Finishing the Front Room

Over the past few weeks, we were able to finish the remaining projects to wrap up the front room.

1) Install the floor box for the outlet that was formerly in the baseboard.  (The one that I first blew out while exposing the brick wall and then rewired into a new outlet temporarily).
2) Install and coax cable.
3) Put trim around the brick wall - all four sides.

At the recommendation of my friend, Dena, I hired Generation 3 to come to the electrical work.  It was a small job, and one that I probably could have done myself, but I wasn't confident in making the hole in the floor.  I also have no experience with coax cable.  In the end, it was a reasonable price to hire someone and make sure it was done right!

I hired Nate Gavin again to do the trim.  He is very laid back, and I always like how we can design the solutions together and he is very good at just going with the flow of the project.  He ended up doing the priming and painting for me as well and repairing the plaster on the side walls and didn't increase his estimate at all.

I really, really love the room.  It has transformed from a room that had potential but wasn't very usable or welcoming to very much the opposite!  I love to read in there, sit down with the animals, and watch the news.

In total, here are the projects that I did this year for that room:

• Exposed the brick wall through removal of horse hair plaster (all chisel and hammer work due to the softness of the brick)
• Had the chimney restored and lined so that the first floor fire place could be wood burning (Hearth & Stove)
• Purchased tile from Tiffany at Earthstone Tileworks and hired Jason from Earthstone Tileworks to complete the fireplace surround, since wood paneling was coming all the way to the fire box
• Hired Nate Gavin to remove the wood panels and refashion them around the tile surround
• Relocated the outlet into a floor box and had a coaxial cable installed so that I could set up my entertaining stand along the brick wall (previously, it was installed above the fireplace with all wiring and outlets in that area) (Generation 3)
• Put trim around the brick wall (Nate Gavin)

I've been giving some thought as to what my big 2016 projects will be, but I'm planning to take the first quarter off from home improvement, replenish the emergency fund, and enjoy the space for awhile.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year!  There is so much to be thankful for!

Here are some pictures of the most recent projects.

A Halloween Fire

Link to pictures from the last few days

I'm sitting in my front room, typing this on my Chrome Cast with "Haunted Histories" on in the other tab.  There is a curled up dog at my feet, an empty glass of wine (soon to be replaced with some bourbon) on the bench beside me, a brimming full basket of chocolate on my dining room table (since I had no trick or treaters), and most importantly - a crackling fire behind me and to my left.

After a year of living here, I owe this beautiful evening to a number of things - to Hearth and Stove for the chimney work, to Earthstone Tile Works for the beautiful tile and installation work (and to Allison for recommending them), to Nate for recreating my wall, to Jen and Jon for the massive assistance in getting me firewood, and to the interesting combination of my parents for the fire starters and for giving me the "determined" personality I have that doesn't give up on projects - even if it takes awhile and even if they sound a little crazy.

After all the time and money for this particular project, I'm very aware that it may seem ridiculous to some people.  After all... a fire can seem like a small thing, especially in the era where we don't really need it for heat in most places.  I have central air and gas heat.  I'm not going to freeze to death.

However, to me a fire is hospitality, warmth, love, and life.  It is where the creative spirit and the destructive force of the world unite.  It represents the core of what I hope my home is to those I choose to invite into it.

With all the legitimate and real problems in the world, it may seem trivial or even selfish to put energy into any of our personal projects.  I may not ever be able to do anything about those greater problems, but if I can share of myself and my home with people I love, it will be adding something to the cosmos and to my personal relationships.   The completion of this project helps me towards that goal.

Happy Halloween!

Day 2 - Fireplace Tiling Project

The quality of work is apparent when the worker even takes pride in the parts that will not be seen by most people.

At the day of day 2, the main body of the tile is setting.  Tomorrow, Jason will remove the wood frame and put the marble on the inside.

He is amazing!

Day 2 - Tile Project

Day 1 - Fireplace Tiling Project

I didn't sleep very well last night, so my 5:00am wake up call turned into 5:40am.  As a result, I ran into Jason in his truck as I was walking back from the gym.  It was still dark by then, so I'm sure he was a little freaked out by the sweaty white girl in a white fur lined hoodie telling him she had an unmetered parking spot saved for him.  He played it off.

It turns out that he didn't need the saved spot, because, as is the case with any good house project, he had to make 3 trips to Home Depot (or Lowe's... I'm not sure how he rolls), so he never violated the 2 hour limit.

Today, his goal was to unload the equipment and get the wall to the point where it was framed out the approximately 3 inches required to make the tile flush with the wood panel surround, and to have the cement board installed and ready for the tile.

