House Renovation

One fun renovation project we recently had was a put on hold for a little while that was at least until our insurance company came along and gave us the inspiration to finish it up. We had an old wood burning fireplace in our computer room...now we had no intentions of using it but there were a number of upgrades that had to be put in place if we intended to keep our insurance policy. I came up with this idea to rip out the wood burning fireplace and replace it with a new electric fireplace, we got an awesome deal $20 for the fireplace insert as teh glass was broken in the front and the wood surround was scrap wood from my work. If I had gotton all the work done to the other fireplace I would have been over 1000.00 to get everything fixed so I thought I was doing a very economical solution, in the spring we are going to add some tile over the wood surround to finish up the look.

Renovation heaven

I have been having a lot of fun working on renovations around the house, right now we are working on minor cosmetic things. We live in an older house and some of the doors are pretty antique so we are modernizing those right now. It also gives us the opportunity to replace the crappy old molding around them at the same time with some great thick molding we found at the depot. It makes such a differance with just a little work, we also took the chance to go a little bigger with the doors which also makes a differance. I will be working on a more difficult project soon we want to build some extra cabinets in our kitchen and have them match up to what we already have, it should be great challange.

More renovation Projects

I spend yesterday working on renovation projects around the house, we got the parts to hook up our outdoor plug and worked on molding around the doors. It was a pretty productive day, tommorrow a plumber is supposed to be coming to remove an old water heater in our bedroom so we can finish up the walls and floor hopefully next week. I am working all weekend so I won't be able to get much done for the next couple of days.

Summer is here

It was a long winter and spring was nothing much to talk about. I can honestly say that yesterday and today have both been the most beautiful days yet. I spent the morning getting some renovations done and then it was off to work. There is nothing worse then heading off to work at noon on a beautiful sunny day and lots of things to keep me busy if I was home but I have to work, that 's life. Tomorrow is looking like rain but hopefully on Thursday my day off the sun and warm weather will return.

The renovation is in full gear

We went out last night and got all kinds of supply for our renovation of our new bedroom. We got new doors for the entrance way and for the closet, 3 new lights, some electrical supply for some plugs. Of course new door knobs so the front and back match. It's nice this morning so I will be out to get a coat of paint on the front door in a couple of minutes

The rec room renovation

We are still working on the rec room renovation, progress is coming along slowly but we are seeing the potential of having a real room in there. I finished putting the last of the sheet rock up last night and began taping and mudding. I went onto hometime website and got all the information on how to do the project right the first time. I know you may say what a man going for instructions, I really had to look it up and make sure it was done right as I have never attempted doing this project before. It's going good, lots of aches and pains at night after working at it but it will be worth when it is finished. I'll update with more pictures as we finish up more, I hope to be able to put a coat of primer on by the weekend but we will see.

rec room renovation

Well over the weekend we re-framed in my work room, cut it approximately in 1/2 as it jetted into our new rec room too much. Luckily we hadn't done anything other than frame it in so it wasn't too bad to re-do. I decided to buy some sheet rock today so I can get it in place, once that's done my wife won't ask me to re-frame it again. Once the kiddie's are off to bed I will be down getting the walls up. I haven't done this before so it should be a fun learning experience.

Just call me Mr. Fix it

Well I have offically spent my weekend learning a new trade...plumbing... mind you I had the most awesome coach in the world...my wife Carebear. Yesterday I spent the day installing a new vanity in our upstairs bathroom. This bathroom is very cramped for space and my wife really didn't like the look of the old sink...me being brilliant at times suggested we put a vanity in the space...space well if you call a space 22" by 14" space. We were shopping one day and we found a vanity 22" by 12" well home it came. It was certainly a challange to get it in place because of the pipe for the heater invades my 22" by 14" space so I had to make some cuts in the new vanity. All was going very well until I got the vanity in place to find out Oops it is 2" higher than the old sink so out to Home Hardware we went to get new pipes. It's probably a good thing because as I learnt through Joe at the store I really needed a trap in the pipe anyway he showed me what I would need sold me all the supplies... accept some plumbing tape... which I found out I needed later and off home we went. At this point I'm thinking I'm getting in over my head but there really wasn't any turning back so I just soldiered on...thinking well our projects always work out in the end so it'll be o.k. I got into the pipe cutting and glueing and by the end of the night my project was done. It really is exciting to know with a little patience and a good coach us men can tackle just about any project. Today we moved onto the kitchen taps after all my experience yesterday this job was a breeze and it only took about an hour start to finish.

Before Vanity...

...After Vanity

A Helping Hand

I recently had some much needed assistance with my home renovation projects when my Father/Mother in law came for a visit. It was fun to have another male perspective to bat ideas off of when we were working on things. I also found it very relaxing when I was able to mess up enough that he took over one of my jobs and I got to sit back and watch the seasoned repair man work. I learned one very important tip... have real screwdrivers... I usually only use screw driver bits but my Father in law being a bit more traditional was asking me for a red handled screwdriver etc etc... I was lost when it came to that... I will add a set of traditional screw drivers to my Santa list and see what happens. We sure got lots of work done and I am certainly getting another to do list ready for his next visit to keep him busy.

2 out of 3 aint' bad

Well some successes, I managed to get the electrical plugs changed in the kitchen with some help from Blake(son) and John(father in law) that project wasn't too bad. We moved onto the washer and dryer, 3 trips to the hardwares stores later and many hours the washer and dryer are moved. I even sent a load through to test out our handy work and to our surprise it washed...it dried and there were no puddles of water on the floor. I'm sure Carrie (wife) is so excited to finally have them moved (after a month of asking). Too bad it is too late in the day to start the garage...maybe tommorrow I will get onto that. It is now time to move onto the BBQ and have some marshmellow's around the fire pit later. I should be able to sleep good tonight.