# NJ Colonial - Family Remodel



## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Hello! 

I have been creeping on the forum for a while and have asked some questions and gotten good feedback, so I have decided to go a little further and start a project showcase.

Our house was built in 1910's sometime, although my deed says 1932. I found newspaper in the house from the 1914, so that is my guess but I guess I may never know.

Here are a few pics of what the home looked like when we first got it. 

It is a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with a finished attic. The entire house was plaster. In addition, approx. 5 out of the 12 circuits were knob and tube wiring. 

We knew when we purchased this house in a small town outside of Philly that we would be in for work. Something about the house just screamed "buy me" to us (by us I mean my wife). However, I felt up to the challenge. 

That was September. It took me approx. 2 months to demo the house, at which time we uncovered some unsettling structural problems, which we knew would happen (to be discussed in later posts).

So three months later and 60 tons of plaster and debris later, we are finally getting to putting things back in. 

Here are some photos. Hope you all enjoy and feel free to post any advice, recommendations, suggestions, or anything else you would like to throw my way!

*Disclaimer: I have obtained all necessary permits and have consulted a structural engineer, promise!*

Thomas


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*Here are a few more of the original pics...*

And yes, in the one bedroom that is just carpet samples which were nailed (yes, nailed) directly to the hardwood floor....


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*Demo Time -*

From the pictures you can tell that something drastic had to be done. 

As I stated, two stinkin' months of tearing this place down, and 3 30 yard dumpsters. 

After having it tore down, it became evident that there were two renovations done to the house, one in the 50's (again found from the newpapers) and one in the 80's or early 90's. When they did these renovations they compromised a lot of the structure, which I fully intend to fix with a little help from you guys (and the SE).

Anyway, attached is some of the same views in the before pics. We made a bunch of changes by just knocking down some of the partition walls and drop ceilings. With the 9 ft. ceiling height, (they dropped to about 7 ft. 6 inches), it made a huge difference.

We loved the bannister and had to keep it for some of the charm. We also kept all the trim from the windows so that we can put it back on at the end of the project. We wanted to keep as much of the original as possible, which ended up being just trim and a bannister, haha.

The bathroom, (on the second floor), was completely suspended by studs that were attached to the stairs. The renovations in the past had completely notched through three floor joists including the header those joists were toenailed to! Amazing that it was still standing. 

And for whatever reason, we had to keep that fireplace in there.

Thanks for looking and I will post more as the progress continues and I get my pictures organized.

Til next time,

Thomas


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*Just a few more...*

Here are a few more pics after we finally got done the demo work (sorta).

Tom


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## dougp23 (Sep 20, 2011)

Holy Smokes, that kitchen!! Wow! You could get vertigo walking in there....

You are pretty daring for taking on a project that huge! Hope you have fun with it. Should look great when it's all done.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

If you try using that fire place you'll soo see why you see so few of them.
Very little heat output and will use wood as fast as you can load it.
Replace it with an airtite wood stove and get some real heat and fraction of the wood.


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## TheEplumber (Jul 20, 2010)

Is the exterior as nice as it looks?


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## gusherb94 (Oct 16, 2008)

Wow! can only imagine the look on visitors faces when they went from charming Colonial on the outside to Psychedelic era late 1960's explosion on the inside! Some very nice styles of decor came out of the 60's and that house saw NONE of it. 

As for the actual age. It seems kinda hard to tell. I could see it being built before 1925. Were there any traces of gas lighting at one point? An early 1910's house may very well have had gas lighting, or electric and gas together (as was the case with our 3 story 3 unit apartment building in Chicago built in 1915) 

Sometimes but not usually the heating system is a clue. Is that hot water or two pipe steam I see?

and that fireplace, I think those have come back in fashion...


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Joe - the fireplace is actually a gas fireplace, so I believe once we get it all checked out and it is good to go we will keep it. If not, a wood burning stove would be a great option, especially as in that area (kitchenette and kitchen) there will be vaulted ceilings, so it could get cold. Something to look at in the future for sure.

