Thursday, November 29, 2012

Le Cotage Conversion-Rock of Phases

 This is looking into the boys' room when we first started hanging dry-wall. Covering the ceiling is referred to as "putting a lid on it'. Ha ha, just kidding. Well, it is referred to as "the lid" but I liked saying we were putting a lid on it.

So, you see that skinny robot-looking thing? That's a dry-wall lift. He's a handy fella, I tell ya... those sheets of rock are he-e-e-e-avy!

Here's the same room all sheeted. Guess who is putting mud on the walls? Go ahead, guess.




MEEEEEE! It is totally fun. No joke.


Porter and Kiki covered the screw heads.

Boys' room to the left.






Boys' room door and closet. (I know this is boring but just in case you want to see...)





Anthony's room.




Girls' room closet.




Girls' room door.




My crafting area! (and the traveling toilet)




The new bathroom!


Can you tell that I'm getting excited?



That man is a sheetrocking FOOL!




The new bathroom is ready for tile!

(Which we (the boys and I) went and got in the CITY yesterday!)

Pretty soon, this will be our first finished room.



He even sheeted the stairwell last night.






Sunday, November 25, 2012

I'MPOSSIBLE- Believe to Achieve

If you BELIEVE in goodness you will ACHIEVE goodness.

This was back in October. It was the third time this year that Jake came to the parking lot at the gym to help someone get their car running.

*I love him.*

Le Cotage Conversion- I'm wired.

I've graduated from menial labor to running wiring. I nailed the boxes on and drilled those holes with a 16" paddle bit. I have a fear of power tools. This is a big step for me.

I pulled those thick wires through from box to box.

Hard work. Feels good to be productive, though.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Le Cotage Conversion- Set My Heart Aflame

Gotta clean out the chimney so they can put the sleeve in for the gas stove. There was so much coal debris in there!

Can you believe it's actually in! Thanks to Uncle Dan for the time he took cleaning up the stove and getting it in for us. This is that stove from upstairs!

It's amazing what warmth can do.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Le Cotage Conversion- UnPunctual Plumbing

If you're going to lose time to some unplanned hardship, plumbing problems is probably one of the better ones. I'll take that over a serious medical malady or a natural disaster.

When Jake took up the old drain in the basement he found that the drain line (pipe) was only a 2" which is apparently not wide enough for a toilet. So he had to dig it out, following it out through the exterior (concrete!) wall.

This was such a nightmare.













The people who built the house poured concrete down over top of the pipe outside the house after they threw some huge, very hard rocks down first.

Here, you can see a brumbie. We tried a hammer-chisel, drill, a huge steel rock-breaker bar that you hit with a sledge-hammer (very scary when you're the one holding the bar!). Jake wouldn't give up. He was going to stay all night til he got this rock out.









He would send a child in to clean out the dirt 'cause we couldn't fit in the hole.
















Rylee did such a great job.
















Offering back support while he chisels.
















We brainstormed like crazy. Here he's trying to get behind the rock.
















There's Morgan. He's an absolutely awesome kid when it comes to working.















Telling stories. It was cold. We were hungry.

















Jake came home about 11 pm. He got that brumbie out and the next day dug out to where the 2" connected with the 4".

Here is the original pipe. It is iron. I didn't get a picture of the drain that he took out. It was the oddest looking thing. Cast-iron in the shape of an upside-down bell. 4" at the top, tapered down with a 2" connection off the side. Very strange.





It took four days to get to this point. Here is the new plumbing. ABS pipe. 4" to the toilet. The one sticking up is for the tub.















Putting concrete back in. That line goes to the sink.

















There's the tub! It took Anthony and Jake to bring this in. Cast-iron, porcelain coated tub. It's the one that was upstairs.
















This man is amazing.


















Red for hot. Blue for cold. Plumbing is in and done!!!!!!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Le Cotage Conversion- Masonry Madness (not to be confused with Masonary Madness!)


I know you've all been dying to see my finished chimney. First, I want to tell you about Thompson's WaterSeal. I started off with a small can 'cause of course I had no idea what I was doing. Well, I ran out 2/3 of the way along and so went back to our trusty Ace Hardware and they were out. So I bought the gallon-sized can. As you can see the label is exactly the same. Well, it's not the same! The little can contained a clear liquid with an ever-so-slight level of viscosity: the ratio of the tangential frictional force per unit area to the velocity gradient perpendicular to the direction of flow of a liquid.

Anyone want to try to put that into layman's terms?

I poured some of the sealer from the big can into the container which was now living its second life helping me finish my beautiful brick chimney. Something was WRONG. This stuff was not the same! It was very watery and very white.

After panicking, I used my highly honed powers of observation and found the difference between the two cans.

Voila! (can you even see it? it's so small)

Upon consulting with the professionals whom I keep in my pocket at all times, I forged ahead with the milky stuff.








Here are my findings, for anyone who might be interested in such nugatory subject matter. The clear liquid absorbed right into the brick and mortar, giving me an oddly satisfactory feeling. (Could this be connected to my fetish with feeding people?) It would run down but not quicker than I could use my brush to guide it where I wanted.  The milky stuff stayed out on the surface and raced down the brick, forcing me to frantically try to corral it. (This same thing  happens when you take a toddler out of a bathtub.)


Okay, I know. You just want to see the stinking chimney; the exposed brick that sends my heart into flutter and stretches my face into a smile. To do this project justice, though, let's look again at the different phases.
See that cabinet on the right? That was built onto the left side of the chimney. The wall wrapped around it. You can just barely see the arched opening on the right which faced the front door.

This shows the right side with most of the wall removed.


Wretched plaster!

This shows the right side. Because it was built up against an already existing wall, the mortar was a mess. 

I wore that brush down to nubs.         













































































THE FINISHED CHIMNEY!

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Le Cotage Conversion- Nothing hiding in our closets

Got the downstairs bathroom framed. The toilet is not really set, we were just checking measurements.

Anthony's closet is now in. Closet in the center, and on either side will be built-dressers with uppers.

The boys' closet. They don't need much right?

Girls' closet. I would've done it different, but I wasn't there. Snooze, ya looze!

See that room back there? It's a storage room. It was crappy with crappy shelving. That's the last bit of demolition! (That room is behind the kids' bathroom.)