Another Inspection Under Our Belts

After all the work we did over the Thanksgiving week, we originally were not going to go back up again until Christmas.  But then Mike decided that it would be a good idea to get our next inspection completed so we would be ready to install the drywall over his Christmas break.  We thought we would leave after Mike got off work on Friday, meet the inspector in the afternoon and then spend the rest of the weekend enjoying Payson.  We contacted the inspector and found out he does not work Friday afternoons and already had a late morning appointment.  Mike still thought it was a good idea to have the inspection done, so he took off from work for the day and we scheduled an appointment with the inspector for 9am.

Since we were going to be there early on Friday, we called Waste Matters, the company who provides our roll-off unit, and asked them to pick up our full trash bin.  Over the Thanksgiving week, we filled it almost to the top with the windows and siding.  We still needed to have a trash bin on site for the drywall work, but found it would be cheaper to get the next smaller size as there is no tonnage charge per pick-up.  We scheduled for them to arrive later in the morning for the pick-up and delivery.

To save heating costs for one night, we drove up to Payson early Friday morning to be there in time for our 9am appointment.  We got to the house at 8:40am and our inspector had just pulled up.  He mostly reviewed the changes that had been requested in the previous inspection and then told us we were ready for the drywall.  The whole process took about fifteen minutes and yielded no problems - Yeah!

After unloading the car, we had extra time before Waste Matters was due to arrive, so we took the opportunity to take apart the old partial wood fence between our house and the neighbor on our east side.  The fence was mostly falling down and the wood was in bad shape.  We are not sure why it was there as the chain link fence that separated the yards was in fine shape.  We were able to dismantle the whole fence and get the wood into the dumpster just as the guy arrived to pick it up.  The replacement dumpster arrived about an hour later.  It looks more like the kind you would see at a business or apartment complex.  They didn't think they could get it in our back yard as the dump truck that picks up is wider than the delivery truck, but we wanted it secured to avoid other people using it (which apparently is a big problem in Payson as trash pickup is a separate service and pretty expensive).  After pruning a couple of branches from our juniper tree, they were able to drop the can behind the gate and the dump truck was able to get to it.  That was the end of our work for the weekend.

The dilapidated fence was an eyesore

The whole fence just topped off the dumpster

The view is much better with the fence gone

Our new smaller and cheaper dumpster

The dump truck just barely fits through the fence

A couple of hours later, our realtor came over to see our progress on the house.  I have been meaning to call him for awhile as I know he was interested in coming by, but the timing was never quite right.  It was good to see him again and he said he liked the changes we put in place and the house looked much better, even without the drywall.  His partner now wants to see the house since she had the original listing and worked with the owners.

We then went to town to cruise the thrift stores.  Mike was looking for some jeans and I am always looking for bargains.  After going to five stores, Mike found absolutely no jeans for men, but plenty for women.  I think it must be because men wear them until they fall apart or the jeans are bought up as soon as they get on the shelf, since men are not usually as picky at buying used clothing as women.  We did find a pair of work overalls for me ($1 compared to $35 at WalMart), a dog sweater for Zena and some other odds and ends. Since we did not find anything for Mike, we stopped by Walmart to check out what they had and he found a few pairs of pants and a couple of shirts for a great price.  He even got a pair of work boots to keep from ruining his tennis shoes while he's working on the house.  We had a great time shopping and just being together.

We wanted to do the insulation under the floor prior to the Christmas break, but decided we could save some money by adding it to another Home Depot bid order.  I calculated the rest of what we needed to buy from Home Depot (under our 1st phase remodeling budget which doesn't include flooring or kitchen) and it totaled around $3000.  We made of list of all the items and went to Home Depot to get SKU numbers and prices to provide with our bid. That took us a good part of the afternoon and, after this trip, we were both exhausted!