Our first challenge of the day happened when he realized that the wall above the floor panels was all one solid piece!  He, Nate, me, and the Hearth & Stove guys when they were here doing their work all assumed that all of the panels just snapped off like the lower 2 did.  Not the case.  

He was able to remove the crown molding himself, but then called in Nate (the carpenter) to help him disassemble the rest.  This turned out to be a good thing, because Nate could see what he would be working with as he fitted the remaining panels around the tile and also how to reassemble it.

By around 11:30, they were finished with that and Jason started building out the wall.  (But first he made another trip to the store for plaster anchors, since the central part of the wall under the panels was solid plaster).

He made good work of that but ran out of framing wood around 2:30pm so he called it a day and will return first thing in the morning to finish the framing and start the install!

The whole project should be completed this week, and I'm very excited.  It will look awesome!

Here is my album from today of the build out work and the thoughts behind that.  I really like both of these guys.  They are great and easy going and really flexible when something doesn't go as planned.

Day 1 Album

Prepping for the Tilework

I had a very busy weekend, but it was a nice weekend.  I mostly focused on prepping the house for the first floor fireplace tile work that is set to start tomorrow and in running all the errands for the non perishables and liquor needed for the upcoming happy hour I am hosting in early November and the family Thanksgiving.  For the latter, I needed to make sure I had enough glassware, drinks, mixers, and a place for everyone to sit!  For the former I needed to remove and cap off two sconces and an outlet from the fireplace wall so that the remaining wood panels could be removed and the tile could be installed!

Many thanks to Bryan and Ethan from work for providing me with a refresher on electricity so that I could complete that work.  I'm always inordinately proud of myself when I do anything involving electricity or plumbing, even if it is the simplest project.  Those concept don't come easily to me.

Tile work starts at 7am each morning, so I'm not sure I'll make it through the entire Eagles game tonight!  That means a 5am wake up for the gym to ensure I get everything done in time so that Jason can arrive at 7am and I can start work after he gets settled.

I'm very excited for this project!  When I moved into the house almost exactly one year ago, I had many visions for the front room, and they are coming to fruition now!

Here is a very boring album of my electrical projects from the weekend.  I'd post pics of my liquor store and glassware run, but that is just embarrassing ;-)

Prepping for Tilework

Gas Fireplace Installs Complete

Hearth & Stove was able to complete the gas installs for the second and third floor rooms today, and I'm really happy with the results!

Here is a link to the pictures.

In the second floor office, all they had to do was install the black metal surround that had to be custom made.

The third floor bedroom coal basket had to be completely installed and required a run back to the shop to get an adapter.  It fits perfectly!  I ordered a screen from Lowe's that I'll pick up tomorrow, though, because Jalapeno almost stuck his tail in the fire already - which would have been the second time.  He did it before at Don's house several years ago.

While Jim was working on that, the other two were up on the roof cementing the chimney crown again and taking down the scaffolding.  I am mostly thankful that this entire project got completed with no one hurting himself on the roof or in the many trips up and down the ladder with heavy equipment.

It was a great crew for this project!  The guys were all really fun, loved Jalapeno, and were genuinely interested in my house projects and the progress made over each of their visits.  I definitely recommend Heath & Stove!

Time for some reading and a rest with the animals!  This week I had very early starts every day and am feeling pretty tired.  I'm looking forward to a light day tomorrow.

Fireplaces and More Transformation

I was very excited to have dinner last night with my friends, Kate and Mike.  They braved Friday night 76 traffic to come up from West Chester, and we had a delicious dinner and great conversation at Fork.

One thing I told them is that my life feels lately like a Darren Aronofsky film.  If you've experienced his films, you know how he has that great and visual way of depicting the passage of routine time in fast moving sequences and sounds.  For example - in Requiem for a Dream, there is the spoon-sizzle-sigh-dilated pupils-pop.  In Pi, there is the wake up - restate my assumptions.  Mine is more like alarm-gym-pets-MFL-work-after work drink-advance goals from white boards-remember dinner-recorded news-what meetings are tomorrow, rinse, repeat.  Routine isn't bad, but I do much better when I'm executing on a plan, and I've lost sight into my next serious life move.

The good thing about me is that I'm not a wallow-er.  I find something productive to fill my time and energy until it becomes clear what's next.  The time is going to pass regardless... might as well have something to show for it at the end.  The bad thing about me (one of the many) is that its a bit of a struggle and I'm not very happy during those phases of life.

The productive things I've decided to focus on during this period to last some unknown period of time is transforming the house into a creative, beautiful, and usable space... one not only for me but that I can share with the people close to me in my life.  I've also committed to learning guitar and continuing to study Spanish.

