The Underlayment Has Left the Haus.

Well. Almost. The last two nights, we've been working on pulling the last of the underlayment from the house. This underlayment was real plywood, nothing like the c-grade chipboard that was in the rest of the house. And it had been glued down. And somebody went to town on it with a nail gun. If somebody has a dungeon, these boards could come in real handy. With the help of our wonderbars and our little green circular saw (like our little reciprocating saw, also hungry to eat boards, but generally less eager to take on nails), we (and by we, I mean Chad) have removed most of the underlayment in the kitchen. (Some of it is under the drywall, and we decided to sleep on how we are planning on attacking that.)

We learned some valuable lessons, like, human hair is not flame retardant. When circular saw blades hit nail-laden ply, sparks fly. And when sparks fly, they catch sawdust on fire. And when flaming saw dust is in the air. . . well, watch out hair.

We'd been dreading pulling this plywood out. We knew there was lots of water damage in the kitchen, so we were always a little worried that we would pull up floor and see earth. The holes to the earth aren't enormous, but they're there. A lot of the boards are pretty thoroughly rotted... and, well, let's just say that the kitchen termites were not to be outdone by the termites in the other rooms.

Neighborhood Character

New commuter rail station construction.


The neighborhood hair salon?

Foundation!

Rooster Haus isn't level and had cedar piers. And, since leveling the foundation can cause cracks in sheetrock, buckling floors, and pipe breaks, it seemed like a good idea to have it fixed before we actually spent a lot of money on new sheetrock, new floors and a visit from the plumber. Waiting for the foundation has been incredibly frustrating. Usually you can count on June to be pretty dry. Not this year. The rain pours down at just about every inopportune foundation-fixing time possible. Need to dig the cedar piers out? RAIN! Need to pour concrete footings? RAIN! Here's what they've pulled out so far. Chad regularly bails out the clay holes. (Some of them are clay, others dirt.)



And here's one of the holes. One day, there will be a sweet, sweet concrete pier there. For now there's only a mysterious leak. We turned off the water at the main, but still the water comes. A contractor friend says that old mains sometimes don't completely shut off. We may have one of those on our hands.



And this is why it's a good idea to get rid of the cedar piers. The termites had a hard time eating the half-century-old cedar pier, but as discussed before: we have particularly hungry and industrious termites at Rooster Haus.

Rest In Peace Office Closet.

Earlier this week, Chad and I busted through the sheetrock in the office closet. It's suprisingly tough to remove. I really wanted to take it out with my steel-toed boot, but a utility knife and a hammer are much bigger helps.




Now - doesn't the room look so much bigger? We can peak into the inner workings of the bathroom from the former side of the closet. (We took out the sheetrock on the side because the closet had a sort of false wall there. And, we're learning it's a good idea to take the nasty, roach-pod filled insulation out whenever you can get to it. Honestly. I'm amazed we've only seen three since we got the place.) So, back to the bathroom. There's a gi-normous hole for the plumbing to come up through. Not a rotted out floor hole. An evenly-cut square hole to the ground - apparently an open invitation to large mammals to live under the tub. We may be going in to work on patching that up.


More carnage. These are the remains of the closet.

Kitchen Update!

This weekend we finally took the plunge and took out a major section of kitchen wall. What you see are the cedar boards that make up the side of the house. Only those boards and some pretty ugly hardiplank separate us from the poison ivy on the fence... and the rooster.


We also removed the dry wall from the south kitchen wall. We're beginning to like the idea of taking the entire wall. But maybe we just like removing walls. It feels like progress.


And yes... the garbage is accumulating. Those bags are full of gypsum, dead roaches (THREE - thanks to Chad's big boot), hundreds of roach egg pods, and insulation.

Friends of Rooster Haus.

We haven't figured out what these little guys are, but they're all over. And they're fast. And they're sort of sweet.

Stuff Dudes Probably Want to See.

The carport. The shed.

Master Bedroom.

Also no plans for the master bedroom or bath. It's good enough for now.

Guest Bathroom.

We have no plans for the guest bathroom. Now. We're a little afraid that, if we started, it would be terrifying. So for now, we're calling it serviceable and leaving it be.

Utility Hall and Back Door.

Right now we only have washer connections. We’ve taken out these cabinets. We bought a stackable washer and dryer. We need to make a vent for the dryer and run a 220 line to this hallway. We have room on our circuit breaker for the new line.

The Guest Room.

The salad days... You see, Rooster Haus once had carpet and base boards. And all the roach droppings and spider eggs and dead crickets and termites were safely sealed up in its walls and floors. This is the northeast corner of the room. It also gets good light, and it's just big enough for a bed and chair.


This room has a closet-tumor, too. We were going to leave it. Afterall, we'll need some storage. But we had such a fun time removing the office closet, and it made the room feel so much bigger, that we may very well take this one, too. The reciprocating saw is hungry. She wants to destroy more closets. (Don't worry, we have storage plans... they just won't take up a quarter of this already-small room.)

The Office.