We have been too busy to take in very many of the local activities, but Saturday night was the Payson Electric Light Parade and we had heard it was a good one.  The weather this weekend was not as cold as the last time we were up, but we bundled up in our jackets, took our camping chairs and Zena, in her new sweater, and made our way down to Main Street.  We found a place to sit at the end of the route that gave us a fast getaway after the event was over.  They had a wonderful group of entries, though there were some difficulties with the spacing of the vehicles.  A few times it seemed that the parade was over, but since we had not seen Santa or my hairstylist, who was the snow queen, we knew there should be more.  Sure enough a few minutes later, the parade would start up again.  Zena hated the parade due to all the noise (sirens, bands, etc), and as soon as we got up to leave, she was pulling us back to the car.  Mike says she can't go again, but I think she just needs to get out and experience more things like this to get used to it so we'll see.

We decided to leave right after lunch on Sunday to get back to the valley and we winterized the place since we would not be back for a few weeks.  Mike's new connection on the main water line under the house worked perfectly to drain the extra water out of the pipes and made the process much easier than his previous method of blowing out the lines with an air compressor.  I just have to say that I am lucky to have married such a smart man.  Even though he has never done any of this kind of work before, he is a natural at it and I am so proud of him (love you sweetie).  He is going to put together a checklist for opening and closing the place in the winter just to be sure nothing is missed or in case Matt and I have to go up without him.

Stats:  2 Home Depot trips; 3 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 12/3-12/5: $5
Remodeling expense to date: $24,283

A Very Long and Cold Week

As we started this blog, we separated our entries by weekend and weekday activities.  The weekends usually involved Matt, Mike and myself, until Matt went to school, and then the weekdays were mostly contractor tasks.  For the past month or so, the contractors have been done and we have just had weekend entries, until now.  The past two years we have traveled to Houston to visit my sister's family for Thanksgiving and to see Matt.  This year we decided to use the Holiday to get as much work done as possible at our new place.  So this entry is going to be quite lengthy as we got a lot accomplished this past week.

It was a cold week and we decided to try out the new central heater that was installed in September.  We removed all the vent covers and flipped the breakers.  The house started to warm up and it became very comfortable, even at 68 degrees.  However, we did find, as it got colder, that it was running almost all the time.  It had been awhile since the installation and Mike was not around to receive instructions (I don't do too well with all that tech speak), therefore we really did not know much about the unit, apart from the fact that it was a heat pump system with an electric furnace backup which is supposed to kick in when the temperature gets below freezing.  The next morning we contacted the company we bought it from and they scheduled a service call for Monday.  We ended up having multiple service calls to get the proper configuration setup and have tests run to make sure the units were both operating correctly, something they assured us is usual with a new install.  The unit was running better after the extra work they did, but the technician told us they would order another part that would do a better job of switching to the electric furnace when the outside temperature got too cold.  Until that part comes in, there is a button on the thermostat that allows us to switch to the furnace at night when it is colder.

On Saturday, our good friends, Doug and Ursi, made a day trip to Payson on their motorcycle to visit us and see the house.  We gave them the grand tour, had some coffee and hot chocolate and visited for awhile.  We ran into town for a late lunch at Pizza Hut and then drove around the area near the airport on our way back.  The houses there have airplane garages and the streets are wide to accommodate airplane traffic.  Even the streets signs have been modified to be close to the ground to go under the airplane wings.  Doug loves big garages and enjoyed the sightseeing.



House with attached hangar (NOTE: low street sign)

 There were other events that happened this week that did not have anything to do with fixing up the house.  I have been needing to get my hair cut and found someone in town whose hairstyle I liked.  She gave me the name of her stylist and I had my hair done there.  I really liked the girl who did my hair and, though it was a little darker than I expected, I liked the look.  Then, the neighbor that lives to our west told me she was going into the hospital for a procedure the day before Thanksgiving.  She said she had a ride, but I offered to be her backup.  The day before she was supposed to go in, she came over and said she did need a ride and she had to be there at 6 in the morning. I spent most of the morning with her, then went to my hair appointment and then back to the hospital to take her home.  I checked on her once later in the day, but then her brother arrived that night to take care of her and drive her to the valley for Thanksgiving.  Mike and I were originally going to cook steaks for our Thanksgiving dinner, but my new hairstylist told me that she had heard the Mazatzal Casino had a great buffet and we decided to try it out.  We arrived around 7pm and it was not at all crowded and it was one of the best meals we have had.  They had turkey, ham, and roast beef, along with a salad bar, all the sides dishes and dessert.  It was a good and filling meal, with no work or clean up on our part.

