Category Archives: Home Improvements

3 Years in Our Home

This week marks the 3-year mark in our current residence. 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.

ISLA’S ROOM

-Nothing.

Yeah, I’m a little sad about this, but we really didn’t make any improvements in her room during the past six months. But we came really close. For one thing, I obught the quarter-round needed to complete the trim. I painted it, too. But at the moment, it’s still sitting in the garage, so I can’t really count this as an improvement yet. Isla’s room still lacks a doorknob, too. I took in the original doorknob to have it refurbished. So…any day now her room will have a doorknob, but right now nothing.

ADULTS’ ROOM

-Replaced smoke alarm

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Installed face cloth holder.

UPPER STAIRWELL

-Replaced one miniblind with honeycomb blind.

LIVING ROOM

-Replaced smoke alarm

-Replaced three miniblinds with honeycomb blinds.

Okay, if you’ve been to my house, you might know that we have four windows in our living room, so admittedly, it’s kind of weird that I only replaced three of the four. But here’s how that happened:

First, I accidentally broke one of the crappy old miniblinds about two weeks before Emmett was due to be born. So, for a few days, we had no treatment on that window. Jennifer said something like, “I don’t want to be giving birth in the living room with the window wide open like this,” so I went to the store and purchased the style of honeycomb blind we now have.

Second, a couple of month later, Menard’s was having a sale on window treatments, so I stopped in to buy the other three. But they only had two. So that’s that.

YARD

-Removed gazebo.

Yep, the big thing is finally gone. Now I only own two buildings instead of three.

-Removed the lower portion of our deck.

-Installed planter against deck.

Okay here’s what it looked like in mid-June with the Gazebo and half the deck gone:

Notice how it’s just one big muddy area, the planter I used to have abutted to the lower deck is now dismantled, and the remaining deck is being propped up by retaining wall bricks.

Here we are a couple of weeks later:

Now the deck is being held up properly, with treated-wood beams. I’ve also leveled the ground in front of the deck somewhat and I began installing treated planks on the right side of the deck. This was to form the back side of the planter.

Now you see the planter is starting to take shape. All the planks are installed, and here you can see I am installing the first level of bricks. It’s important to tamp down the ground before placing the bricks in place. No need to waste money on a fancy tamper when there’s a perfectly good 3-and-a-half year old available.

Here’s a close-up of the planks. Notice Isla figured they made a good canvas and penciled in some artwork and her name.

Here’s some more progress. Now you can see two rows of bricks are in place, and the third row has begun. Meanwhile, Isla supervises.

Here’s the finished project. Six rows of bricks. Landscaping fabric installed, and then a thick layer of mulch.

-Weeded, installed landscaping fabric and mulch to one planter on south side of house.

-Installed brick walkway leading from workshop to driveway.

-Weeded behind garage, installed landscaping fabric, retaining beams, and rocks.

This was a big job, but it was also a lot of fun. Owen and I went behind the garage one morning and hacked, pulled, and hedge-trimmed our way through. Some of the weeds were taller than me, and the resulting brush filled five large yard bags. I forgot to take a before photo, but here’s an after…

Owen enjoys the fact that he can now cut through this way on his way to his friends’ houses.

2½ Years in Our Home

This week marks the 2.5-year mark in our current residence. 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.

OWEN’S ROOM

-Refinished the floor.

Look at that floor! Brand-spankin’ improved!

Owen’s room didn’t need to be refinished, but it was in pretty rough shape. As an added incentive, the man who came to refinish Isla’s floor charged a minimum 4-hour fee, and since Isla’s room took him less than four hours, we figured it was cost-effective to have him refinish Owen’s floor, too. It looks amazing now, really. We just cringe every time we hear a book or a toy sliding across the floor.

ISLA’S ROOM

-Refinished the floor.

Here’s the floor mere hours after being refinished.

…And here it is a few days later with some furnishings.

-Installed floor trim. Jennifer and I cut, painted, and installed these pieces all around the room, including a slightly smaller style in the closet.

