As of this week, I’ve lived in my home for 8 years. As I’ve done semi-annually since moving in, I will hereby provide an update on improvements made to my home in the past six months.

By the way, if you’re interested, here’s the blog post detailing what improvements happened during the six months prior to these most recent six months.

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

• As you can see from the previous home improvement post, there’s a new sink in this bathroom. This required taking out a counter top that extended past the sink and over the Jacuzzi. The new counter was not as big, so I had to cut and install tiles where the old one extended.

UPPER STAIRWELL

• The small bit of sheetrock that wrapped around the stairwell is finally repaired and has dutifully been painted to match the rest of the living room. (See image, below.)
• I also painted the radiator cover the matching color. The wall behind this radiator will also (soon, I hope) be painted to match. But it needs a bit of repair work first.

LIVING ROOM

• Scrubbed the fireplace bricks. They were dirty and dusty. And though some of them had been cleaned years ago, the rest languished. I scrubbed them with a wire brush in preparation for…
• Installed trim around the fireplace. Where the chimney meets the ceiling, there had been a small gap, but now there’s some sleek, painted trim to go around all four sides.

BASEMENT COMMONS AREA

• Moved the radiator. See below for an image, but there was a lone radiator in the basement until this March. It actually intersected a wall. An expert came over and moved that radiator so that it is now completely in the commons area.
• Installed sheetrock where the radiator used to be. Obviously, since the radiator used to intersect a wall, moving the radiator left a hole in the wall. I created a 2×4 frame for the spot and installed a piece of sheetrock over it. This was actually trickier than it sounds, since I had a narrow area to wok in between the radiator and the wall. I even had to borrow a very long drill bit from a neighbor in order to get the sheetrock screws in.

SPARE ROOM

• Installed a second light fixture. This is going to be Owen’s room (one day…), so I figured he’d like more light.
• Installed a second outlet on the south wall, and moved and replaced the existing outlet. Yeah, I figured Owen would also want more outlets.

• Painted the access door. This unappealing door affords access to the area under the porch. I replaced the hardware, cleaned and sanded the door, and I asked Owen what color he wanted it. He picked this:

• Refinished small window. The smaller window in what will be Owen’s room needed some love. I refinished it and installed new hardware and a new coat of paint. Three of the glass panes were cracked, so I removed them and installed three new, shatter-resistant panes.

• Installed a new radiator. As I said above, an expert came over with his apprentice and they moved the existing radiator into the commons area. They then rerouted some of the piping and installed a radiator fully in this spare room. I then stripped the existing paint, and repainted it to Owen’s color specification.

• Created an angled transom on the south wall where it meets the ceiling. There are a lot of wires running along this area, as well as the tubing for the bathroom’s exhaust fan. I initially considered building a squared-off box, but this is cooler looking (I think) and was way easier.

• Insulated the ceiling and the south wall. Okay, I know insulation isn’t necessary on interior walls and ceilings, but the idea here is to both contain the heat in the winter (so it stays warmer for Owen) and cut down on the sound of his siblings running on the floor above. I also hope that if anyone is in the adjacent bathroom, the sound will be cut down from there, too.
• Mortared the west wall, and a good portion of the north wall. This is the most labor-intensive item on this list, having required jackhammering large chunks of the old, wrong mortar (thanks, previous owner!) and hand-chiseling out the rest. It also meant chipping off the ugly paint splattered on most of the stones. Jennifer took the lead in mortaring the stones correctly. It’s slow going, but she’s gotten a lot of it done, and it looks great:

• Replaced east window with a glass block window. The ugly window that was here before – which looked out half above and half below the deck, is now a glass block window. There’s more privacy now, and the center glass block opens to let in fresh air.
  

  Here’s what the window looked like before. I busted out the two other glass panes and covered them with this piece of plywood back in March. Why? Because I locked myself out of the house, and had to break the window to get in. And, actually, I couldn’t fit through the hole, so I sent in my daughter. It was too dangerous for me, anyway.

