an additional place for people to stay comfortably and securely.

Since we have limited financial resources, of course, we want to add this as economically as we can.  So, over the years, we have been saving items like toilets, sinks, tile, faucets, etc.  from Carl's jobs, friends' remodeling ventures, and from when we just run across needed items.  The Love Shack's cabinets and floors are littered with these items along with other stuff.

Step 1:
After a few years of discussions, I drew up a very crude plan and elevation sketch.  Carl took measurements, staked it out and then developed a more refined plan. We also want an exterior shower for our quick rinse offs after being in the bay or at the beach and we want water and sewage hook-ups for friends and family that want to park their RVs in the back yard.

Step 2:
Submit plans to engineering firm to get wind-storm code specifications.  (Engineer happens to live next door!) Carl then submitted these to the city along with an application for a building permit and a site plan.

 Step 3:
I just couldn't wait so while Carl was away at a funeral and then to visit his mom, I got out my favorite red shovel and started to dig the beam. As I started digging, I called Carl and the engineer told him to have the beams 24 inches deep instead of 12 " like the beams for the Garden Shed.  I was not happy, but thankfully there weren't as many roots as in the last place dug.

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 I was so proud that I had it done  before Carl returned from his trip.  Then we got the plans  from the engineer and we need another beam in the middle!  So, I am still not done digging!
(Sort of looks like a burial mound.)

Step 4:
CLEAN OUT THE LOVE SHACK!
Refinishing utility room doors is done so I moved out my painting stuff . More stuff was moved to the Garden Shed.  One big item was a wood-burning stove that is to go into the living room.  So before we could remove that Carl had to put down tile in a part of the living room for the stove.  That progress will be in another posting.

Step 5:
Before digging any more or forming up the slab, Carl had to meet with the plumber and get that priced out and scheduled.  

Here are pictures of the east end of the garage where the bathroom will be attached.

 

Future Steps will be added as we go.   

Garden and Garden Shed

As we remodel we are trying to resurrect a vegetable garden.  In 2005  I dug up some soil where I thought it would be good for a garden and attempted to garden. I did get cucumbers, lettuce, green beans, peppers and onions, but never in abundant amounts because we were not here enough to keep up with weeding, watering and pest control.  Later,  it was told to us that the first owner was known by his family, friends and  neighbors for having a wonderful vegetable garden. In fact, two weeks ago a great nephew of the 1st owner stopped by as he saw from the back of the property that we had planted a vegetable garden right where his great uncle had. That made me feel happy that I was passing on a tradition of this property.  Now on with the Garden Shed!

Like I had said in the "Garage" portion of this blog, one of the goals was to build a garden shed so we could clean out the garage.  This was to be our first major project for the Summer of 2014.  I had no idea that building one could be so involved or that so many decisions had to be made.  Here are some of our considerations:

1- Decide on the size needed and where to put it.  We measured our riding mower and took an eye-ball inventory of all the stuff that we wanted in the shed to get a feel for it. We then paced off our placement options (behind the garage, out of sight from the back living room window, close proximity to vegetable garden, lined up with backyard driveway).

2- Decide on buying a pre-built shed or framing it ourselves.  Since my husband is a former contractor he knew how much work/time/money would go into building it ourselves so we decided to look at the metal sheds available in the nearby towns.

3- Shop around for sheds. We looked at most places that sold sheds and decided to get a metal shed. Wooden sheds have to be repainted a lot in our harsh climate ( I don't like scraping and painting.), plus there is a lot of termite issues.

4- Flooring?  All the sheds come with wood floors but we know  "wood touching soil = termite damage!" So we definitely wanted a concrete pad and if a hurricane tore up the metal shed we could stick frame another garden shed onto the concrete pad.

 Carl had to  visit the city to get foundation requirements, draw up the plans and submit to the city in order to get the $35 building permit.

  Marty dug beams.

Decision making over, shed ordered and partially paid for, now the work begins.



          Carl formed it up! 

                                 Marty filled it in, raked and tamped the soil.