-Built the door frame, thanks to lots of help from my brother-in-law.

: Here’s a shot looking into Isla’s room from the hallway. Notice the wood frame around the doorway.; Here’s a better shot looking out of her room and into the hallway:; Notice the partially-clad Isla approaching her improved room for the first time.

Notice how it differs from six months ago when there was no door frame or trim, and the flooring had not yet been refinished:

And notice how that differed from even earlier in time, when there was still carpet:

-Replaced the smoke alarm. The previous one expired.

-Painted the main door…and installed it. You’ll notice, in the picture below, that it’s still missing a knob, even though we already have a fancy escutcheon. Stay tuned.

-Installed reducers on floor. If you don’t know what a reducer is, it eases the transition between two rooms with different flooring. Isla’s room has a main door, that lets out into the hallway, and a side door, that opens into the master bedroom. In both places, her hardwood floor meets up with carpet, so I installed reducers. Here’s the one leading from her room into the master bedroom:

Yes, those are my feet. You’re welcome.

ADULTS’ ROOM

-Replaced the ceiling fan.

The fan that came with the house lacked any sort of lighting. That was really annoying. Now we have a variable-speed frame, that matches our style better, had a lighting fixture, and even a remote. And I managed to sell the old one, so this was really an improvement in every way.

KITCHEN

-Replaced the ceiling fan.

The previous one was ugly and made a noise like it was going to come off its moorings any time we set it to a high speed. I also replaced the wall switch, too, becuase the previous one made noises (electronic; like a doorbell) whenever we turned it on or off. That was really annoying. Why do I need an electronic tone to alert me that I’ve activated the ceiling fan? Weird. Anyway, new fan:

New fan!

LOWER STAIR WELL

-Replaced smoke alarm. That one was expired, too.

BASEMENT COMMONS AREA

-Replaced outlet.

We had one remaining outlet in this area of the basement that still had a tan outlet and cover. In late December, I finally got around to changing it out with a white one to better match the walls.

YARD

-Nothing. Too cold and snowy to do anything.

GARAGE

-Nothing.

I’ve noticed here that there are a lot fewer improvements made during these past six months than during any other correspondingly similar chunk of time. My guess is that the house is in good shape now, and most things I’m doing to the house aren’t so much “improvements” as “maintaining.” I will make another post like this at the three-year anniversary – especially since I’m hoping to paint the living room, get my daughter’s room a door knob, and fix the yard – but then I think that might be it for these routine posts.

2 Years in Our Home

Tuesday, the tenth, was our two-year anniversary in our home. Here’s the post I made on our six-month anniversary living here. Here’s the post I made at our one-year anniversary. And here’s one I made when we reached the 1.5 year mark. Today I will follow suit by listing improvements made from that day (March 11th) until now…

OWEN’S ROOM

-Nothing, really. But his room is pretty much done.

ISLA’S ROOM

-Removed Carpet

-Mudded and painted the walls

Here’s a “before” picture. The walls are mudded, as you can see, but they haven’t been painted yet. There’s also a piece of sheetrock missing above the doorway. This was because the original sheetrock split there as I opening up the doorway, so we had to fix that, as well. Notice the carpeting is still in place, too.

This photo was taken about a month later. Here you see the missing sheetrock above the door has been replaced.

…And here you see the walls all painted. Notice, too, that the carpeting is gone as well. The hardwood floors were really scratched up and dark, we tried to refinish them ourselves…

…As you can see here. Unfortunately, Menard’s equipment was so shitty that we just ended up making matters worse. So we’re calling in the experts. Stay tuned.

-Mudded and painted the ceiling

This shot is taken from the bedroom’s doorway. Notice how spiffy the ceiling looks. We plan to move that ladder out of the room before Isla moves in.

-Removed the radiator cover

-Mudded and painted the closet

-Installed covers for outlets and light switch

ADULTS’ ROOM

-Got a fancy doorknob for the door. For over a year, our bedroom door hasn’t had any doorknob on it all. We finally went to Northwest Architctural Salvage and found one that matches the style of our home’s architecture. It even locks with a skeleton key, which I think is pretty cool.