This is the southeast corner of Chad's office. This room gets a ton of light and has a view south that goes forever. It should be a nice spot with some new paint, a new floor, and the removal of the cancerous tumor of a closet...


Here's the closet. It took up a quarter of the room. That's right it TOOK up a quarter of the room. Past tense. Here's where I'll give a shout out to our little Hitachi reciprocating saw. It made fast work the closet.









The office floor. Here's where the active termites in the Rooster Haus dine. When we pulled the underlayment here, they scattered. But after five or ten minutes, they poked their little white heads out and started working on a termite tunnel. Once the foundation is done, the termite treatment begins...

The Living Room Termites are HUNGRY!

The floor in front of the push-out window is barely holding on: there’s lots of termite damage. You can see through boards. We are going to have to take these boards out and patch it with some plywood. There may be joist damage under them, too. The dry wall under the window is falling apart from water damage. It’s rained quite a bit since we bought the place. So far we haven’t noticed rain getting in… but did I mention Chad is still itching to remove the push-out window. Also, the other day, we felt like the ceiling of the window felt a little squishy. We're not sure if this is a new development, or a rain-induced development. If this wasn't a $4 to $5 K fix, I'd be excited about the squishiness... as it is... I'm hoping it's just the result of past leakage.

The Living Room

Here's the front door and the south wall of the living room. We'd like a new front door - especially since there's a hole in the glass (currently covered by a thick piece of tape...).


This is the west wall of the living room. The boards under the push-out are rotten and darn-near completely eaten by termites. They may need to be replaced. The joists under them may need to be replaced. We're worried it might take in water during heavy rains. It's going to have to go sometime soon. Plus it's ugly. That's another, less pressing, reason for it to go.


This is the door that we are widening. This is the north wall of the living room and the door into the kitchen. It will be sixty or so inches wide when we’re finished with it. We will need to finish the doorway. We’re still deciding if we’ll use trim to do that or just dry wall corners. In fact, we're still deciding whether we're going to stop at widening the doorway. We may just take the entire wall as noted in the kitchen entry.


Here's the east wall of the living room. That door goes into the office, where the hall to the bathroom and the guestroom is.

More Kitchen

This is the southwest corner of the kitchen. We’ll be replacing the subfloor in this corner. We’re putting apple-green vinyl tile - the kind you find in school cafeterias - everywhere in the kitchen. (But every now and then, we play around with the idea of laminate in this room to match the rest of the house. We've heard both that laminate and water don't mix and that it's OK, so long as you don't let water sit on it for long periods of time.) The sink and dishwasher will go on this wall with some new Ikea base cabinets - either white or beech veneer. We’ll be putting up metal restaurant-style shelves on this wall. We’re thinking of putting white subway tile as a backsplash. We’re looking into the cost for a custom lab-top countertop. If that falls through, we’re going for Ikea butcher block counter tops or a grey Numerar number, also from Ikea.


The north wall. The utility hall, back door and master bed are through this door. We may install wall cabs or shelves here.


The northwest corner. We’re putting a new window (similar in size) here.




Facing south. We’re widening the door between the kitchen and living room. We're even playing around with the idea of taking that wall out altogether and using cabinets to divide the living room and dining room space... still thinking that one through...


The east wall of the kitchen. We’ll be taking out the current hood (which vents to the attic) and putting a new, recirculating one in. We’ve picked out 12” and 18” base cabinets for either side of the stove, which can scoot over, well, just about 12"! The fridge will go next to a base cab. We’ll have wall cabs along this wall, too. The closet next to the stove holds the HVAC. We thought we’d paint it with chalkboard paint. We thought this wall needed new drywall, but our contractor assures us that it's nothing a little tape and drywall mud can't fix. We’ll also need to patch the hole in the ceiling after we pull the hood out.

The Kitchen

Picture 1: Chad busts up some cabs.











Picture 2: YUCK - This wall was the victim of a slow drip. A new valve should put an end to the water here, but only after it took the floor, floor joists, and some of the side of the house. The foam covers a hole to the ground. The plywood subfloor there is going to need to be replaced. The drywall needs some replacing, and we’ve been looking into new windows for the kitchen.


Picture 3: A "before" cabinet picture. They're all in the carport now. This is the east wall of the kitchen before cabinet removal. That soffet is full of crickets! Mmmmm… crickets….

The Rooster Haus

Here's the new place - in all its burglar bar glory.

The across-the-street-neighbor's rooster enjoys roosting in the tree next to the house. When he's a-roostin', there's nothing he likes more than to be a-crowin'. And when he's a-crowin' in the tree next to the house, it sounds like he's in the kitchen. The first neighbors we met were the next-door neighbor kids. They asked, "You movin' in next door?" Yes... "Hope you like roosters." Insert maniacal laughter here.

In fact, Chad had a run-in with a rooster in his youth. Tried to peck an eye out... and may have suceeded if his granddad hadn't stepped in. So, no. Not big fans of roosters. But this guy has been keeping us company through the ups and downs of our demo, and we've started to have some affection for him.