Now for the work part of the week.  We had quite an intense schedule planned for ourselves and hoped we could complete all the activities before our nine days were up.  Before we could start putting in the insulation, we had to complete the framing work in the kitchen.  On a previous weekend, we had cut about half of the 2x4s needed for the ceiling roll bars and cabinet supports, so we finished that project first.  Once that was done, Mike and I placed all the supports into the correct locations (I had everything laid out on paper) and then used our new nail gun to secure them.  We found some great deals at Home Depot and Lowes on an air tank and a gun set (framing nailer, brad nailer, pin nailer and palm nailer).  In the past, we had used Craig's equipment, but he cleared all that out after he finished up the electrical trim work.  It was a big time saver over hammering by hand, plus kept Mike from hitting his thumb (as he does quite frequently).

2x4s between new ceiling studs to keep new wood from rolling

2x4 pieces added to use as kitchen cabinet supports

We had plumbing in the kitchen for our future sink and we set up our camp table above the pipes as a place to do dishes (which allowed me to look out our new kitchen window).  In order to do the dishes, I had to bring in water by bucket from the hall bathroom.  I asked Mike if he could rig up something that would attach to the new plumbing in the kitchen.  He salvaged the kitchen faucet from the old sink and attached it to the plumbing outlets, then secured the faucet to a couple of 2x4s and set it up next to the sink.  I now have running water, but I still have to drain the sink into a bucket and dump it in the tub.  Still, much better than the previous setup.

Recycled kitchen faucet on our camp sink table

Connections to kitchen plumbing

After the roll bars and cabinet supports were in place, we were ready to insulate the kitchen ceiling.  We did the ceiling first because most of the cold air was coming in through the soffit holes that Bob put in when he replaced the roof.  Because of the way the ceiling was originally installed, we did not have a lot of room for insulation.  The joists were 4" near the north wall of the kitchen and only got to the necessary 6 1/2" inches required for R19 about 3 feet out.  We did not want to block the soffit ventilation, so we got agreement from the town inspector to install both R13 and R19 (R19 is code so this was a pretty big concession).  We put up the R13 with kraft paper and then installed the R19 without paper backing in the rest of the ceiling using a 6mil plastic sheet for the vapor block.  From everything we've read, the can lights we installed are a major source of air leaks (wish we knew this before putting them in), though we did learn we had the kind of cans that would allow us to pack insulation around them to help with this problem.  We felt we did a great job, for our first time insulating, and found it reduced the air flow in the room.  Mike discovered that we were still getting drafts coming through the back door, which has not been insulated as we are waiting until we put in the front door and replace the outside trim.  Mike stuffed some insulation in the cracks and replaced one of the weather strips at the top of the jam and that seems to have solved the problem.

Another picture of me working with insulation

I did all the measuring and cutting

Working around the can lights

R13 is a tight fit

Finished insulation in the kitchen ceiling

Over three days in the week, we installed the final three new windows.  We waited to put these windows in until this week because they each required extra framing to complete the installation.  Now that we had the nail gun, it made the task much simpler, but it still was very difficult.  The opening for our bedroom window was not big enough and had to be expanded.  It also had no header so we had to add the header, new supports and a new sill board after removing the old window, which was a task in itself.  This was the only original window which had actually been installed correctly.  All the other ones had been attached to the outside of the siding, but this one was under it.  We had to cut the siding before we could get to the window to remove it, then cut the siding again to the right size for our new window.  Mike loves cutting the siding as he gets saw dust all over him.  The next window replaced was in the dining room and there we had to add a header and replace the sill and one other framing board.  This window install was much easier than the bedroom, in fact Mike did most of the work himself as this was the morning I was at the hospital with the neighbor and got my hair cut.  I arrived home in time to help lift the new window in place.   The last window was on the west wall of the great room.  This window only required a new sill board, but we also needed to replace two of the siding pieces as they had a large hole left from the removal of the swamp cooler.  Since it was cold outside, I decided to set up the saw horses in the house and paint the panels before we installed them.  This worked much better than painting them after they were up as I was able to get better coverage this way (basically dumped a bunch of paint on the board and pushed it around, and into all the cracks, with the roller).  I also painted all the trim for the three windows.  After getting the siding off and replacing the sill, we had to lift a 6'x 4' dual paned window (approx. 100 lbs) up about 10' to fit into the opening.  We had to do this twice: the first time to mark the opening once we had it leveled and squared and then again after the opening was cut.  It was very scary and we were thankful that we brought our ladder from the valley so we could make a scaffold.  It was nice to have all our windows installed and they really make a difference in the appearance of the house.