Regarding the house projects:
Since my last post, I've continued to focus on getting the spaces in the house situated in a way that flows well for use and overall feel.  I'm really very happy with how things are working right now.  The spaces are more beautiful, more useful, and overall just more "Kendra." This transformation involved a lot of rearranging, re-design, and the purchase of a few key pieces of furniture that have been on my list for awhile.  I ordered a real desk for my office that is actually a large dining room table, but I think it is perfect as a desk.  It is a statement piece for the room.  My mom came up Thursday (I took a few days off of work this week) and helped me put it together.  She is always a rock star - almost 68 years old and maybe 5'1" and hauling 185 pound desks around like nothing.  I also bought a mirror for my bedroom that I've wanted for over 5 years and had it delivered today.  The mirror wasn't super expensive, it is just big, and I knew I'd need to hire someone to deliver it and help me get it upstairs, so the logistics kept postponing it.  I finally just decided to get it done Friday.  It really adds to the room.  (There are so many interesting things in the room, that they are competing for focal point).

In addition Hearth & Stove came again on Saturday - rescheduled from Thursday's rain out.  They had planned to finish up everything, but they hit a snag with the second floor install, so they'll have to return next Saturday to finish up.  The snag they hit was that once they opened up that part of the chimney, they saw that it was filled in several feet with cinder blocks, slate, and other debris.  They went back to the shop and got a sledge hammer and big pipes to bust that stuff out.  I was nervous for several hours, hoping the falling debris wasn't going to damage the liner that was already installed for my first floor fireplace, but it all worked out.  They got it done!!!  It just took all day.  As of right now, I have a hooked up and working vented gas fireplace in my office on the second floor.  They took the measurements for the final surround and will bring that back when done to install it for a finished look.  We were also able to verify that the custom made coal basket fits the third floor fireplace perfectly.  So, it will all come together!

I'm venturing into some simple and basic electrical work and so I put a Home Depot order for pickup for the things I'll need - circuit tester, circuit finder, switches, wire strippers, electrical tape, etc.  My electrical box is all updated and circuit breakers, but it is not labeled at all.  To date, the only way I've been able to identify which circuit goes to which switch or outlet is by accidentally tripping it and then writing it down.  So, I got a tool to help me identify that a better way so I can create a key.  I also got enough supplies to allow me to relocate and replace a few outlets that I want to move into the floor.  There is a good chance that the crew I hired to do the first floor fireplace surround will help me do that anyway, but I wanted to have the supplies on hand.  Don taught me how to do the basics of wiring, so I think I can do it myself, but I'm a little nervous.  I'll let you all know how it goes.

Finally, I'm on the book for mid-October to get the tile surround installed for my wood burning fireplace and the carpenter will come after that to modify the surrounding panels and trim it all up.  Both Jason and Nate are awesome, and I'm excited to work with them on the project.

Regarding the continued education:
My dad has played guitar my entire life, so I thought of his old guitar when I decided to learn how to play.  My mom said that at first he was a little hesitant because the guitar is 45 years old, but he got more excited as he got into polishing it and changing out the strings, etc.  I love it!  I need to get a new case, because the original one is falling apart and no longer has a handle, but I'm really honored and excited to learn on this guitar.  (The case may be falling apart because I used to sit in it when I was a little girl, even though previous to that no one was even allowed to touch it)!  I'll be the most old school person in class.  Kate told me last night that she has some electronic thing to help her tune her strings... I have a pitch pipe my dad gave me ;-)

Despite all of life's typical uncertainty, this week and weekend has been a reminder for me that I am thankful for good people in the world.  Many people in my life - strangers, friends, and family - have been willing to go the extra mile for me to help me with my projects.  They have spent their time to help me, took extra time in deliveries while we removed every rail on the spiral staircase to get whatever I wanted to get up there, up there.  They've been willing to help and saw my vision - whether forever or for an hour - and that is really awesome.  Life is short, but it is also long enough to make real and significant connections with other people.  We shouldn't get too bogged down in anything to forget that.

Here are some pictures of the most recent adventures.

When "I Can Do It Myself" Lands You in Urgent Care

My first phrase was "I Can Do It Myself", and I think my first word was "No."  My mom will tell us if that is not correct.

Today what I thought I could do myself - and ultimately did - was move my 2nd floor guest room to the 4th floor, the better queen sized mattress to the 3rd, and various odds and ends all up and down all of the spiral and steep staircases.  I don't get a lot of guests, but I definitely do want to have a guest bedroom.  The 4th floor is a very underutilized space, so I decided to use that as the guest bedroom instead of the largest room in the house.  Instead, I want to use that room as my office and put a love seat and coffee table in there so I can catch up on my reading in front of the gas fireplace that will be in that room.