YARD / HOME EXTERIOR

• Replaced doorbell escutcheon. The prior one, which I also installed, was just a quick job to satisfy the need of having something to affix the doorbell to. This time, I took my time with a nice piece of wainscoting, which I covered with weather-proof paint.

• Installed rocks below the fence panel that divides the workshop from the driveway. Nearly all the other fence panels are suspended over the retaining wall, but the one that abuts the garage is just above the ground – but it’s not paved (like the driveway), and it’s not a spot where grass can grow. So I asked Isla to pull out all the weeds, dig down a couple inches, lay down some plastic, and dump in a bunch of rocks. I think she did a great job!

• Installed a rain gauge.

• Planted a pretty flower. Isla bought me this plant for my birthday. I think it really beautifies the area:

• Painted the bottoms of two windows. They were peeling. So I sanded off the old paint and gave them a fresh coat:

GARAGE

• Replaced a broken handle on a cabinet door. Here’s the before and after:

 

• Added a weight to the pullchain light. There’s one light in the garage that’s on a pull chain, and I often pulled on the chain, only to have it snap up and twist around itself. By adding a decorative weight to it, I’ve solved that problem.

As of this week, I’ve lived in my home for 7½ years. As I’ve done semi-annually since moving in, I will hereby provide an update on improvements made to my home in the past six months.

By the way, if you’re interested, here’s the blog post detailing what Jennifer and I did during the six months prior to these most recent six months.

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Replaced sink and vanity

 

Here’s the vanity as it’s looked for the past 7 years.

 

 

 

 

Here it is with sink and back splash removed.

 

 

 

Here, you can see we’ve cleaned up and painted the wall.

 

 

 

And here’s the finished vanity. New tap, too.

 

 

 

 

 

-Removed shelf and tiles above tub. Notice the area to the right of the vanity; we tore out the adjacent shelf that was there, which also meant busting out the tiles. I purchased new tiles for this spot, but have not installed them yet. You’ll see that in the next home improvement update (I hope).

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Replaced bathroom fan

See below for more details on this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Replaced cartridge in shower knob.

I’m pretty proud of myself for this one. As long as I’ve lived here, the shower has leaked – unless I turn the knob all the way toward the cold water, which I was careful to do after each shower. But several months ago, it began leaking all the time. So, I took apart the spigot and knob, and purchased a new cartridge for it. I managed to get it completely backwards the first time – turning the knob toward HOT yielded cold water – but then I quickly fixed it.

BASEMENT

-Removed rest of sheetrock, a small wall near the circuit breaker box, and wood panels from the ceiling.

-Rerouted exhaust vents.

Okay, this is gonna take some explaining.

There are two exhaust vents in the basement, one is from the bathroom fan, and the other is from the dryer. Both had ductwork that led them along the ceiling, over the laundry area, and then out a window, as you can see here:

As you can see here, it was really ugly. The two vents went right out through a window; a thin piece of tin around the ductwork sort of kept out the weather. But it wasn’t sealed right – I had to use duct tape to hold it to the window frame (that’s the blue strip you see), and it blocked out the light. And did I mention it was ugly? Removing the vents is easy enough, but the issue is: where will they exhaust instead? This leads me to…

-Removed iron pipes embedded in walls

In between the ceiling beams in the basement, there was a 2-foot long iron pipe embedded in the wall, just above the washing machine. There was also a 5-foot long pipe in the spare room of the basement, also embedded in the wall. Here’s what one of them looked like:

 

Really ugly, right? Well, I removed both of them. This required smashing them with a mallet from both sides, until they came loose.

 

 

Here’s the long one:

Look at it! It’s nearly as tall as me! I took it to a metal recycler and got $4 for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the shorter one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s what the hole in my house looked like after removing that shorter one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, then I rerouted the bathroom fan. This actually necessitated a new fan – which I’m grateful for, as the last one did little more than make noise. My new one is much better quality.

Here’s the vent leading between the beams to the hole I created in the side of my house:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s what it looks like outside:

Here, you can see I’ve prepared the area by installing a classy white frame around the hole; fully caulked.

 

 

 

And here’s the completed project.