New master bedroom window with framing

Master bedroom window from the outside

Mike on scaffold cutting opening

Getting sawdust all over him

The new dining room window and framing

Holding the new window in place for photo op

The new window and siding - no more hole

The two new windows all trimmed up

Now that all the framing and windows were complete, we started on the exterior wall insulation.  The first part of the process was to fill in all the holes in the floor and ceiling studs and siding.  This was where all the wires, pipes and outlets created gaps that went into the crawlspace, attic or outside.  We used the spray expanding foam for these areas.  It took two cans to fill them all in, including the gaps between the new floor and the walls in the kitchen.  Next we decided to start putting up the batting insulation in the master bedroom so that we could reduce our use of the central heat at night and still be cozy in our room.  Although it was quite messy, though not as bad as doing insulation above your head, the install went fairly smoothly.  It took us a little over two days to complete the whole house.  The worst room was the kitchen with all the extra cabinet supports.  We had to stuff insulation behind the supports and make quite a few more cuts than the full floor to ceiling sheets we used in most of rest of the house.  After completing the west wall of the kitchen, We decided to use unfaced insulation on the remaining wall so we had to peel the insulation off the paper facing and then we covered the wall with leftover plastic from the ceiling.  This allowed us to cover the entire wall with a vapor barrier which gave us less breaks and less possible leaks.  As the west wall of the kitchen will eventually become an interior wall (after the bedroom expansion), we decided the extra breaks in the vapor barrier were not a big issue (at least not big enough for us to redo the insulation).  To complete the insulation, Mike used two more cans of the expanding foam (these were for large gaps) to fill in the space between the block foundation and the wood supports around the outside of the house.  This will help to keep critters out of our crawlspace and reduce the flow of air down there.

Master bedroom insulated

Matt's room insulated

The den only needed one wall insulated

Insulation on one of the great room walls

The dining room insulation completed

Progress on the kitchen wall insulation

Kitchen insulation completed

Expanding foam to fill around foundation

When we woke up around 7:30am on our last day (Sunday after Thanksgiving), we found it had started snowing.  The snow that was falling was more like ice pellets and was very crunchy when you walked on it.  Zena did not seem to mind the snow and continued to play as normal outside.  It snowed off and on until almost 10am but the later snow was more like the flakes we are used to seeing.  All in all it dropped about 2 inches.  It was fun to see while it lasted, but by the time we left for the valley later in the day, luckily for us most of the snow had melted.

Snow pellets

The backyard after it stopped snowing

A nice layer of snow in the front yard

Our car's first taste of snow

The last change we made was to add a faucet connection to the main plumbing line to help with winterizing the house.  After trying to blow out the pipes the last time we winterized it, Mike decided he could install a Shark Bite connection with a faucet attachment into the line that comes from the street into the crawlspace.  This would make this faucet the lowest point in the line and, after opening all the valves in the house, he could drain the water left in the pipes through this spigot into a bucket.  He cut the pipe, after shutting the water off at the street and running the house faucets, and got about 1/4 of a bucket full of water.  The new attachment installed very easily but we will need to wait until our next trip to see if there were any leaks.  After draining the hot water tank and adding RV antifreeze to the toilets and traps, we were wrapped up and ready to go home.

We had decided earlier in the week to track our electric usage to see how much the new system was costing us and found that it was right around $100 for the week.  The was not quite an accurate representation of what future costs would be as we had no insulation at the beginning of the week and also had heat pump/furnace issues.  We did notice that the system did not cycle as much as more insulation was put up in the house.  We will have to see how we do on future visits.  This week did confirm that we will need to install a wood stove or fireplace sometime in the future, not just for extra heating, but also because there is nothing like a nice warm fire.

