Destruction is pretty!
May. 20th, 2014 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vicarzI thought I was going to shut up about my house while the work took place.
I woke up early enough to rush downtown, park near my house, and at a glance I knew the work had begun; the broken front light was hanging by the wires again, the basement gate that doesn’t lock was open, and there were dumpster sized no parking signs out. Oh, and a window full of permits! I'm legit! I went inside, there was still elec, and oh. Mi. Gawd. So happy.
The main floor bathroom is already completely gone down to the studs, including the ceiling. I can see the source of the leaning ceiling clearly now - it appears the upper bathroom leaked for years and damaged the joists - bad, and they were repaired - also badly. Someone just nailed more wood to the sides; not exactly sistering a joist (I think that’s the term). So the stacked bathrooms both had water damage, that destroyed wood, and in each case they did a shitty job on the repair which allowed the house to sag there. However, decision to gut the house? 100% muddafuggin win I think, because the fact you can see the joists means it’s easy to identify the problem and remedy it, or so me and my wallet hope.
YES master bedroom has an obvious bricked up window...why why why? Totally restoring that, totally not a big deal. Exciting!? The side wall is my neighbor’s outside wall! You can see the original metal doohickeys! Sadly the original builders chiseled through it to make a trench that was probably for a gas line (gas line is still there and capped). Hey wait a minute, is that a good idea to use their wall as my wall? But the real venture, again, were the joists - they are fuxored really bad. One of them looks like it was on friggin fire, but I suspect it was just under a leak and rotted. Heck maybe bugs ate it. But overall a lot of the joists in the ceiling look asstastic and poorly repaired. My decision regarding blowing up the ceiling seems like a no-brainer now that I see there are no joists worth saving between the water, broken and stapled back together, and other poor condition things buried there in the wall.
I can't explain the hole in the closet, looks like they patched a plaster section with drywall, but why? Oh oh oh and the mystery door to nowhere is now exposed! Welcome back door - no more ghosts walking into what looks like a wall!
Another decision taken away from me is the back bedroom master closet - the door and frame are gone, so I’m far more inclined to put in a full closet than keep the corner closet which really was just to hide pipes.
I should keep in mind joist repairs are going to increase the cost, but given I knew about a structural problem ... and let me reflect for a second: One reason I wanted this contractor was he was the only one who instantly spotted that, and talked about possible causes and remedies.
Day 1 and I feel doubly .like my choices were the right ones. Only many months to go!
I woke up early enough to rush downtown, park near my house, and at a glance I knew the work had begun; the broken front light was hanging by the wires again, the basement gate that doesn’t lock was open, and there were dumpster sized no parking signs out. Oh, and a window full of permits! I'm legit! I went inside, there was still elec, and oh. Mi. Gawd. So happy.
The main floor bathroom is already completely gone down to the studs, including the ceiling. I can see the source of the leaning ceiling clearly now - it appears the upper bathroom leaked for years and damaged the joists - bad, and they were repaired - also badly. Someone just nailed more wood to the sides; not exactly sistering a joist (I think that’s the term). So the stacked bathrooms both had water damage, that destroyed wood, and in each case they did a shitty job on the repair which allowed the house to sag there. However, decision to gut the house? 100% muddafuggin win I think, because the fact you can see the joists means it’s easy to identify the problem and remedy it, or so me and my wallet hope.
YES master bedroom has an obvious bricked up window...why why why? Totally restoring that, totally not a big deal. Exciting!? The side wall is my neighbor’s outside wall! You can see the original metal doohickeys! Sadly the original builders chiseled through it to make a trench that was probably for a gas line (gas line is still there and capped). Hey wait a minute, is that a good idea to use their wall as my wall? But the real venture, again, were the joists - they are fuxored really bad. One of them looks like it was on friggin fire, but I suspect it was just under a leak and rotted. Heck maybe bugs ate it. But overall a lot of the joists in the ceiling look asstastic and poorly repaired. My decision regarding blowing up the ceiling seems like a no-brainer now that I see there are no joists worth saving between the water, broken and stapled back together, and other poor condition things buried there in the wall.
I can't explain the hole in the closet, looks like they patched a plaster section with drywall, but why? Oh oh oh and the mystery door to nowhere is now exposed! Welcome back door - no more ghosts walking into what looks like a wall!
Another decision taken away from me is the back bedroom master closet - the door and frame are gone, so I’m far more inclined to put in a full closet than keep the corner closet which really was just to hide pipes.
I should keep in mind joist repairs are going to increase the cost, but given I knew about a structural problem ... and let me reflect for a second: One reason I wanted this contractor was he was the only one who instantly spotted that, and talked about possible causes and remedies.
Day 1 and I feel doubly .like my choices were the right ones. Only many months to go!