 

 

 

 

 

So then the basement window looked like this for about a month:

Here, you can see I no longer needed the lower duct, since I had rerouted it to the other side of the basement, but I was still using the upper duct, which served the dryer.

Eventually, I rerouted that one, too.

 

 

Here’s the view from outside that window:

In the top left of this image, you can see where the dryer now vents. That window is no longer blocked with tape and tin anymore, either, as I took one day during Xmas break to replace it with an actual window pane. Sorry, I don’t have a photo!

 

 

-Replaced broken window pane

You can’t tell from looking at the photo above, but the inner pane on the right side of the window was cracked. I removed it and put in a new one.

-Installed cover over electrical box.

On the ceiling, near the laundry room light, there was an exposed electrical light. I had duct-taped over it years ago, but the tape eventually peeled off. Below, you can see the exposed box, and how it appears now – safe and covered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Removed particle board shelving.

SPARE ROOM:

-Installed egress window.

Probably the most significant alteration to my house in these last 6 months was the installation of an egress window, which included loads of help from Owen (who helped me dig the trench), and my friend Jason, who knew what to do. Here are some photos from the project:

Here’s a view from outside the window – I had just begun work to dig a 4-ft trench for the window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s what it looked like indoors prior to beginning.

There’s a piece of plywood outside to minimize the cold coming in (it was a cooler November day when I did this). The tape on the wall indicates where I’ll need to jackhammer to create a large enough space for the new window.

 

 

 

Here we are about an hour into the project. The old window is gone, and I have jackhammered a hole underneath.

 

 

 

 

 

This is my buddy Jason doing some fine-tuning on cutting the hole to the proper size. Look at all that rubble!

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a better image of the rubble. Not sure why there’s a level on it. We probably just didn’t have anywhere else to set it.

 

 

 

 

 

Holy basement, Batman!

In the bottom left, you can see the frame we constructed for the new window.

 

 

 

Jason is seen here completing the frame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now the frame is up! Owen is standing outside the hole to demonstrate its size.

 

 

 

 

And here’s the window completely installed. Obviously, some work still needs to happen to finish the wall around the frame, and to properly landscape the outside, but this is how it sits right now. I’ll do more once it’s warmer.

-Removed sheetrock from walls

-Removed mortar from walls

Surprise! The previous owner used the wrong mortar to seal up the basement walls, so we are in the process of chiseling and jackhammering off the old mortar, which will be replaced with proper, breathable, lime mortar. It’s still a work-in-progress, but here are some images of the job so far:

At left, Jennifer is bleaching off black mold, which we were positively delighted to discover underneath the sheetrock. At right, you can see the wall about 80% completed – that white stuff in the upper left has to go.

OUTSIDE:

-Landscaped area around dinosaur.

Yeah, you read that right: I have a sauropod in my yard. And it’s awesome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Stained fence.

-Cut fence posts to match height of cross beam.

Here, you can see a half stained fence, and you can see that the posts extend higher than the cross beam.

 

 

 

Here, you can see Jennifer using a sawzall to cut one of the posts to make it flush with the crossbeams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s the fence completely stained, and with the posts cut flush with crossbeams.

 

 

 

GARAGE

-Installed tar paper on lower west side of outside wall.

There was just ugly sheet metal on it before. I removed all of that and installed tar paper, which is the first step in getting new siding on that portion of the garage. Which I intend to do this summer.

As of this week, we’ve lived in our home for 7 years. As I’ve done semi-annually since we moved in, I will hereby provide an update on improvements we made to our home in the past six months.

By the way, if you’re interested, here’s the blog post detailing what we did during the six months prior to these most recent six months.

ADULTS’ BEDROOM
-Replaced two beige outlets with white ones.
One wasn’t even working anymore, so it was time to get a new one.

LIVING ROOM
-New Rug
The previous rug came with the house, so now we have a new, clean rug. It is also a better color (gray, instead of cream).

LOWER STAIRWELL
-Replaced broken window pane
Jennifer threw something downstairs about 5 years ago, and it broke this pane:

As you can see, she expertly repaired it with duct tape, but it was a real eyesore.