I was doing pretty well until I got the bed frame up to the 4th floor, had tightened all of the corners in the reassembly, and then stood up quickly - not remembering the ceiling slants down - and banged my eye socket against the edge of the ceiling/wall/window frame.  At first I was just going to let it go and thought - that wasn't pleasant.  I actually started putting the frame together again, and then blood started dripping all over the floor.  I went to the 3rd floor bathroom to take a look, and it was spread open, but clean.  I didn't have any butterfly bandaids.  I put some tape on it and looked up the nearest urgent care online, which was a 9 block walk away.  I put on a pair of sunglasses and headed over.  They had me out of there with 3 stitches in within 2 hours!  The doctor was very sweet.  He asked if I was still active in my modelling career and if I was worried about the scarring.  (With all the bruises I have right now, I'm more likely to have a boxing career).

Then I finished up my projects, but was a lot more careful about where I put my head and eye socket.

While I was trying to finish that up, my washer broke again, so I drained that, and fixed it.  Par for the course for this week.

This entire weekend has been unbelievably bizarre... big highs big lows.  But I do feel it was productive.

I am excited to put my plans together for my office and the other spaces in the house.

The pictures album describes everything and contains pictures of the staircases:  Album from 8/30

Room Reassembled

Tonight I left work a few hours early and decided to finish up the wire brush sanding of the wall, clean up the room, and at least partially put it back in order.  I'm really happy with how it looks so far.  Here is a link to the album:
Pictures

I'm not going to put back all of my books and art until the tile/carpentry work is done, but at least I'll have a place to lay down and sit to read the paper.  I feel like I've been standing since this project started!

The manual labor served a few purposes.  First, one of my best friends resigned from work for a new opportunity and his going away happy hour was last night.  It was an adventure.  I was a little hung over today, but not as much as he was.  As it should be. ;-)  I felt much better after the physical sanding work.  Also, taking care of this Friday will allow me to have more of a weekend, since I'll be out of town for half of it.  I can do errands and just catch up on life for the other day, since I won't have to spend it on this project.

I'm hoping the tile and wall work for the fireplace can happen in October.  The remaining gas fireplaces will be installed mid-September.  So, I should be all set up for the fall.  I just need a few friends to visit me!

Wall Exposed!

Today I finally got all of the plaster off of the wall and completed one rigorous round of scrubbing with two different wire brushes.  I really wish that I could have completely finished the wire brush scrubbing today, since that would have completed all the messy parts, but my arms turn to jelly after four hours of this type of work, and my right hand has 3 large blisters.  So, I'll have to finish that piece another weekend.  I'm actually really sore today.  I worked on the wall 4 hours yesterday and 4 today, and most of it was ladder work.  It seems that put some strain on my back in angles I haven't been used to.  This all sounds like a perfect reason to watch a Game of Thrones episode this afternoon.  I've been catching up and am barely on Season 5 now.

The wall probably needs one more round of wire brush scrubbing, sponging with water, and then sealed.  It also needs the electrical outlet moved into the floor (it had been along the baseboard in one of those exterior boxes).  Longer term - probably coinciding with me painting the room if/when I decide to do that, it will need some type of trim/border all around.

(Side note:  One of the things holding me back from painting right now is that this house has been painted and painted past the point where someone should have just scraped the walls and started again.  The paint is 4-5 layers thick at least and over about 3 layers of wall paper.  I don't want to paint another layer over that, but I also don't know if I want to tackle a full trim removal, scraping, TSP'ing, priming, etc. right now - when I'm trying to get the room ready for fall use.  I'll decide shortly, but that is the situation for now.  Another factor is that this house as of now does not have a utility sink, which makes painting and cleaning of the painting supplies very hard.  I do have an outdoor faucet, which is an option... decisions, decisions.).

Back to our regularly scheduled program...

In addition to the wall work, I've made some progress on a few other objectives.

First, I had both my carpenter and the tile layer (?) in the house to look at the fireplace project and give me an estimate.  That is progress.  I'm hoping I can get that work done in October, but it might have to push until November.

I've also been researching the best source of firewood and read online that the Philadelphia Recycling Center gives away free firewood.  I called them and then drove there Saturday morning to see what the situation was.  It is true they do give away as much free firewood as you want if you are a Philadelphia resident.  However, it is in the form of basically an entire tree.  You have to be able to saw and split it and then you can haul away as much as you'd like.  So, that was a little disappointing to show up in my Saturn sans saw or axe and go away empty handed.  But... PSA - for anyone who does have all of those things, it is a source!

On my way back from the Philadelphia Recycling Center, I stopped at ReStore with the thought to see if they had fireplace grates or screens.  They didn't of the type/size I need, but I was able to pick up some small door knobs for my bedroom doors.  Those doors are the very thin kind with no hardware inside.  I had been using a string with a knot on either end.  Now I have nice crystal knobs.

