Adventures in Remuddling

Closed today on our home. Woohoo!

As we signed our life away to the bank, our attorney quipped “Have you heard of the Golden Rule? The one who has the gold, makes the rules.”

The first night, we made one of our many trips to Home Depot.

Continue reading “Day 1″ »

This past weekend was very productive, as the 2nd bathroom got gutted, except for the tub. The tub is cast-iron and I’ll need some help breaking that up (or maybe I’ll have a go at it later in the week). I must thank my parents for coming up and helping this weekend. It would have taken much longer without them.

So, my 3 most favorite (and most used) tools for demolition are:

Continue reading “Day 10″ »

We care about the environment and prefer not to fill up landfills. Having said that, tearing out two bathrooms creates a lot of trash. Tile over drywall over plaster over lathes! For the record, Tig did not want a dumpster. Our conversation went something like this:

Me “Did you call around some dumpster places?”

Tig “Yeah, I got some prices, but I don’t think we need it.”

Me, “I think we should get one. We’ve got two bathrooms to tear down.”

Tig, “Don’t worry. I’ll just take it out with the trash.”

Continue reading “Ode to Dumpster” »

Weather. I used to say I missed weather, like seasons, etc. Living in California, there was only 1.5 seasons (the 1/2 season being when it rains). Now I am reconsidering.

In construction, you run out of space to put supplies, wood, etc. So outdoors space becomes critical. When it rains, sensitive items need to be covered. The dumpster however …

Continue reading “Day 12″ »

I thought this would be an easy restful weekend. All I needed to do was to organize, clean up and prepare for the plumber, electrician, and carpenter coming in the following week.

It started Saturday with a drizzle. But then came the rain, more rain, then buckets full of rain, until governor Mitt Romney declared a state of emergency (on Sunday). At first we noticed a couple of small leaks in the attic.

Continue reading “Weekend 3″ »

I asked my dad to research locks for our new home in preparation for my parent’s visit. He did his homework before mom and dad came on Saturday night, and picked a Grade 3 brand of locks from one of the big home improvement stores. On Monday, several contractors showed up to work on our home. Throughout the day I would pass by the first unit kitchen and hear:

Tap, Tap

pause, think

Continue reading “Slow-Li changing the locks” »

Thank goodness for mom!

Continue reading “Supermom” »

It takes a team to renovate a home. Here’s a rundown of who’s who:

Haitham - Tig’s renovations mentor. Haitham is an electrician by training, but he also does general contracting. Right now, he is renovating a 6 unit condo building in Dorchester . Our home is one of several side jobs he has. Haitham looks like a typical contractor.

Continue reading “The Cast of Characters” »

I can’t believe 4 weekends have already past by. Saturday morning was spent installing the mail slot into the front door. The home has a front door that leads into a small room with 2 other doors. Each one of those doors goes into each unit (one upstairs, one on the 1st floor). The previous owner had the front door with a door knob, but no locks. Only each unit’s doors had locks. One of Serena’s dad’s job was to update the locks, and while he was at it, he installed a lock on the main front door. This led to a small dilemma of the mail, as mail was usually left in the small rooom.

So we bought a mail slot. After I cut the hole, with a template from the mail slot manufacturer, I realized the mail slot did not fit properly (they created the template upside down - those #$%^@#$%).

Continue reading “Weekend 4″ »

It could have been worse.

Today I had to make three trips to a large well known home improvement store. On one of those trips I bought sound board (a fibrous material that’s about 3/4″ thick designed to absorb sound). Since our master bedroom is adjacent to the bathroom, we wanted to soundproof the bathroom a little.

Continue reading “Sound Board Disaster” »