Stair Reconstruction Day 2&3- Look mom! No walls!!!!!!!

It is great when you start a project and you have an idea of  what you "think" it would look like but then the finish product is better than you could  thought it would. That is my thoughts about the stair project.  I love open floor plans! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE Them! and what I hated the most about the farmhouse was the chopped up feeling of the house but that is NOT the case now. WOW!!! I am blown away how different the  feel of the house is now.

The second day the Gitter Done guys took out the second and third load bearing wall with a recessed header. I was pretty animate about the header being recessed because I did not want the "box" running the length of the ceiling. I want the ceiling being as close as level as it can be. 

And all these guys are suppose to be doing is roughing in the stairs. I will not look finished because I asked them to leave the rest for me to finish.

Also, the BFF and I cut an electrical line..........ONE LINE...... THAT IS IT I SWEAR........and now the whole upstairs does not have electricity. Whoops! Shit happens. Oh well, I need to run better service up there anyway.

So here is the two days in pictures!

 DAY 2

Taking out the 2nd and 3rd load bearing wall one stud at a time.

Remember ass scratching? 

Sistering in the joists. 

New joists!! They look awesome!!!!

Here is some serious stringer building!

DAY 3

Even the dogs are loving it!

Beginning of the new staircase

Starting to come together

NASA, We have lift off.

Awesome-ness!!!!!!!

These stringers are for the basement stairs

They will go in this big hole:

I will end this with the infamous Finn, very relaxed among the building materials. He is laying on some flipped back carpeting. 

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Stair Reconstruction Day 1- What the hell was I thinking?

This is going to be a super quick blog post. Just to keep everyone updated on the progress. I think it is pretty straight forward.

Temporary walls necessary to keep the upstairs..  upstairs.

My buddy is thinking.................................... A lot of ass head scratching going on here. 

More ass scratching............

Things are looking up. I mean, I am looking up.

At the end of the day when you take your steps out and replace them with a ladder your second floor then becomes a tree house! At least that is what my son says.

No, this is NOT my DeWalt Saw. I have a Mikita, thank you very much.

Stair Demo ~ Day 2

Day 1- Saturday's Recap

I was in such a hurry to get my blog up yesterday I forgot to mention a few things. First of all my BFF came out and helped and so did my son Big L so I wasn't all by myself. I really didn't go into a lot of detail about how Day 1 ended but  here it is:

• Saturday night I didn't have any TV because the cable wire was taken out and the whole entertainment center was relocated. I could care less about TV.

•  I had to take the thermostat out and relocate it but I didn't have enough 18/5 wire so I opted to not have heat. ** I do have a BIG wood burning stove so this is not as bad as it sounds.

• But here is the biggie: I had to disconnect the phone lines leaving me NO INTERNET!!!!!  Come on, TV and heat are one thing but no internet???? Whats a girl to do? 

So after the demo on Superbowl Sunday BFF and Big L got my stuff hooked up because life sucks with out the internet. I should have got my butt in gear and cleaned my house because it looks like a bomb went off in here.

Day 2- Sunday-Putting together a puzzle

Look at the picture below. What do you see? 

A) A bunch of dust particles.

B) Studs

C) A thermostat wire dangling with no thermostat hooked it thus no heat 

D) A hidden window

ANSWER: All of the above but the answer I was looking for was  D. A hidden window. Dust and bad lighting does not make for good  pictures but there is a 2x4 scabbed in there in the middle that you cannot see here. AND there is 2 separate walls side by side. All the evidence leads me to believe that this house was really two separate houses that were put together and whoever did that did not "marry" them very good. So I am going to be on a fact finding mission this week to try to figure out. I got a few people I can talk to and there is always the super fun court house! I will be letting everyone know what I find out.

So on the second demo day I took out this closet: Yes, that is clapboard on the inside of said closet.

Then it turned into this. I cannot believe what a mess one little closet can make. I am sure going to miss this closet. :-(

And here are all the pretty wall papers we go to enjoy during the demo. I actually have the green still upstairs and I liked the primitive blue with pink stars:

What era this comes from is anyone's guess. 

Something good did come out of this. I have a big wood burning stove in the living room and now that we opened everything up it heats the whole downstairs quite nicely and when you are talking about LP (Propane) at $1.90 a gallon it is a welcome surprise.