Finally, I made a plan for some rather ambitious room redesign goals to make the space more usable and with better flow.  I reached out to a friend to see if he can come and help me with the heavy lifting in exchange for my charming company and conversational skills. ;-)

Here is what I'm planning:
- Particularly with the gas fireplaces getting installed on the 2nd and 3rd floor, I'd like to have my office in one of those rooms to make better use of the fireplaces and give me more room to work in a place that isn't so much in the public flow of the house.
- I'm thinking of moving one of my bedrooms to the 4th floor attic room... probably the 2nd floor frame, since that disassembles into smaller pieces - and then moving my office into the 2nd floor bedroom.
- I could move Jali's crate to the 2nd floor with Elora's things and it would allow the 3rd floor sitting area to be more social - space to play games, have a small couch opposite the TV, etc.

I *think* that the stairs to the fourth floor will accommodate all of this juggling, but I'm not sure.  I'll do some more measuring and for sure I'll need to remove the railings on the stair cases, but I think it is doable.

Well, that is all for now!  Off to have some hot tea and watch an episode of Game of Thrones.

Here is a link to the pictures from this weekend.

More Progress on the Wall and Fireplace Planning

Shockingly, staying up half the night catching up with your cousins and then waking up at 6am to drive home does NOT make it physically easier to expose a brick wall.  However, I soldiered on for a good 3-4 hours, partially to help burn off what was probably 1,500 calories from wine alone consumed last night.  Worth it, though.  Ray and Juan Carlos' country house is a special treat. :-)

Today was pretty painstaking.  I worked to get the right side of the wall completed all the way up to the ceiling, so that I could tackle what remained at a more advantageous angle (right to left and top to bottom) for my lack of arm strength.  Moving left to right or from the bottom forces a lot of use of my left arm and my triceps, which continue to be relatively weak, despite my weekly body blast classes.  I noticed more than ever how uneven the plaster is applied and I noticed that this was probably done to produce a smooth exterior surface on a wall that is far from flush.  The brick bulges in several places.  As a result, in some places, the plaster is over an inch thick.  In others, just a skim coat is on there.

The next weekend I'm able to work on it, I should be able to finish removing the plaster.  I need to finish taking my saw and cutting out the rest of the edges along the left wall and ceiling, and then I'll work right to left to finish those last pieces.

This weekend I also worked on picking the tile for my fireplace surround and securing a carpenter and tile person to complete the fireplace wall.

On the recommendation of my friend (and former boss), Allison, I went to the Earthstone Tile Works shop in South Philly.  They were great!  Tiffany and I looked through their samples, and I settled on a beautiful and colorful slate that I think meets all my criteria.  My criteria were:
- Cannot clash with the exposed brick or the french doors or the wood paneling that will surround it
- Cannot severely limit my options for paint color in the room
- Should be beautiful enough to be a focal point but not clash with the other elements in the room... my goal was to have it work with the rest of the room and promote a cozy, loving environment

(Picture of the tile chosen is in the album for this weekend).

Tiffany recommended a carpenter and her husband, Jason, will (hopefully) install the tile.  I reached out to both of them to stop by to provide me with estimates for their parts of the project.  Nate (carpenter) is going to come by tomorrow afternoon.  They are booking 3 months out at this point, so I won't have the completed fireplace and room as soon as I had hoped.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), we will still have many weeks of cold weather that could use a fire post-November, so I'm sure I'll get plenty of good use of the fireplace this winter after the whole project is complete.

I've also been researching and trying wood delivery options, so I'm prepared for that process, when everything is ready.

Chimney Work Day 2

Today Dan and Jeff returned to install the 12" chimney liner that would lead from the 1st floor fireplace to the roof and the damper and flue.  They also secured the gas lines in the 2nd and 3rd floors and capped off the shut off valves for now until I get the gas units installed.  I need to spread out the costs, so I split up the work this way, and I hope to get the 2nd and 3rd floor gas inserts installed in the September timeframe.

Here is the album of pictures from today.

Because there wasn't a lot of in and out - the guys were either on the roof or inside for relatively extended periods of time - I was able to let Elora out, and so she was much less upset with me.  I was also able to work from the 2nd floor without a lot of noise and was on a number of conference calls throughout the day.  (Yesterday, I had to opt out of one call, because of the hammer drill).

The day went really well.  The crew arrived at around 7:45am with the chimney liner and other materials to get the 1st floor fireplace into shape.  Most of the day they were up on the roof getting the liner in place, and then the second part of the day they were cementing in the liner at the bottom and securing the damper/flue from the top.