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Installed a shelf in the cabinet. We had this cabinet that is basically just the top of the stairwell, so I vacuumed out all the cobwebs and dust in there and put in a big shelf so that we have room to store a hundred rolls of toilet paper or whatever else we want stored away.

BASEMENT COMMONS AREA

-Painted the wall next to the dryer.

-Installed shelf above dryer.

-Replaced leaky tubing to dryer’s gas line.

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Nothing. I’m happy to say that, like Owen’s room, this room is just the way we want it.

DOWNSTAIRS SPARE ROOM

-Installed beam to jack-up ceiling. The previous owner had this amazing idea to remove the load bearing wall. And by “amazing,” I mean ridiculously stupid. So we put in a new beam. Now the kitchen floor directly above this spot isn’t caving in anymore, and we can sleep soundly knowing we won’t crash through the floor during the middle of the night. It’s a good feeling.

Here’s the lowest portion of the beam. I admit it’s not very pretty, but the whole room itself is kind of an eyesore. There are attractive coverings to buy for these beams. I’ll probably get one someday if we ever try to pretty up this room.

-Removed remainder of center wall. This provided me with lots of spare 2x4s!

YARD

-Moved retaining wall to wrap around gazebo.

Okay, so this one is kind of hard to explain, but here you can see two retaining walls coming out from the gazebo (top left). They curved through the yard and then wrapped around the workshop. Way too much yard lost to this bit of half-assed landscaping. So I altered the bricks to look like this…

…So now the bricks just wrap around the gazebo. We raised the wall up a level, too (so now it’s four bricks high instead of three). This helped to hide the ugly underside of the gazebo’s decking. It also gave me a place to pile in some of my extra soil. We put our extra hastas inside this planter, too.

-Installed rain barrel and moved gutters to align with barrel. I already bragged about this accomplishment IN THIS BLOG POST, so go there to find out more.

-Spray painted the mailslot. Yeah, I didn’t like the rusted-gold look. Now it’s spiffy and clean and white.

GARAGE

-Installed shelf near rafters

-Moved existing shelving and workbench to far corner. Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this right away, but Jennifer had the brilliant idea that we should put this stuff as far into the back of the garage as possible, so that it doesn’t interfere with our doors when we get in and out of the cars. Good idea.

-Installed hooks to hang bicycles.

-Installed gutter over workshop door. This four-foot long gutter is supposed to help prevent rain from washing off the roof and right onto the threshold of the workshop and, more importantly, prevent icicles from forming there in the winter, where they might fall onto my renter. It’s already worked for the former, time will tell if it helps with the latter.

Yep, here’s proof. There’s now a gutter above this door.

-Insulated and closed off back side of workshop. There was a missing piece on the outside of the back of the workshop. I insulated it and then installed a wood covering; this has helped prevent rainwater from washing into the workshop.

So, as you can see, a lot more went on outside the house this time, probably because these past six months have included the warmer spring and summer months. Now we’ll turn our attention back to the inside as autumn and winter descend upon us. I, for one, hope that the next update (to take place in mid-March of 2014) includes the wondrous proclamation that my daughter’s room is completed. Let’s hope!

1½ Years in Our Home

Sunday marked a year and a half since we moved into our house. Here’s the post I made on our six-month anniversary living here. And here’s the post I made at our one-year anniversary. Today I will follow suit by listing improvements made from that day (September 10th) until yesterday…

OWEN’S ROOM

-Replaced the light/fan switch with a workable unit. The old model did not allow for adjusting the fan speed and the dimmer switch no longer worked. Now it does.

-Swapped out the windows’ trim screws with gold screws. Read this post to learn more about this.

ISLA’S ROOM

-Removed clothing bar and cedar wood sheets from the closet

-Removed the remaining 1/3 of the built-in closets

-Installed a new outlet. When we removed the closet shelving, we discovered a box with wires. I figured they would probably work with an outlet. I was right.

