Carpentry/Structure

Pulling out a chimney today…over the kitchen. Long ago it was taken down to the roofline. The mortar they used then was just lime and sand…it tends to lose the lime over the years and just turn to powder. About … Continue reading →

Our 1860′s commercial building on the square needs some tinkering on the roof. Mostly I just need to get up there and fix a few issues, then do some annual maintenance. It’s time to get started. Step the one: Access … Continue reading →

Me and my friend Mike spent part of the weekend crawling around under my Mom’s new (old) house with a sawzall (otherwise known as “destructor of worlds”). This house is not as old as the Old Vic, but dates back … Continue reading →

Y’all might recall I installed a new hole a couple weeks ago (here). This weekend, my friend Mike and I did the door casement (step 1). (thanks Mike!) Finally, we are working in the kitchen and the finish up of … Continue reading →

Okay, I installed a new hole today. Here’s the new door from the kitchen to the mud/utility rooms. Well, the hole for the door anyway. Got the sawz-all (destructor of worlds) out and presto! Little bit of blood, a couple … Continue reading →

I ripped out the kitchen door today. A Stanley Wonderbar and a screwdriver. I swear I could take apart the entire city with just those. I’m taking a sawzall to the wall tomorrow. Bigger antique French doors going in! Eight … Continue reading →

Go for it, you gotta set the pace and work. Okay, a line from a song I like. From a strange movie I like. (shrugs). Anyway, in keeping with our newly found 2011 Tradition of having absolutely no money whatsoever … Continue reading →

I had not intended on doing any roof work on this house myself. I’ve done roofs. I don’t like it. Under the best conditions…and even if you are in the best shape, it is hard, brutal, knee and back bruising … Continue reading →

Yet more electrical work. Not much to show…as in “interesting pictures”. Basically I’ve been crawling through attics trailing yellow wire all behind me like some sort of giant mutant spider. *shudder* On second thought…strike that mental image…I do NOT want … Continue reading →

At what point does a house become a home? For us, and this house, it felt like home before we bought it…but that’s not really it. We still are using a lot of the furniture that came with it. Some … Continue reading →

From this: There be DOORS here! The 3 inches of rain Saturday night and Sunday got in the way so I haven’t done the weather stripping or threshold yet…and I don’t have any door knob hardware…but by golly…DOORS! We’ve got … Continue reading →

Sooo…window trimmed in…siding up…you’ll notice the bottom glass is clean…SO clean in fact, that air hose and extension cord pass right through it! (a situation I’ll possibly correct next weekend). I WILL have the French doors mounted next weekend… CUAgain, … Continue reading →

#title “Operation Cover Up–The Sequel” After much soul-searching, chasing moths out of my wallet, and other advanced avoidance techniques, we determined what we knew all along. The only right thing to side the utility room wall with was the round … Continue reading →

It’s like something right out of the seedy side of life. The kind of thing respectable (heh heh) people like me shouldn’t be involved in… Yeah, we paid money…a great deal of it…to acquire the merchandise and have it shipped … Continue reading →

Y’all may recall the utility room wall…badly constructed and falling out of this otherwise VERY solid house…that we had to rebuild. We are relocating the window and door whilst we are at it. Linky-thing Purists will be overjoyed that we … Continue reading →

Alternate title: “Destruction, mayhem, windows.” Oooookayyy…a bit of a LONG overdue update here…sorry about that. Several things happened to put the window project on a back shelf. 1) I got the sills/etc rebuilt and water tight. 2) The worst window … Continue reading →

Y’all might recall the last post…where I stated in no uncertian terms that “The Shed Must Die”. Well…it’s mostly dead. I was deep into killing it but had to stop when the alert level was raised to DefCon “KillMaimBuzz”. Hell … Continue reading →

On the agenda this weekend…the shed must die. Destroying this: I will be SO glad to see that thing gone… Gonna start a deck in it’s place, so we can enter/exit by way of the new French doors…then I can … Continue reading →

Yeah…the year is fading away quickly. I looked at the calendar and said something like, “August! What the heck? GHAAAAAAAAAAA!” Anyway, “Getting near the end of the year” triggered some sort of “I’ve got to get this done” reflex… That … Continue reading →

Sooo… We have this Sunroom you see… At some time in past generations one of the windows was removed and AC was installed: Now, I can’t blame them…here in Texas…and especially in east Texas…without AC you would simply burst into … Continue reading →

Much flailing about with destructive implements occurred this weekend. Y’all might remember this second kitchen thing…it was carved out of an old screened-in porch or mudroom. Plans call for it to be a utility/mud room but back with the rest … Continue reading →

The Sun Room…soon to be my art studio…was on the agenda this again this weekend. Seems we’re having guests for the Arts Festival *NEXT* weekend and needed two operable guest rooms. “Operable” here means a place to sleep, a bit … Continue reading →

Interesting weekend! Between 6 and 8 inches of rain fell in 24 hours…Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. This is, of course, because I really, desperately, needed to mow the grass. I even had the mower key with me this time! … Continue reading →

The Sun Room…soon to be my art studio…was on the agenda this weekend. The ceiling was covered in 1×1 foot fiber ceiling tiles, circa 1960′s I would guess. One section had water damage, and the rest, even though there was … Continue reading →

Imagine this…show up at your local “Homeowner Hell” big box home improvement store and ask for one of these: “Yes, I’d like a 16 foot long, one inch thick, and none of that 3/4 inch means 1 inch crap…I want … Continue reading →

Alternate title: “Destruction, mayhem, windows.” One side effect of rebuilding the window sills… In this picture… …All the fish-scale that the paint is scraped off of…was loose from the wall. It had been repaired over the years with short roofing … Continue reading →

Alternate title: “Destruction, mayhem, windows.” Y’all may recall about 6 weeks ago I headed upstairs to pull two sashes (the worst in the house) and begin the rebuild process. Of course, I ended up with a 5′x7′ hole in the … Continue reading →

Alternate title: “Destruction, mayhem, windows.” Well, after two weekend’s work, $26 worth of lumber, the jigsaw puzzle from hell, $1500 worth of tools (two nail-guns and at least 5 different power-saws were involved), well, I’m right back where I started…about … Continue reading →

Alternate title: “Destruction, mayhem, windows.” So, at the top of our stairs are a set of three windows. There’s an extra wall in the way of course…doesn’t belong…will be removed later…but gotta build a stairway banister first, etc… Anyway, these … Continue reading →

This was a project I was eager to tackle…simply because it’s the most obvious “blemish” on the house, AND it is causing further damage while it sits un-repaired. This project has it all. Good food, good friends (Hi Mike!), an … Continue reading →

In 1922 the owners created a couple extra closets and effectively split the house in half by walling off a segment of the hallway. This covered the door from the dining room to the hall (that became one of the … Continue reading →