I also asked Dan to do a few more things with the 2nd and 3rd floor gas lines - such as cap them off, etc. - which he did.  He was joking with me asking if I thought my cat was going to open the lines.  I said I'm more worried about having children over who get curious.  :)

I'm really happy with the results so far and the guys do a great job of washing up after themselves.  It is really dirty work, but they always clean off the doors and floors and are very respectful.

The next step for the first floor will be to hire someone to help me with the tile/stone surround for the fireplace and potentially building a mantle.  I put a description into one company today.  If any of my readers knows of a good person in the Philly area who is strong with both carpentry and tile work, let me know!  That would be my ideal person for this job.

For the 2nd floor, the next step is that I need to choose my gas insert.  I am in between these two styles, but I'm strongly leaning towards the rocks.  What do you guys think?





For the 3rd floor I'm getting a coal basket insert.  There aren't many options for the super small coal burning fireplaces.  Don and I had one in our dining room at the Fitler house, and I liked it, so I think it will be nice in that room.  It just reminds me a bit of Scrooge eating his gruel :)

That's all for now!  This weekend I hope to work on my brick wall as much as I can, although I do have some fun plans for my birthday.  I have brunch with my friend Sherry on Saturday and I'm going to a concert with my friend Bryan on Sunday.

Chimney Work Day 1

I am working from home today and tomorrow while Hearth and Stove is here to work on repairing my front chimney and make it so that I will have 3 working fireplaces at the end of it.  The first floor will be a wood burning fireplace and the 2nd and 3rd floor front rooms will have vented gas units.  Here is the work that Hearth and Stove will be doing over Thursday and Friday:

• Place 3 liners into the front chimney - a large one for the 1st floor wood burning fireplace and 2 smaller ones to lead to the 2nd and 3rd floor gas units.
• Install and damper and flue for the 1st floor fireplace.
• Run gas lines from the basement to the 2nd and 3rd floor fireplaces with shut off valves, etc.
• Patch up anything they have to tear apart for the sake of install.

I was up bright and early to get the pets settled.  Jali went to Ruff Life (day care) for the day and Elora got to spend the day in the 3rd floor bathroom suite.  (She still hasn't forgiven me and peed about 12 times - all outside her very conveniently placed litter box).  

The guys arrived at around 7:30am as I was making coffee and they got to work.  Since we are on design #15 for the approach, we went over the work again, and once I was sure we were all on the same page, I left them to it and went to the 2nd floor office to work.  

So far, I'm really happy with the work.  Today they were able to run the gas lines and the 2 shut off valves.  They also measured the liners they need for the chimneys.  They guys are all great to work with.

I put more descriptions of the work itself in the album of pictures for today.  Some other cool things that happened today:

- When they did a review with me of the shut off valves, they didn't assume I didn't know what I was doing.  In fact they said, "I'm sure you know this from the work you are already doing here, but if the valve is a "T" to the pipe, it is off.", etc.   That means a lot to me.  It is hard to navigate these types of projects alone without people to bounce ideas off of or make sure I'm getting quality work.  I like to be respected.

- I ordered lunch for the guys, which to me was just what you do when you have a big crew working all day at your house.  I don't think this happened often, though, from their reaction.  They were so sweet and thankful!  I don't think I ordered enough though.  Tomorrow I'll get sandwiches.

- I have a neighbor at the end of the block who constantly tells me to let my husband take care of x, y, or z whenever she seems me doing anything manual.  I've told her at least 30 times I don't have a husband.  I'll tell her 30 more times, I'm sure.  I just smile.

Well... more tomorrow!  I'm not eager for the summer to be over.  I love the summer, and I haven't enjoyed near enough of this one.  But I am excited for fires this fall and winter!

Fireplace Design

I didn't get to work on my wall at all this weekend.  Saturday was the Stoltzfus family reunion and Sunday was too hot to allow me to turn off the A/C and work with the fan in the window.  Poor Jali and Elora would have overheated!  (But leaving on the A/C would have meant more dust circulating throughout the house).

So, I spent time working on my design for the wood paneled wall and the fireplace.

In this album it shows what I was able to uncover so far about the wall:
- Behind the wood wall there is a 6" fireplace surround made of what appears to be concrete.
- I was able to pry off the baseboard but there is a part to the wall that is one connected structure, and I'll need a carpenter involved to do this right.
- I found the code as to how much clearance is needed around the fireplace made of non-combustible materials.
- I cut out paper and taped it to the wall to give myself a visual of how much that is and therefore, approximately where the mantel would be built and how much space that would take up.

I then searched online for some examples of how I'd like the look of the fireplace to be.  Here are some examples that I pulled... probably not the final product but it gets to the general look.

1) The surround itself... My original thought was black marble, but I also found this more textured black stone that I think would look really sharp.  My one concern about the textured black stone is that it might clash with the similarly rough look of the brick on the opposite wall.  Then again - the shiny black marble tile may be too much of a contrast.  I need to spend some more time thinking about that.