-Painted the window trim white

-Painted the closet door white. Here’s a before-and-after pairing:

-Replaced the missing finishing screws on the window trim. Swapping out all of the trim screws in Owen’s room with gold screws gave me several extra screws to fill in all the places in the house where they were missing, including the two missing in Isla’s room.

-Installed new blinds

Here’s the new blind, and there’s a similar one on the other window in Isla’s room. The weird painting job you see here is because we painted around the window before re-installing the molding, but haven’t painted the rest of the walls yet.

-Removed a small wall. Look at the picture below.

See the spot where there’s no carpet, jutting out from the main wall at 90 degrees? That’s where a wall used to be. We took it out.

-Moved the light switch from the small wall to the east wall, and swapped it with a dimmer switch instead of a plain on/off switch. The light switch used to be on the small wall, but taking out that wall meant the switch was just dangling from the ceiling. So I moved it to where her bedroom door will be.

I’m rather pleased with how well I did on this; once we paint the wall and I put on the plate, you’ll never know that there was once a huge hole here where I rewired the switches.

-Replaced window sill on east window with one that was a better length and thickness. Painted it white. (See the photo of the window, above, to see the sill.)

-Busted out the sheetrock leading into the hallway, where a proper door will go. I just did this yesterday, so this is the latest development on the list.

Here’s what the northeast corner of Isla’s room looked like a year ago: wall-to-wall shelves. Behind those shelves is the hallway, but Isla’s room was blocked off from direct access to the hallway (her room could only be entered from the master bedroom).

…And here it is now. The shelves are gone and her room can now be entered directly from the hallway. I know this picture just looks like a total mess right now, but we’re midway through the project of refinishing her room, so check back in six months to see a marked improvement.

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Replaced light switches. The old ones were crackling (never a good sound with electricity).

UPPER STAIRWELL

-Nothing. Though my wife hung more photos.

DINING ROOM

-Replaced chandelier with way better chandelier. Subsequently sold old chandelier for more money than the I paid for the new one. That’s how I like to do things. Read more about the chandelier swap here.

KITCHEN

-Replaced missing finishing screws in window trim with more of those spares from Owen’s room.

MUD ROOM

-Replaced missing finishing screws in window trim with more of those spares from Owen’s room.

You can barely see them here, but the little dark spots just to the left of the window are finishing screws. This window used to have no finishing screws, and the trim around the window was barely in there. It let in a draft, too. All better now.

BASEMENT COMMONS AREA

-Painted west wall. Installed a closet in front of that wall.

The wall used to be unpainted, now it’s a basement-brightening white. The closet is from IKEA and, I gotta say, I love having a closet right next to the bathroom.

-Removed majority of sheetrock from basement ceiling. It was moldy.

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Painted walls and ceiling.

Let’s look at the progress on the wall where the toilet is…

Here’s what it looked like looking straight into the bathroom from the door. This photo was taken before we moved in. Notice the cabinet above the toilet, which prevented toilet-users from sitting upright. Also, notice the lights above the cabinet: garrish!

Here’s a similar angle taken about six months after we moved in. The cabinet is gone, and so are the lights, revealing a different color wall behind, as well as pipes and wiring.

This picture was taken around our one-year anniversary at our home. Here you can see I’ve built a wall to cover the electrical and plumbing.

And here’s a picture I took this weekend. Now it’s painted. I like the blue wash, very cool and clean – which I think are good options for a basement bathroom. You’ll see I’ve also installed a simple metal shelf, which is more than sufficient for anything I ever need to store or hang in this bathroom.

-Installed shelf and towel hook. See above for the shelf, but the hook is shown right here, just to the right of the sink:

YARD

-Removed sprinkler system.

GARAGE

-Nothing. This isn’t exactly the time of the year when I like to be out in the garage.

1 Year in Our Home

Monday, 10 September 2012

Today marks one year since we moved into our house. Six months ago, I posted a list of the improvements (or changes, if you prefer) we made to our home since purchasing it. Today I will follow suit by listing improvements made from that day (March 10th) to now…

OWEN’S ROOM

-Nothing, since his room is already just the way we like it.

