Recent Renovation Projects

Well, it all started when we bought a rental property, and the projects just kept piling on top of each other. We started by replacing the upstairs trim and painting every room in the house. While preparing the upstairs ceiling for paint, I noticed a suspicious bubble of raised paint. I picked at it a bit, and when Sherri noticed what I was doing, her face just fell as I tore a massive sheet of paint down from the ceiling like dead skin after a nasty sunburn. None of the original ceiling paint had properly adhered to the Sheetrock, which meant starting over from ground zero- sheetrock primer, texture, more primer, then finally paint, how it should have been done in the first place. Little did we know, that would be the theme of several future projects in this house. My sister Jan (painting extraordinaire) and niece Sara removed all of the kitchen cupboard doors, cleaned the hardware, stripped-off the existing slobbery paint job, and upgraded the entire kitchen to perfection.

Probably the weirdest discovery in this house was a false wall in the back of the garage with a makeshift Hobbit door that looked like it had been cut-out of the Sheetrock with a spoon. Crawling into the claustrophobia closet, we noticed a hole punched through the ceiling, tapping into the heat duct, a bunch of random electrical outlets hanging from the ceiling, and walls completely wrapped in plastic. My brother-in-law John and I looked at each other with the exact same expression on our faces- ”they were definitely growing something in here.” Quickly skipping past the FBI narcotics investigation, we spent the next hour ripping that place apart, adding another several feet of open space to the back of the garage.

After my nieces moved in, they expressed some concern about the front steps cracking and chipping away. Sure enough, the previous owners simply painted over the concrete erosion project, now spreading all the way down to the apron in front of the garage. Sherri bought a jack hammer and the heaviest sledgehammer she could find at Home Depot. After three days of chain gang railroad labor, I finally busted-up the few remaining slabs of concrete, and hauled it all down to the local gravel pit. Sherri & I built a new deck for the stairs leading up to the house, and a series of decorative paver steps down to the driveway.

            On the opposite side of the garage, we tore down the lopsided fence that had been struck by lightning, evident by the charred black streak painted across the gate. Behind it, we tore-down the leaning wall of rotting railroad ties, which took an entire day- heavy as led, held together with ridiculously huge steel spikes. In its place, we built a new patio and retaining wall with paver steps that matched the front. While working outside one day, a bunch of road construction was going on, and a massive payloader parks right at the end of our driveway. A big-bearded-biker-guy climbs down from the cockpit, walks straight up to me as if looking to chew me out for parking on the wrong side of the road and says, “Looks real nice. My wife wants something like this in our backyard. Mind if I take a picture?” I explained where I found the stone and some of the tools that made the work a little easier, even though I probably inhaled enough concrete dust to shorten my existence by a good year or two.

            The following year, we bought a chainsaw and recruited some family muscle (my parents and brother) for cutting down our poor old Ash tree that had been mercilessly murdered by boring ash beetles. That tree kicked our butts! The branches were so sharp and gnarly, sending us all home with stinging open battle wounds. It became a two day ordeal as my brother & I returned the following day, stomping down branches in the back of an 8’ x 10’ trailer, driving a grand total of 10 overflowing trailer loads full of branches down to the local compost.

That same summer, the washer & dryer decided to kick the bucket, along with the air conditioner & furnace. Talk about “when it rains it pours!” So, Sherri & I decided to completely gut the laundry room, performing a surgical facelift in preparation for all the new appliances. The room actually had some mold and brown speckled stains on the walls in the back corner beneath the tankless water heater. We ended up replacing a bunch of drywall, applying new texture, painting all the walls, and wiring a set of 4 LED pocket lights in place of the glitchy fluorescent light dangling from the classic 70’s wood panel ceiling- it all had to go.

Fortunately, while attaching backerboard around the water damaged corner, I discovered the culprit. Hearing the dishwasher running upstairs, I noticed water slowly leaking from the drain pipe coming down from the kitchen sink. One of the PVC elbows had not adhered correctly, and I was literally about to bury it all behind a Fort Knox wall of tile. After replacing the PVC with proper fittings and adhesive, I extended the floor tile up along the walls with a shelf beneath the water heater. To polish the room off, we installed a sliding barn door that Sherri had applied a finish coat that gave it a great looking weathered look. Hopefully this place can run on autopilot for a while now.

        As far as our house is concerned, we finally finished a small downstairs bedroom that we call the music room. We installed shiplap along the base of the window with a new walnut mantle that Sherri planed and filled-in gaps with epoxy resin. Then, we textured and painted the walls, replaced all of the trim, covered the entire ceiling with tongue & groove weathered planks, jigsawing miter joints around all of the ductwork, and wired new LED track lighting. It’s become my favorite room in the house, a great place to relax and work on music.

        Right before winter started settling in, I figured I should finish installing all of the gutter guard I've been storing in the garage for almost 2 years now. Whoever was in charge of the marketing campaign for this product is a lying sack of crap. The picture shows a guy smiling away with rainbows and unicorns in the background as he effortlessly installs each panel with glee. Yeah right, that stuff is a royal pain in the neck to work with. I toyed with death on the backside of the house having to raise my extension ladder to the very last rung in order to reach the roofline. All said and done, I'm glad I no longer have to dig slimy leaf juice out of our gutters anymore. Hopefully it works the way they say it should.