Sometimes during a renovation it’s hard to tell which description is most apt. Of course given that I’m still dragged-out from Covid, and I’m STILL congested with a runny nose, it’s hard to do most anything.
There has been some work done with framing and pipes since my husband and I were felled by Covid. I think it all happened on the Monday before I lost touch with reality. Ken & Chris added more pipes and connections for the new bathroom.
Yesterday John and coworker (don’t know his name) were here doing more framing – hammering, sawing, generator running, maneuvering large plywood sheets around my old, beloved chestnut bannister and railing. You know I first started to watch and then decided to turn away because I did NOT want to see it go wrong. Of course it was fine. They are pros, after all.
The HVAC person, Marcel, came by last week with Don. We got the quote on that yesterday. All told, not unreasonable. I really consider putting in central air to be a necessity. Yes I’ve lived here 38 years without it, but there have certainly been times it would have been a very nice option. Once I decided we’d do this renovation, I figured out there were 3 guiding principles.
First goal was to give my husband the 2nd bathroom he’s been wanting for years and years now. The second goal is to add the other things that we’ve thought would be nice to have. For instance a new floor. The original/current one squeaks. A lot. It’s also very worn. We’re going to use it as sub-flooring for new wood floors.
The third and very important guideline is for selling the house. Ultimately we will move and have to sell the house. We cannot sell it with the knob&tube wiring in place. We’ve been told that insurance companies will no longer insure homes with K&T and so we either deal with it ourselves before we sell or we have to factor that into a reduced desirability/cost when we sell.
Although we love our hot water radiator heating, the radiators are the old huge iron radiators. They take up a LOT of space and are not especially attractive. We’ve dealt with them on the first floor by purchasing attractive radiator covers decades ago, and removing the 2 in the kitchen & front hall as part of that renovation. But there are 5 old iron ones upstairs and we’re replacing them as part of this effort. I don’t want to hear about “ew the radiators are so big and ugly”. Incredibly efficient but ugly.
I want my windows back. For 38 years I’ve had to deal with a/c units rendering windows useless. In 2019 we replaced all of the upstairs windows yet I still lost 3 of them to a/c units. I LIKE windows. A lot. As long as the walls and ceilings would be ripped open I said let’s put central air up there. Don said it would not be much more effort to drop it to the 1st floor as well, which would be wonderful. I’d get back my dining room window. We’re going to take the window that was removed from the little room (which will now be a bathroom) and we’re going to put that in our bedroom next to the existing side window. MORE LIGHT!!!! And fresh air in season.
Today John & friend and Ken & Chris were here. Not sure what all the woodworking was about but the radiators were going. *laughing* And not a moment too soon. I had the a/c units going this past weekend. I woke up Monday morning and as I pulled up the shades I thought “is that radiator WARM???” Yep. I’d forgotten to turn DOWN the thermostat while the a/c was on. *rolling eyes* I told Ken & Chris to make sure they not only removed the radiators but turn OFF the connections from the thermostat as well. *grin*
So here we be. We are still home not working. Well, I managed to do a little something today that did not require a lot of brain power. There’s something I need to do for someone at work but it requires much more attention to detail and thought than I can muster at this point. The radiators are disconnected. There’s woodworking done. Don said that next he wants to start on the shower!!!
I was SO EXCITED and asked if that meant I should have the tile delivered so we could start designing the tile walls. Don got that patient long-suffering face he uses with me and started shaking his head saying “too soon”. 😦 I want to play with the tiles! And I’m afraid that he will tell us one day – get the tiles so we can install them tomorrow, without leaving us time to obsess and agonize and do and redo our design. 🙂
One step back, but then forward again. Which means that progress is being made. Let’s deal with the most important gains first.
GC and BC appear to be fine. BC is happy if we are upstairs with her. GC is happy as long as she gets fed and petted. Last night we were tossing rolling toys for BC to chase up and down the hall. I thought for one fleeting moment there GC might actually run, too. Hah! 🙂 They are eating, complaining, playing, providing output and in general they seem to be adjusting. I’m not going to say any of us LIKE this setup as a permanent option, but it really gives me peace of mind during the day when doors are open all over and there is a lot of noise.
I turned on the faucet and there was that familiar spitting air-in-the-line action that we all know from water being turned off. Wednesday I actually met 2 of the plumbers. They drained the radiators. Sigh, I spent thousands of dollars in March to put in a new boiler, which necessitates draining and refilling. Had I but known then what I know now, I could have done the radiator work then. More importantly, they removed the pipes that used to be behind some cabinets. This is EXTREMELY exciting because removing those pipes enables us to widen the doorway between the kitchen and the breakfast room by about 21 inches. Of course I have no “before” photo that shows clearly the limited sight line from the kitchen to the breakfast room, but the ‘after’ picture thrills me. Anyone reading this who has been in the rooms will see immediately the difference the wider doorway makes. I think it pulls the 2 rooms together to make them feel much more like one room. The other thing you can see in the ‘before’ photo I did post is the horrible ugly wall paper that we lived with for 6 years before we did the addition. I circled it so you wouldn’t miss it, and drew an arrow to show what got removed to make the larger passageway.
We were chatting in the breakfast room and I mentioned that had I realized that they’d be ripping out everything in the ceilings, I’d have asked to have them change my breakfast room ceiling to a sloped ceiling (vaulted?). This is something that escaped me when we did the addition. I thought that by asking for a skylight, I’d get that sloped ceiling automatically. Not the case. Anyway, Manny is supposed to ask Don for an estimate. Manny, Eli (the electrician) and I all think it would look fantastic. 🙂 And most importantly for me – would let in a LOT more light. I’m all about light as you can tell from the bay windows and the multiple banks of lights in the kitchen. I haven’t actually run this new idea by my husband yet….. Even if Don okays it, it might not happen. Apparently my husband does NOT like garbage disposals in the sink, so that idea was abandoned. I hope he likes sloped ceilings. 
The “one step back” came as I ate lunch. Eating my salad, reading the paper, and the lights went out. They were cutting knob and tube wires. YAY!!!!! It’s a small price to pay – no light in the dining room – if it means getting rid of the K&T. 🙂 Eli and Chris just left but they restored power to the dining room lights and outlets. We even tested the TV – which works. Of course I still can’t work the TV properly because sometime since the superbowl cable tv has dropped off the menu at the bottom of the screen. There is now some convoluted routine to get from netflix to cable and back again, but don’t ask me to do it. That’s DEFINITELY a step back but NOT one I can attribute to the renovation. 
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