After replacing the pane on the mud room window (see the previous home improvement post for that story), I realized that it was easier than I thought to replace a pane. I also realized that replacing this pane would cost me nothing except the cost of the pane, since I had leftovers of all the supplies needed from the mud room project.

 

 

 

 

 

SPARE ROOM
-Removed some sheetrock
We’re turning this waste of space into a bedroom for Owen…eventually. In the meantime, work has begun slowly by taking out some of our stuff and moving it to the garage or attic (as applicable). I removed a few pieces of the moldy sheetrock, too.

YARD/HOME EXTERIOR
-Fixed back deck stairs so they are more even.
When I first built these stairs, I miscalculated and the top step ended up being only 2 inches high. Jennifer was very annoyed by this. So, while she was away one weekend, I removed the stairs and adjusted the heights so that now each step is more evenly spaced.

-Installed a hose holder next to the rain barrel.
For the past several years, I’ve had a hose just lying on the ground next to the barrel. Now I’ve made things a bit more classy by installing a holder to the house.

-Installed window holders to dining room windows
Early in the summer, I noticed one of the three square window frames of our dining room was leaning far forward, about to fall out. A similar window did fall out of our mud room last year, and I wanted to avoid a repeat of this. So I once again ventured to the architectural salvage shop and purchased 12 cast iron holders. I then removed each frame, thoroughly cleaned in between the inner and outer panes, and then reinserted the frames. I then screwed on the holders. Here are a before and after image:

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Stained fence
Well, there are 22 fence panels, and we’ve stained 6 of them. It’s about an hour per panel with two people working, so it’s slow going. We also are often hampered by the weather. We can’t stain if it’s rained recently, or if it’s gonna rain. Hopefully we’ll get the other panels stained before winter sets in.

-Landscaped an area for our dinosaur
Um, yeah, so I now have an 8-ft fiberglass sauropod. We’ve stationed him approximately centered just in front of our workshop. Using retaining wall bricks, I’ve landscaped an arch our from the workshop to enclose the dino. She’s in there, now, but we need some rocks to fill in the area. It’s a quirky addition to our yard, that’s for sure.

As of this week, we’ve lived in our home for 6.5 years. As I’ve done semi-annually since we moved in, I will hereby provide an update on improvements we made to our home in the past six months.

By the way, if you’re interested, here’s the blog post detailing what we did during the six months prior to these most recent six months.

UPPER STAIRWELL
-Replaced smoke alarm

LIVING ROOM
-Replaced broken outlet cover on the north wall

LOWER STAIRWELL
-Hung a curtain at the top of the stairs

We used to have a cheap plastic accordion door there. Then, for a while, we had nothing. This curtain is definitely nicer than the accordion door.

 

 

 

 

 

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM
-Replaced the sink and cabinet

Here’s the old sink:

Here’s the new sink:

-Installed tiles under the cabinet

The old cabinet covered the floor, so there was no need to have tiles there. This one is on legs, so the floor is exposed. Jennifer and I grouted some tiles into place to cover the cement floor.

 

 

YARD/HOME EXTERIOR
-Replaced glass and stripped and repainted outside of mud room window.
As you can see, I really had no choice but to replace the glass in that window frame…

The window just fell out of the house, and landed on the corner of the central air unit, which instantly shattered the pane. I had to open up the central air to collect the shards. The frame had originally been caulked in place, but all the caulk was dried out. There were also holes where little butterfly clips had, once upon a time, held the window in place. For some reason, the previous owner had removed them. I visited an architectural salvage shop to find new cast iron clips. Stripping the paint off the frame was a tough ordeal, but eventually I did it.

Here’s the window with the new pane installed, when I was midway through stripping off the old paint:

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what the window looks like now:

-Installed fence
This was the big project of the fall. We received a little bit of help from a couple family members one morning, otherwise it was just Jennifer and I working on the fence for hours and hours. I’m happy to say it’s installed, though it will need to be stained next summer.

