Since our address is the lucky “711” number combination – I think I’ll thank Lady Luck rather than Santa for our good fortune over the Christmas holiday. Our initial furnace inspection by George Winston Company appeared to bring our first unplanned major expense, but alas, Lady Luck was smiling down upon us. A coupler, a cleaning and a solder later and we were able to turn the heat up again on this renovation reality (the furnace is actually too large for the size of this home, so two burners were soldered to stop furnace from continually shutting down). While we crossed an expensive new furnace off the list, the “Unfasten Seatbelt” sign hasn’t been lit just yet.
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| John installing new attic windows |
That being said, December was productive. John installed the attic and bathroom windows and Window World completed the job by installing the additional 19 and capping all 26. The installation team came bright and early on a Tuesday and the job was complete by noon the following day. Absolutely no complaints and we rate the job a perfect 10. Now that the windows are installed, we’ll continue to monitor the temperature inside to help with our insulation concerns. The holiday break also brought with it a new kitchen sub floor, front and back door. We did decide to use the floating laminate flooring left over from a previous project, and the kitchen floor is on the fast track. If we get 5 years out of it, great – if not, this newly installed concrete backer board underlayment will allow us to easily upgrade to ceramic tile down the road. DIY Note: this was an easy install…so easy, I did the entire project myself!
From there, things continue to look up, literally. A cracked and water damaged kitchen and dining room ceiling is gone and being replaced with one seamless drywall ceiling. We farmed the job out to Tim Baker, a master painter/drywall hanger (total demo and install price: $1500) and I will rave about the quality of his work in our next blog. With both ceilings gone, King Electric made quick work of installing the lighting and a complete rewiring of the home is just days away.
Everything in the bathroom is completely gone and is now an open canvas. We made a major renovation decision over the holiday...and, of course, the demo did reveal a surprise….
Looking Ahead, we’ll let you know what that surprise is...
And, Looking Back….We’ll answer: What is the verdict on new insulation for home?
And, we’ll take a look inside our IKEA kitchen boxes which have been sitting untouched in the middle of the living room for over a month.
For now, here are a few photos of our window and door installation.
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