We even got our neighbors Rose and Bruce to help us tie the steel and pour the concrete! When pouring the concrete, the driver didn't see our hand signals and poured too much cement.  What a mess!  We had to wheelbarrow lots of extra cement to make curbs for our back culverts and dumped extra in back driveway and watered it down.  We also learned to ask for smaller aggregates the next time we pour cement

As you can see, we added a ramp.  Carl put "Snake-Away" under the shed, tied it down with hurricane straps, and added flashing and  "Hardi-Siding" as a skirt between shed and concrete to keep out the critters.

 Carl added a little shelf for me to put gardening hand tools and soil amendments.  My neighbor, Rose, showed me a design for holding multiple tools nested together.  I made two of these of left over 2x4's and plywood for the leaf rakes and shovels. It is amazing how much this 10 x 12 shed holds!

Hooray, the garden shed is done!

Garage

I always had wanted a detached garage and believe it or not this house had one.  We bought this place as the bay is a great place to kayak, sail and windsurf.  So immediately windsurfers and kayaks took over the middle part of the garage.  Yard equipment, barbeque grills and bicycles took over the left bay. A workbench, table-saw, lumber, boat parts and repair items took over the right bay.  There is also bonus room with sink that is attached to the garage. In 2005, we converted this into a guest room (no bathroom however) as there are only 2 bedrooms in the house.

Left Bay with garden items.  See sails and boards in middle!

Right garage bay with work bench and wood and kayak and other stuff.

This is the room attached to garage.  Right now it is a storage room and a place where I paint the utility room doors.









Goals for Garage:

• Get garden/yard tools and equipment out so we can get a car into it.
• Build a garden shed so there is a place to put the tools and equipment.
• Get the shop/woodworking area organized
• Add bathroom onto guest room (Carl calls it "The Love Shack")
•  Replace the garage doors.
• Repair door jamb around garage doors
• Repair or replace rotted exterior facia.
• Caulk and paint exterior siding of garage

Accomplishments: 

• A garden shed.  The saga about that is on a future posting

• Garden/yard items moved out and the car moved in
• Garage doors were replaced

In July the springs to the overhead doors broke and Carl had to nail a board to the door before we left on a 2 week trip.  He  also used Bondo to patch the lower door panels about 6 years ago. It wasn't pretty but it put off the door replacement for a few years.





 

Utility Room

We have an awesome utility room! One whole wall is 18 inch deep cabinetry.  There is a sink, washer and dryer, mini-freezer,  window and even a half bath. It is the entry from the back of the house into the kitchen, so it serves as a rear entry and mudroom as well.

Now the however!  HOWEVER, it was not plumbed for a gas dryer (Above photo shows wall cut into to put in gas lines.) and the paint on the cabinets was peeling off in huge pieces.  Someone had repainted them, ALL 23 DOORS, with latex over the existing oil-based enamel. Before retirement, I would try to take 2 doors at a time home to Austin with intentions of repainting them there and bringing them back.  Well it took over 2 years to scrape with a razor blade, sand, prime and paint just 4 doors. In the last 2 months I was able to complete 9 more, so now I have a rhythm going. Two doors a week is my goal.

 The hinges and knobs were all black and had paint dripped onto them.  It looked rather boring.  So I am keeping all the doors white but am painting all the hinges this crazy green and all the  pairs of knobs are different but all have to have green on them (my favorite color).  It has been fun being on the look-out for green knobs. Even our friends, Roger and Sheila, got us some knobs on their travels throughout the world.

 

Retirement-Spring 2014

Well, we did it.  We retired, sold the home we raised our 2 girls in and moved into our 2nd house that was 3 hours away and on the coast.  We are living our dream.  In our 36 years of marriage  when we had extra money we didn't have time and when we had extra time we didn't have extra money. Well we now have extra time, but our funds for remodeling are definitely limited.   Did I tell you that our 1st home was completely updated and our 2nd home is not!  Also, the 2nd home was built in 1970 so it is older than our first home and has never been updated, except for some poor paint jobs.

So the purpose of this blog is to share with you our remodeling progress and the ways we are trying to keep costs down.  This means doing as much as possible by ourselves, finding affordable subcontractors, appliances, and other materials when needed.

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This view from the driveway and being able to get to the bay,  are what entiiced us to buy this house back in 2005.