GARAGE
-Installed 5 wood sheets into the attic for storage

As of this week, we’ve lived in our home for 6 years. As I’ve done semi-annually since we moved in, I will hereby provide an update on improvements we made to our home in the past six months.

By the way, if you’re interested, here’s the blog post detailing what we did during the six months prior to these most recent six months.

ATTIC
-Replaced the thread-bare too-short piece of yarn hanging from the light with a proper pull chain.

ADULTS’ BEDROOM
-Replaced beige outlet with white one.
We have some beige outlets in the house, which were installed by the previous homeowner. Beige is a terrible color for outlets since it just makes them look dusty. I replaced most of them with white outlets, but every once in a while, I find one I had neglected to replace. This outlet was hidden behind some furniture, so I don’t see it too often.

-Removed intercom and patched up wall.
Yeah, that stupid intercom messed up about fifteen places around our house. Though I removed the intercom from Owen’s room, the kitchen, and the front door, I never got around to removing the one in our room. Here’s the progress I made:

Here’s the ugly, useless intercom.

Here, I’ve removed the screws holding it in place.

Here, I’ve removed the wiring and thus the entire intercom is now gone.

Here, I’ve patched up the hole. Yes, it’s very ugly. Stay tuned for my continued progress in assimilating this eyesore of the wall to the rest of the wall.

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM
-Installed exhaust fan.

Yay for us! Can you believe we lived over five-and-a-half years in our house without having a fan in our bathroom?
Here’s the accompanying switch that my brother-in-law skillfully helped me install:

UPPER STAIRWELL
-Replaced beige outlet with white one.

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM
-Removed handrail from shower.
Well, one of the handrails, at least. There are two horizontal bars that I like having in the shower, as they are great places to keep shampoo bottles and face cloths. But there was one vertical bar that just got in the way:

It’s gone now.

SPARE ROOM
-Removed wood planks from ceiling.
Not sure why, but there were about a dozen ugly planks of wood nailed to the rafters in our spare room near the fuse box. Each one was about three inches wide and three feet long. I removed them in preparation for having a proper ceiling one day. They gave me lots of splinters. And they were very dusty, so I had to wear safety glasses while removing them.

YARD/HOME EXTERIOR
-Removed security system motion detector from above the back door light fixture.
It was useless. And ugly.

-Trimmed back hose spigot and installed sleeker piping.

The pipe connecting our hose spigot to the house used to be 10 inches long. This was probably to accommodate the side-opening that allowed for the plumbing for the sprinkler system. I removed the sprinkler system years ago, but the valve for the sprinkler system just sat there, turned off, doing nothing. So I cut the pipe so that it now only sticks out from the house by four inches. In doing so, I also removed the side opening. So now it’s both shorter and sleeker.

 

-Installed hose winder.
Oh yeah, the main reason for doing the work on the hose spigot was so that I could fit this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Chimney shortened, tuck-pointed, and top grate reinstalled.
I didn’t do this; I paid someone else to. Actually, to this day, I’ve still never been on the roof of our house. The contractor I hired removed four rows of bricks, which weren’t even cemented in anymore, and thus brought the height of the chimney closer to code.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-Caulked small hole near back door.
Not sure why, but there has always been this small hole just below the doorbell. I caulked it closed.

-Stained lattice work on north side of deck.

GARAGE
-Added bracket to hold up electrical wire piping.
-Replaced broken siding on east side of garage with new pieces.
Actually, they weren’t “new” pieces; they were pieces that had never been used, just sitting up in the rafters.
-Installed sheets of chipboard into rafters for storage.
-Removed keyhole from center of garage.
This keyhole, which presumably used to open one of the garage doors, served no purpose. I removed it. I’ll patch up the hole later.

-Installed keypad for garage door entry.
-Replaced broken siding on south side of garage.
One small piece was broken. I used one of the broken pieces I had removed from the east side (above), and cut it down to size, being careful to only use the in-tact portion.
Here is the keypad itself:

And here it is with the flap closed:

-Replaced outlet on west wall.

It wasn’t working. And it was beige.