Stats:  6 Home Depot trips; 5 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 11/13-11/28: $641
Remodeling expense to date: $25,446

Put Another 2x4 on the Fire

Got up to Payson about 1pm on Friday afternoon and were greeted by 3 beautiful red roses on our rose bush.  Mike keeps telling me that I need to figure out how to take care of a rose bush, but it seems that if it gets enough water and I leave it alone, it is getting along just fine - so far. 

We then installed the window in Matt's bedroom.  This is actually our guest bedroom, but Matt started calling it his bedroom when he was up working this summer and then the electrician's crew started calling it Matt's bedroom and then it got labeled as Matt's bedroom on the electrical panel and so that is what we now call it.  Hopefully he (and his future family) will actually come and visit us and stay in "his" bedroom. On Saturday we primered the window trim and installed the windows in our den and in the south wall of our family room.  In the process we discovered that the front wall of our family room is not level hence our window frame is not level, but the window opens and closes and looks pretty so, really, who cares about something minor like the fact that the middle of our house is sinking?

Assembly line trim painting

Painting the siding around the windows

Completed windows with new trim design

The front window is also complete

On Sunday I put the 2nd coat of paint on the window trim while Mike insulated the plumbing under the house.  Then he replaced the back outside faucet with an anti-freeze valve and we put up the window trim on the three front windows.  As the weather report showed that Payson temps might get down to freezing by the end of the week, Mike decided it would be a good idea to winterize the house.  He added anti-freeze to the toilets and sink traps and "blew out" the lines with an air compressor which created quite a mess in the kitchen because the pipes in there are not connected to anything.  Mike accidentally left one of the valves open and it basically blew water everywhere. Luckily we don't have our flooring in yet!

Our fun purchase this weekend was a firepit.  My sister gave me a $50 Home Depot gift card for my 50th birthday in August.  I have been waiting for something special to use it for and Mike and I were talking about how nice it would be to have a firepit.  We made a run to Home Depot and bought one.  We also had to make a WalMart run to get marshmallows and skewers because, what good is a firepit without marshmallows (in my opinion, which is not shared by Mike)?  We sat out on our back patio and roasted marshmallows over a fire made with old wood from the house!

Blazing fire from old house wood and a marshmallow to roast

Stats: 3 Home Depot trips; 1 WalMart trip
Remodeling expense  11/5-11/7: $236
Remodeling expense to date: $24,805

Got our windows!

This weekend we drove up to Payson around noon.  Mike got busy right away fixing the "hang" on our new back door (wasn't quite up to his standards when he put it in last month).  He basically had to cut the frame out of the wall and reshim it to even it out and he did it - WooHoo!  I read that hanging a door is a true test of carpenter prowess so I guess he has arrived.  He also hung the pantry door.  Now when I go in to get food out of the "food tote," I actually have to open a door to enter the pantry.  Seems funny since the walls are all open.

Our pantry door with no walls

Our new windows were delivered Saturday morning and we installed the kitchen and back dining room windows.  When we laid out the kitchen plan, we moved the sink from the west wall to the north wall and, since there should always be a window over the sink, we also had to relocate the existing window.  This works out well because we plan on expanding the master bedroom/bath/closet so that it will cover the entire back concrete deck and that would mean the west wall of the kitchen would no longer be an exterior wall, hence no place for a window.  It also gives us a prettier view as now we will be looking out the back of our house rather than into the neighbor's yard.  Our carpenter had already framed up the window opening so Mike just had to cut a hole in the siding, and then trim and re-trim (lesson learned, measure the NEW window to determine how big to cut the hole) and in it went.  The dining room window was easier to install as this was a replacement for the one we had already framed and installed on July 31st; however, that window took over an hour to remove. I guess when Mike puts in a window it is there to stay.  We spent a lot of time trying to decide what kind of outside trim to put up around the windows.  Previously it was just straight edges, but all our neighbors have these pretty angled edges so we decided to go with that look.  Mike did a great job of miter cutting the boards and I painted and primed them.

The new kitchen window above our camp sink

The original back window and trim design . . .

