Renovation // Transformation

After months of rigging services on the roof (wiring/HVAC), we were finally prepped for the final foam-roofing spray and fortunately an opening in Abril Roofing’s schedule allowed them to come out and finish the job… granted, not before a Saturday shower found gallons of water coming into the house, but that’s certainly not their fault. In fact, Rick Abril even called to let me know beforehand that it might rain (something that I likely would have overlooked)… thanks for that, Rick.

Anyway, they were so quick that I couldn’t even get any in-process shots, so below are the final views.

They even cut in a new skylight to add some much-needed light in out hallway ($750) and replaced the covers of our old skylights ($200ish). A simple, but nice-to-have improvement.

One thing I noticed immediately on coming home that evening… the house is much more silent. Like the morning after a snowstorm. Nice.

It took a few days longer than expected to get the crew here, but at 8AM Monday morning, two crews showed up from the HVAC shop to begin the install of the LG Art Cool system… seemingly a new creature at the zoo.

Most HVAC folks seem to have knowledge — even deep experience — installing mini-split systems, but the LG system is new to all. Hopefully, after this install, the units will become popular. To be honest, I can't imagine going through all of the trouble to install a mini-split and still have an appliance that looks like the front half of a typical window unit sitting in my living space.

Anyway, below are the first round of pix… since final images necessitate painting and drywall mud (a luxury when the bathroom walls are still sticky from wallpaper removal), these final images might be a long time in coming.

Total cost on the install (36000 BTUs of heating and cooling) should run about $15K installed, tested and complete. The total calculation for the house was 48000 BTUs, so this should put a big dent in our needs.

These images show the "during" install phase. The lines for the multipurpose room unit had to be run outside the wall in the garage due to some overhead, interfering power lines — this will eventually be boxed in in some fashion. The compressor is mounted on the roof and the new (pending) roofing foam will cover most of the deck.

One of the nice things about having a simply designed home is that often — but not always — replacements parts are easy and inexpensive finds.

In this case, all of our slider windows (kitchen, bedrooms, garage and baths) will be replaced with new Milgard aluminum windows for about $1500 (total) ordered through Home Depot (where we were finally able to use that 10% off coupon).

Unfortunately, our original windows are broken and damaged, but the low-e, insulated windows should be a nice change.

The pictures say it all…

One of the projects to tackle before the new roof installation is the running of data/coax/phone to all of the rooms.

Friday before last, Abril roofing came by to clear the roof of gravel in prep for the new foam room. After it was cleared, the wiring was next.

It was a bit weird drilling 5/8in holes into my ceiling (and 2in holes for the main runs), but it all went well and now we have each room wired for CAT5e, phone (CAT3) and coax (cable). The wireless network (AirPort) is also contained in the box.

The parts came from Parts Express (Wired Home brand) and the cable itself came from — of all places — Home Depot, who had the best price. We also ran one run of in-wall speaker wire for rear speakers in the main TV room (adjacent to the kitchen).

Update: Since the initial install, we've moved the Airport router out of the cabinet and positioned it high on the wall above with a wall mount. The signal is indeed much better.

Thanks to Joel and Brad for the help (and Chris for the network advice).

One of the biggest tasks so far has been getting a solid floor under our feet. We moved onto bare concrete floors, which — although crude — was quite nice as we didn’t have to remove old flooring. There was still mastic on the floors, so it took a lot of prep which involved Bean-e-doo and — in the end — a wet grinder. The grinder was nice to ensure the high-spots were taken down a bit. We rented this from Cresco for about $150/day.

We contracted with Abbey Carpet/Contra Costa Floors for the installation. We chose black Armstrong Excelon tile (VCT) for installation though the whole house (save the bathrooms which will have black unglazed tiles)… about 1800 square-feet in total. The price — installed — ran about $4500. A quote from Anderson Carpet ran a few thousand more which made the choice easier.

Fernando and his crew did an excellent job and it took about a day-and-a-half to install. We moved everything into the garage (including us) for the preparation. We also removed all of the baseboards and some of the door frames so that they could carry the flooring all the way to the edges (which will hopefully eliminate any blank spots later on). The overall fit was quite nice — and, with the black, hopefully easier to hide the seams.

We really like our new floors and look forward to sealing them after we do a bit more of the dusty work.

Casie’s father, Dan, stopped by (from Virginia) a few weeks ago to lend a much appreciated  hand on the project.

From installing a pocket door in the master bath and helping to reframe the closet before the flooring went in (the previous owners widened the passage for walker access), the extra pair of hands were priceless.

Thanks, Dan…

In the continuing saga of: "Things you find behind other things…":

Marty seems to like the dirt.

… in all forms. methinks. Especially when glued to a concrete slab. Especially when you want it gone.

This was the wort part of the flooring removal. We finally succeeded by scoring the vinyl with a blade and soaking the surface with a Methyl-Chloride-based stripper, then scraping with a blade.