Eplumber - Yes, the outside is truly as good as it looks. There is relatively new siding, brand new roof (including the plywood), and all of the doors are functioning and seem in pretty good shape. We are replacing about 13 of the 20 windows as they are the original wood windows with the counterweight system, pretty cool stuff. They actually all still work too!

Gusher - We certainly have the gas lighting traces in there (actually all of the piping still). We had the knob and tube as well, which has been ripped out. Yes, those fireplaces are actually very expensive and trendy right now! We will ride that until the trend ends and maybe in the future replace with a wood burning to get some more heat if needed. We will see I guess.

Touring that place was very comical. It is in a very nice area and was an estate sale, so we feel that we definitely got a steal on it comparison wise. Although I am a newbie as far as a lot of this stuff goes, this is our second house and we did the same thing to the first one (which we sold in December), just on a much smaller scale. We were excited as to what challenges this house would bring...which it certainly already has!

I am sure that tons of people came through this house b/c of the great exterior, park like yard (which actually backs into the park), and dead end street. I will tell you it was difficult to get past the 7 ft. ceilings, horrible carpet, god awful kitchen, etc. but for some reason the wifey just had to have it!

Hopefully I can get some more pics up today and share some of the things I am currently working on.

Tom


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*First Structural Project*

Our first structural project was the entranceway. You can see from the original pictures how the entranceway first looked. When we removed the plaster we noticed a few things:

1) The entrance way "bump out" was an addition put on. Instead of putting any sort of support in to cut four or five studs out of the existing exterior of the house, they thought it would be a swell idea to leave them as is, simply hanging. I guess they figured the 1x header they have running through there is sufficient. 

2) The plumbing for the bathroom had notched through completely three floor joists. When I say completely I mean completely. Sorry for the quality of the pics, I did not realize I would be documenting this at the time when taking this in December, so the problem is not 100% clear here.

To fix this, the SE had advised us to put a 2-2x10 header up where the entranceway studs were cut. After completing this, we had to do something about the cut floor joists. B/C the old floor joists are 7 7/8 inch's, we had to rip 2 x 10's to replace the old ones. The engineer wanted these doubled up, so we gladly obliged. 

Since these pics, we have added a few more nails, hangers, etc, and even one more floor joist in the bathroom in between the wall and the first joist.

Another issue we had is that the house sags slightly, so I had to put these joists in slighly unlevel in order to match what was there, or else my whole bathroom would have a ripple type effect when the subfloor goes in. It is flat, just not 100 percent level. We will be jacking up the house in an effort to regain some level back, but most likely it will still not be perfect.

Also, anyone know how to post pictures and then put text before or after the pictures? I would like to comment on the pictures directly above or below them but am having trouble doing so.

Thanks,

Tom


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

As I was sitting here admiring the thread that I have going, I took a closer look at the pictures in the last post and it dawned on me that I made a mistake, hopefully a fixable one without re-doing everything.

This is a ballon framed house. In my SE drawings, there was no mention of how this would effect my measurements for the headers or the king stud. Notice currently I have no king stud. The reason is simple, there was none where I needed the header to be. In a platform house, I would simply have just placed one there. Notice also there is no top plate.

My proposed solution - cut the 2 x10 Header flush with the trimmers. The reason we through the trimmers there is that there is a floor joist right next to the trimmers to the left. I would like to essentially create a king stud here by adding both a bottom plate and top plate, which would hopefully sufficiently secure the header as well as create a fire block as required. My plan was to run the top plate on top of the header, fasten down to the header as well as the king ballon stud to the left and the first ceiling joist resting on the header.

If anyone has any insight or has run into this in the past, please feel free to share your experiences. 

In hindsight, obviously we should have used the existing stud as the king stud (as we did on the other side). For whatever reason I decided not to do that and either have to come up with a code-proof solution or redo. Bummer. The trials and tribulations of a DIY'er. When I started this thread I promised to not only put the good parts up but also the bad...oh well.

Tom


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## kickarse (Mar 7, 2009)

Looking forward to the next update! Looking great!