. . . and the new and improved window and trim design

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent measuring for the kitchen ceiling insulation, measuring for and cutting roll bars and cabinet supports, and several hours of shopping at Home Depot trying to figure out the best way to insulate the kitchen ceiling.  We debated several options including foam boards and blown in insulation and finally (we hope) decided to just use batt insulation.  The insulation value won't be as good, but every other option would take up a lot more time, be more expensive and would drop the ceiling lower than the 7'6" it already is - not good!

We also had our first home cooked meal on Friday.  Steaks on the small gas portable camping grill and microwaved baked potatoes and steamed corn.  Very yummy! I actually have a rose bush for the 1st time in my life.  Now I have to figure out how to take care of it, but we had the most beautiful bloom on it this weekend so I cut it and put it on the table to make our meal perfect.

After weekends of eating out for dinner, finally a home-cooked meal

One of the new blooms on my rose bush

It was very cold this weekend! We hadn't planned on that when we packed so we had to make a WalMart run to buy hot chocolate, sweats and thermal underwear for me and 2 Home Depot runs to get the correct space heater for our bedroom.  Mike is his own personal heater so he was able to get by with the clothes he brought, but even he complained about being cold at least once :).

Our space heater, though we upgraded to a larger one the next day

Stats: 5 Home Depot trips; 3 WalMart trips
Remodeling expense  10/19-10/24: $163 (plus $100 in gift cards)
Remodeling expense to date: $24,569

Taking a weekend off!

I finally got back from all my travels on Thursday night, just in time to do some laundry and head up to Payson on Friday.  Because we had been apart for almost two weeks, and with all the craziness of the traveling, we decided to just enjoy having a home in Payson this weekend and not do any work (although Mike did end up having to fix the master bathtub faucet again and, of course, we had to visit our friends at home depot several times).

On Saturday we took Zena to the dog park and discovered they were having an "Annual Dog Day in the Park" event which is sponsored by a local dog group (PAWS - Payson Area Woofers Society).  They had food, things to buy, and games for the owners and dogs.  I got roped into participating in a "dressing up your dog" contest.  The participants had to run from one chair to another; put pants, a shirt, a scarf and a hat on our dog; and then return to our original chair while keeping all the items on the dog.  I was very surprised when we came in first place. Since I did an activity, I signed Mike up to do one also.  Let's just say this did not make his day, but he did it.  This game was an obstacle course.  Everyone else was using treats to coax their dogs through the track, but on a test run we found that did not work for Zena.  Mike found a ball in the park and that definitely got her attention.  She did a fairly good job making it through the course, but they did not make it into the top group.  We then had a hot dog lunch and some ice cream provided by some local vendors.

The very fashionable first place winner Zena

Running the course

Next to the dog park, we found a craft fair that was getting close to shutting down for the day, but not before I was able to pick up some homemade Christmas gifts.

Then we hit a yard sale near our house.  We have seen a roll-off dumpster at this house for many weeks and the people even had to post a sign at one time saying the yard sale is coming soon to keep people from stopping.  We found out after we stopped that the home was owned by an elderly couple and the husband had just passed away.  The daughter had come from her home in New Zealand to help clear out all the stuff and organize a yard sale, then she was taking her mom home to live with her. Even though they had started the yard sale the previous weekend, they still had quite of lot of stuff remaining.  The daughter had done a lot of work to try to price the items based on E-Bay values, so things were not quite at a garage sale price.  However, this second weekend had brought the prices down some to start getting rid of what they had left.  We picked up a coffee maker, some tools, a tool belt for Mike (he has never had one), a pop-up canopy, and a TV set with a built-in VCR and DVD player, along with some other misc. stuff.  We ended up going to the sale on both Saturday and Sunday.  It was hard not to stop since we passed it every time we left or returned to our house.  It was really nice having the TV set as we could now watch DVDs on it instead of on my laptop.  Payson has five Redbox locations, one Blockbuster store and two Blockbuster Express kiosks and, since we don't have cable service there, we watch a lot of movies in the evenings.

Our new entertainment center setup

It was a wonderful weekend just enjoying our place and some of the things that Payson has to offer.  We have been so busy with remodeling the house that we have missed some of the local festivals and activities, but keep telling ourselves that next year we will have the time to participate and just spend time enjoying having a mountain getaway.

Stats:  5 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 10/15-10/17: $128
Remodeling expense to date: $24,406