Upstairs Progress...worth reading

Howdy. SO we have been making some pretty great progress. The upstairs is really coming together and starting to feel like a place we actually want to be. I've been painting so much that Carl has stopped coming over. Ha. He thinks it's a waste of time. He'll be back next week. I'm going to have to hang it up for a while. Oh and we found an amazing second-hand furniture store in town. They take old pieces and have local artists bring some life back into them. So we may have gone a bit overboard. Whatever. I reminded Kev that we slept on a futon for the first five years of our relationship.

We still have so so so much to do but, at this point, the big things still needed upstairs are base boards EVERYWHERE and some detailing in the bathroom.

Kev has been a busy bee. When his brother (Brian) visited, they made a fence in the backk. I love it but it's too dark right now to photograph. They also put in a ton of the flooring downstairs and Brian did lots of odds and ends that noone should ever really have to do for anybody's house but their own. And the craziest part is that he's coming back. NEXT weekend. For more. And this time bringing the foreman, his wife.

Kev also added a couple of stairs to our staircase, put in the railing, patched some rotting wood on the side of the house. removed some rotting boards on our deck, started clearing all the junk on our bottom deck/yard, power washed the house, started power washing/sanding the deck that's to be stained, and fenced in the pathetic plot we call a garden (not photographed on purpose).

So the downstairs is still really terrible. So is the outside. I can talk way more on that later but the next big project is painting the house.  He's been scraping away, so we'll see how that goes! Thanks for reading!

Upstairs Floors Complete, Living Room (very near) Completion

SO, we had a major milestone. The upstairs floors are FINISHED. Completely. As in, there is no more work to be done on the floors. We are ecstatic. We were so close to being done last weekend and didn't quite finish up. So Carl came by during the week while we were working to lay the last boards. We are forever indebted.

We also have painted and put the living room together. The only thing missing are the base boards. These are minor details to us. We have a room to lounge in!! And since the kitchen is now fully functional (garbage disposal fixed, gas stove working, electrical up to spec (thx again Carl))...that means we are to a point where we can live in the upstairs of the house by day. But we're still sleeping in the cottage for now. Kind of a bummer, but huge strides nonetheless. Now all we have left are all the other rooms, the exterior, the decks, the yard, the downstairs flooring, and the other retaining wall and we'll be feeling good about life.

In other news, Carl helped us with some HVAC projects that needed to be done, we replaced an earthquake-safety wood post with a steel one (due to fire hazards), Carl helped us put the fireplace in, and Kevin removed all the staples in the subfloor downstairs. Next weekend I will be in Phoenix to see family, but Kev, Carl, and possibly Brian (Kevin's brother) will be here holding down the fort. And hopefully sticking to the schedule :).

Taking Down the Side Retaining Wall

Howdy. Somehow we've gotten behind in our posts. So much is happening but nothing is happening all at the same time. Here's a post on one of the retaining walls that we have to deal with. As you can see from the picture below, it was falling in (almost entirely) to the side of our house. We've had a lot of issues with gas and water lines and one of the big road blocks to getting the lines in and up to spec was removing this side retaining wall. Carl had a head start on us...as soon as we let him know the city gave us the go ahead, he was tearing down the fencing and pushing cinder blocks.

 

The Cottage....Our Temporary Home

So we are behind schedule. I'm sure you're all shocked. We've spent the last week moving out of Sausalito to Fairfax. We are lucky in that we happen to have a one-room cottage at the back of the property. We will be living here probably for about a month. It's actually been really fun so far. Feels like we're camping...mostly because we still don't have hot water/gas.

Termite Damage Fixed!, Subfloors (Mostly) Replaced

So we've met our guardian angel. His name is Carl and he happens to be our neighbor. Carl is a retired carpenter and has been a very enthusiastic helper as of late. He has helped us with our rather extensive termite damage, termite prevention, tile removal, and subfloor completion. Man, do we owe this guy.

 The back of this room is where the termite damage was.

Termite Damage

With all the fuss surrounding the sub-floor removal, I almost forgot to mention that we have termites. When we did the inspection a couple months back, the termites were contained to several inches in the rear of the house. Well, they have spread some! So much for termites not liking redwood.