I called the Gitter Done boys this morning and Joe is going to stop out and make me a material list and WE are going to go get it. He said that he wants to pick out the header material himself. I guess me being the drywall queen doesn't qualify me to pick out 2x12's. I am going quit while I am ahead on this subject.


I am home today with a sick goat and still cleaning up the mess from the weekend. I swear there is an inch of dust EVERYWHERE! Maybe if I put out a sign that says, "FREE DIRT" someone stop and help me.

Stair Demo~ Day 1

I have to start out by saying: I HATE DEMO WORK. Hate, hate, hate it! And here is what I love: People on DIY shows grabbing a sledge hammer, smiling for the camera, then they start beating the crap out of a wall. SO HAPPY about tearing stuff up. What the hell is wrong with these people? Here is what we are not seeing, a whole crew coming behind them cleaning up the aftermath because yesterday we filled up not one, not two but THREE full sized pickup truck boxes full of stuff. And let me tell you, that stuff don't grow legs and get itself out  to the truck. In my defense, I only said complained twice about doing demo because I felt anymore than that would be misconstrued as me being a whiny bitch. (Yes, I can be bitchy about demo)

So let the fun begin!

Dining Room-on the west side of the stairs

Dining Room Before

Dining Room Before

Dining Room Before- Yellow door is the door going up the steps, door on right is a closet

Dining Room Before

A dust filled during shot

Dining room after- yes that is a corn shovel.

Dining room after. You can see the living room through the door.

The Dreaded Staircase with all its paneling 

Staircase Before

Staircase during

Staircase after

The Living Room

The living room before looking to the left. I started the demo before I remembered to take pics. Duh!

The living room before looking to the right.

Living room during. That garbage needs to start growing some legs!

Living room after! 

 Round 2 starts today and I should have a better blog post tomorrow! Sorry about all the dust pics.

Also, I will have a theory of how this house was built based on what we found..........teaser!

A Trash Bin for Finn!

This Blog is Dedicated to Finn

"HI! My name is Finn and I am addicted to getting in the garbage. So much my human decided that she needed to build this from Ana White:

Trash Bin by Ana White

When I started reading DIY blogs it seemed everybody (but me) had a Kreg pocket hole joiner. Everyone RAVED about their Kreg Jig! And I all I would see when I was reading was "OMG! My Kreg Jig" blah, blah, blah....... "Makes the best pocket holes" blah, blah, blah...... "I can make cabinets" blah, blah, blah..... and as I was rolling my eyes i was thinking what the hell is the big deal? 

Then it happened! I got a Kreg Jig For Christmas!! (thank you kids for all the Lowes gift cards to allow me to buy this) OMG! This it the best this since Rice Crispy Treats! It is amazing! It is a  must have for every workshop! As you can see my children bought my the MASTER SYSTEM and an extra case of screws to go with it. Wow. How thoughtful of them, huh?

When you get your Kreg Jig it comes with something called instructions. let me clarify that instructions are merely someone else's opinion of how to do something. I did use the Quick-Start Guide, however, I did not watch the Skill Builder DVD. I got skills..............

Instructions. May or may not be important

As you can see, I am off and running. You can tell because my workbench is a mess. This is what the Kreg Jig looks like set up on the new handy-dandy workbench..

Below is the pocket holes I just drilled! 

Now here is the carcase. What you can't hardly see is I mess up putting the bottom in. The pocket holes are exposed and they should have been on the bottom side of  of the cabinet, not the top where you can see them. Oh well, live and learn! Also, when you are joining two pieces together to need to clamp them so you don't knock your product out of square.

Here is the puttied up complete cabinet ready for paint. I hate painting. I thought I would throw that out there. And yes that  is a tarp on my kitchen table because it is so much fun bringing everything in where it is warm and I don't have run a kerosene torpedo heater to avoid freezing to death.

And here is final product! I used bead board on the door for more of a "farm house" look. I love it!

And Look!  Finn is trying to figure it out! Yes, he can stand and rest his chin on the table. He is that big.

 Starting this weekend I will be doing demo on the old steps because they are coming to put the header in and the new steps. So I might be MIA for a while. I guess I could take pics of me tearing stuff up. Yeah, that sounds good! It will be fun strolling down the '70s memory lane with all the paneling I will be removing and you can go too!