Here are the samples I pulled:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/MS-International-Glacial-Black-Ledger-Panel-6-in-x-24-in-Natural-Marble-Wall-Tile-10-cases-60-sq-ft-pallet-LPNLMGLABLK624/205960155

http://www.homedepot.com/p/MS-International-Absolute-Black-12-in-x-12-in-Polished-Granite-Wall-Tile-5-sq-ft-case-THDINDBLK1212/202194774

http://www.homedepot.com/p/MS-International-Absolute-Black-3-4-in-x-12-in-Polished-Granite-Pencil-Moulding-Wall-Tile-THDW1-MP-BLA/100664327

2) The mantel... I found this picture online that is pretty close to the look I want (except the wood color would match the rest of the wall).

3) All of this should still allow for the existing sconce wiring to stay, except that I don't really like the sconces that are there now.  I'd like to find something like this to place them with, and they would frame the mantle.

http://www.uttermost.com/p-1009-galeana.aspx

I'm pretty happy with that design, and so now it is just a matter of seeing how it all unfolds and what the cost will be.  The chimney and fireplace people are going to do the work of repairing the front chimney and getting it lined and up to code on 7/30 and 7/31.  The plan is to make the first floor fireplace (the one featured in this post) a wood burning stove with its own liner and flue, etc.  The fireplaces in the two floors above that (in the bedrooms) will be converted to vented gas units.  The unit in the guest bedroom on the 2nd floor will have a gas insert with its own surround.  Something like this:  http://www.valorfireplaces.com/products/legendG35insert.php

The third floor bedroom (my bedroom) will have a coal basket unit.  Something like this (but without all the green and gold in the picture): http://www.gratefires.com/

After that work is done, I will work on getting a person in who can help with the wall work and surround and mantel.  In either case, by the fall, it should be a very "Kendra" room and a nice place to hang out and read or play a game with friends.  I plan to move the couch to the wall that will have the exposed brick and the chair to the little nook that is right around the corner to the left after coming in the front door.  I'll probably have a rug in the middle of the room, and possibly a table if I can find one of the proper size not to interfere with walking from the front door through to the rest of the house.  

Half Stripped and Other Dilemmas

This weekend I made good progress on the brick wall exposure.  I worked on it around 4 hours each of the weekend days - basically, until I could no longer open my hands anymore!

Here is how is looks as of now:

The wire brush step that comes after this one will scrub off most of the remaining mortar residue to give it a more clean look. Even so, the wall is far from perfect.  It bulges a little in places, it is multiple colors, and it has chips - some caused by my crow bar before I reverted 95% to the chisel and hammer method and some preexisting.  All of this just makes me like it more.  There is something very bold, refreshing, and honest about exposed brick, particularly in old buildings.  It wasn't laid with the assumption it would be visible in the future.  It shows the true nature of how it was fashioned and how it changed with age.

I like being able to view it as I come down the stairs from the second floor.  I can already start to picture how it will transform that room.

Another thing that will transform the room is the wood burning fireplace that I'm planning.  The Hearth and Stove people came again last Thursday to provide another estimate.  What I'm planning is for a wood burning fireplace in the first floor and then vented gas units in each of the two bedrooms above it.  There is a second chimney in the house with 2 fireplaces, but I am not planning to do work on those for now.  That chimney was torn down and would be even more expensive to restore.  The problem with my plan is that the previous owners installed wood paneling all around the fireplace and a TV above it.  A few things:
1) The wood and crown molding is very nice, but not really me, and I think it fights with the exposed brick wall I'm making for focal point status.  I do like the bookcases - just not the middle part, and I'm curious as to what is behind there.
2) I took down the TV to do my wall project but there is a bunch of wiring installed behind the paneling for easy hook up of a variety of things.  Tim is coming on Thursday.  We'll celebrate his birthday with dinner and then I'll ask him to look at the A/V install and give some advice on how we could move that.  I'm thinking a small TV in the kitchen where I could watch morning news or evening news while making meals would be better.
3) Per code, I'll need about a foot of clearance around the fireplace opening.

I'm hoping some of the space behind the panels is hollow.  I can build a wood storage area and space for games storage if so.

Any ideas are welcome!

Here is a picture of the wall I am referring to and a close up of the fireplace.  I really like the iron panels in there.