ISLA’S ROOM

-Removed 2/3 of the built-in closets. Sold them on Craig’s List for a wheelbarrow full of money.

ADULTS’ ROOM

-Painted all the walls

-Painted closet walls, installed shelving and two clothing rods

-Removed cheap plastic blinds from all three windows and replaced them with nicer, wider, wood blinds.

-Replaced stupid on/off switch on wall with a variable speed switch. This switch operates the ceiling fan and the on/off switch only allowed the fan to be either off, or so fast that it could dice vegetables. And, no, there is no speed adjustment knob or chain on the fan itself. The new variable-speed dial allows us to have a gentle flow of air now.

UPSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Removed spare slats from miniblind.

UPPER STAIRWELL

-Nothing. Though my wife hung lots of photos.

LIVING ROOM

-Replaced bent, broke, diry miniblind on easternmost window with a better looking miniblind (one that I absconded from our bedrooom; see above)

KITCHEN

-Painted back door

LOWER STAIR WELL

-Removed dried, cracked linoleum and carpeted stairs.

See what I mean? Details about this project, including the rock-bottom price I paid for the parpet, can be found HERE.

BASEMENT COMMONS AREA

-Removed most of the shelving. I’m sorry, but there are just too many cabinets in this house. I took this shelving out and put it in my garage, where it houses some of the kids’ toys and our lawn and garden supplies.

-Removed rickety, cheap-looking, crooked towel rack from above the dryer. And tossed that sad sucker into the trash.

-Carpeted majority of area

Ta da! Look at that nice carpet! No more walking on cement for us.

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM

-Installed a new, mold-free shower head

-Removed bent, cheap-looking door knob and swapped out with a classy silver number.

-Sheetrocked and mudded area above the toilet.

This is a slow but steadily improving task. Here’s what the area above the toilet looked like six months ago (and I hasten to add that this is an improvement):

And here’s what it looks like now:

Much better, right?

-Removed, spray-painted, and reinstalled light fixture. yeah, now it’s silver instead of gold.

SPARE ROOM

-Removed sheetrock from ceiling.

-Removed pointless wood frame from floor in NE corner.

YARD

-Removed center planter from yard

-Removed sprinkling system from planters

-Removed numerous bushes and flowers from yar (and even sold some)

-Removed dozens of bricks from landscaping

-Removed mulch from mulchy areas

-Installed some sod

–Made a tomato garden

-Removed flag pole holder

-Reconstructed retaining wall in NW corner of the yard

See what I’m talking about? The bricks used to just go off to the left and taper off into the yard. Now I’ve wrapped them around to meet up with the house. This also required picking up lots of rocks scattered in the soil and tossing them into the new circular area around the tree. This has left us, as you can see, with a dirt patch. We’ll put something there. Just give us some time.

GARAGE

-Removed old garage door opener (and sold it!) and installed new opener. (If you read the post from six months ago, you’ll see I mentioned swapping out an opener there, too. That’s ’cause I have two garage doors; one for each stall. )

-Installed shelving that I stole from the basement.

See the cabinet? Yeah, it doesn’t close correctly, ’cause I didn’t cut the wood right (the wood that it sits on). I’ll fix it soon. Oh – and, yes, that is a charicature of my parents hanging above my workbench.

Okay, that’s pretty much it. As you can see by comparing this with the post from six months ago, this baby’s a lot shorter. I think this is because now that we live here, and have it the way went it (for the most part), there isn’t as much incentive to go full-throttle at fixing things. Also, warmer months gave us more opportunities to work outside (notice the increase in yard improvements). And we’ve been busy with other stuff. And money.

Stay tuned.

Verbisaurus Blogicus

There's No Blog Like the Present

Category Archives: Home Improvements

3 Years in Our Home

2½ Years in Our Home

2 Years in Our Home

1½ Years in Our Home

1 Year in Our Home