Here is a link to the whole album from the weekend:  Wall Progress 2015.07.11 - 12 & Fireplace Project

Wall Progress over the 4th of July

As of this evening, I'd estimate I'm about 1/4 of the way complete with getting the plaster off the brick.  Chances are that I just repressed past memories of this task, but this seems a lot more slow going than when I did it before.  I attribute this to two things (in addition to probably repression).  1) Only the bottom part of the wall seems to have the proper base code + top coat that actually came away pretty easily.  The rest of the wall so far is horse hair plaster - no lath - that is seriously stuck on there.  2)  The brick isn't in amazing shape, and I don't want to further damage it with a bunch of sledge hammer whacks.  So, most of what I've gotten off so far has been chisel and hammer work.  All in all, very meticulous and slow.

One the plaster is all removed, I'll have several more steps:

• Scrubbing the wall several times with wire brushes (should be the last very messy and dusty step).
• Repairing cracks and missing mortar.
• Sponging the wall several times.
• Sealing the wall.

The good news is that the dust containment system continues to work well, and so I think even if the project takes me quite a while to do, I won't have to live with dust all over the house.  The plaster stripping tasks will likely have to be restricted to weekend afternoons, since it is very noisy, and neighbors share that wall.  The other steps aren't very noisy, so I can work on those after work, if need be.

I've also been making a concerted effort to keep all of my tools and my work area clean each day - even if that means stopping a little earlier so I have time to thoroughly sweep up everything, take the bags of plaster out back, and vacuum with the shop vac.  I wash all of my work clothes - including my sneakers - each time, and I clean my glasses and respirator each night.  I'm hoping that these things and keeping my projects small will allow me to handle things without getting overwhelmed with dust or the feeling of being too much in construction.

Here is the progress on 7/4 and 7/5 from this weekend.  I'll pick this up again next weekend!

Progress on 7/4 and 7/5

Operation "Make This My Home"

I bought this house in November, 2014.

Before Pictures of House

It is an incredibly charming 3.5 story house + basement in Old City.  It was built in 1894, which is 4 years later than the house Don and I had in Fitler's Square.  Unlike that neighborhood in the late 1800's, though, this one was on the seedier side at the time.  There were pawn shops about a block away, and the houses were very small without plumbing.  (If you've been in my house, the entire 1/3 of the house in the back where my kitchen is and the 2 bathrooms were not originally part of the house).  The house has 2 chimneys and 5 fireplaces.  I have it on my list of projects to make at least 3 of them functioning again - one wood burning and 2 gas.  It didn't need any work when I moved in, but there were elements that just weren't very me - particularly on the first floor.  So, now that I've had a few years away from dust and house projects, I've decided to start again on operation "Make This My Home."

My first project that I'm tackling is among the most messy... I'm going to expose a brick wall in my first floor sitting room area by removing the plaster.

Chapter 1: Back to Home Depot (a.k.a. I have no tools anymore!)
When I moved out of the Fitler's Square house, I thought Don and I did a very fair job of splitting things up and he certainly allowed me to come back multiple times for things I had forgotten.  However, I definitely didn't take that many tools at all!  I didn't even have a respectable hammer, and I am pretty sure I took my pink tool belt at least, but I can't locate that either. :(

So, on Thursday, I placed an online order for store pickup at Home Depot to get everything I thought I'd need for my wall exposure project.

Here is the haul (although the shop vac is borrowed from a friend):

(By the way, I love in store pickup.  It saved me several hours, and I didn't spend time aimlessly wandering the aisles looking for obscure items on my list and buying another 30 pack of paper towels that I thought I needed).

Most of today was spent in getting my tools and prepping my area.  This part took approximately 5 hours.  First, I had to move everything from the room to the basement.  Then, I also had to move the A/V equipment, including my internet modem and my Xbox (source to watch Game of Thrones) to the third floor TV.  Let me take a moment to pat myself on the back.  I am not gifted in the area of audio visual.  Thankfully, Tim is my friend, and he generally takes care of those needs for me.  However, he lives about 45 minutes away.  I'm very pleased to report that I managed to get it all hooked up myself!!!  I have internet, XBox, Cable, and Wireless.  This alone was a huge enough accomplishment to me to just call it a day... but I didn't.

Now to getting the work area ready.  The worst part of home improvement is the dust.  I purchased the zip pole system and a fan for the window and enough plastic to wrap the world in to keep the dust out of the rest of the house.  It actually worked really well!  

I spent three hours chipping away at the plaster.  In the end I had about a 3 foot by 3 foot area completed.  My hands are not in crow bar shape yet, but they will get there.  It feels good to be using my arms more again.

Here is my album of the progress so far today.  I'm trying to get as much done this weekend as I can, because it appears my neighbors who share that wall are away for the holiday.  We'll see how much is possible.  Plaster removal can be slow going.  It kind of parallels any struggle in life.  Sometimes you give it a solid whack with a crow bar and the wall doesn't budge.  Sometimes you take a tiny chisel and an eight inch square section falls off.  This is very Zen work.

Project Pictures