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## jagans (Oct 21, 2012)

Been There, Done That, Dont ever want to do it again. You buy old stuff with hard earned money, then tear out most of what you bought, throw it into a dumpster, and pay to have it taken away. Nothing is plumb, Nothing is level, There is usually Asbestos somewhere, The plumbing all has to go, the Electric all has to go, etc etc etc. and the dirt, where does all that black dirt in the walls come from??? At the end of the day you paid for a nice bannister, and for some reason, they did not have any closets back then. I guess they just left all their clothes on all the time, cause they didnt have insulation.

It is so much easier to build a new home than refurbish one of these that it isnt even in the same Galaxy, but good luck, and I hope you get through it with a couple of bucks and your sanity in tact.

PS They straightened those walls with the brown coat. Buy a power plane, you are going to need it.


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## jagans (Oct 21, 2012)

I just looked at your house from the front view. Where are the posts that should be holding up the front porch????? There is no way to cantilever like that without steel??? Did your SE see that?


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Jagans - 

With regards to the porch, honestly I could not tell you. Perhaps this is a project down the road that I can look at. However, this porch was an addition in the 50's and has stood firm every since, so I do not feel as though it is something that I need to address at this minute, especially given the current situation in the house. That being said it is a very interesting point, and one that I appreciate you finding!

In response to your first post -

For the thread's sake, I will provide a little background as to why we bought how we bought, where we bought, and our decision to renovate as extreme as we are.

Way back when I was 23 I bought my first house (just turned 27) and took some of the Obama money that came with it. It was a beater, so we decided to renovate. The stuff we found was pretty shocking. For example, mold, no insulation, dangerous electric, etc. We kept tearing out further and further until eventually it was a complete renovation. We renovated into a really gorgeous little duplex in Philly and sold it and made quite a decent profit, more than we could make at our jobs anyway. That was three years ago (purchase) and sale was three months ago. Time went quick that's for sure!

We decided to do another fixer upper (bigger scale) for a few reasons:
The first was family. I did not want to live in a duplex where I did not like my neighbors and could not send my kids to public school. I wanted to be in an area where my future kids (wife is prego) could thrive and have as good of a childhood as I did. If you know anything about the Philly suburbs then you know they are pricy. At 27, I am priced out of most of those neighborhoods, even with the good job and decent down-payment we had. Which is the second reason: Finance. As an accountant, I take this stuff pretty seriously. We got this house (estate sale) at about 1/2 of the price of some of our neighbors homes. This also means 1/2 of the property tax, which in NJ is the highest in the country. My neighbors with the decent house are about 15K+ a year. Too much for me. We got this house for less than the small duplex we sold in Philly, so we have a reasonable (but still strict) budget to deal with. The third reason we are able to do this with a relatively sane mind is our in-laws. They have a very comfortable 4500+ sq. house within 20minutes of this location. We stay there, and in the mean time can save even more money for the renovations and live comfortably in the meantime. We also truly enjoy making it our own and being in control of the process from start to finish, including being in control of the subs and the whole she-bang. Perhaps that is the control freak side of me...

Obviously we are aware that this is a monster project, which is why I figure I get friendly with some people who know what they are doing ASAP. Bottom line is we like doing the work (for the most part) and we like knowing even better that everything that should be there is there. Even if I double my renovation budget, I will still come in about 120K under what the new construction on a crappier lot in a less desirable street is currently listed at. I am sure I could have found a very small nice new condo or townhouse for my budget, but that was certainly not what we were going for.

I am sure that answer was just about 75 lines longer than you needed, but hey. I always here on here the more descriptive the better.:thumbsup:

Question: How did your project turn out?


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## gusherb94 (Oct 16, 2008)

Old house restorations are really only for those who are passionate about it, and have the money & knowledge to take on such a project! I think the biggest mistake people make buying an old house is going into it thinking you won't have to do much but paint and put some new cabinets and flooring in etc. If you expect to be gutting it to the studs or even beyond that, and plan for it then all should go just fine! 

I like the idea of rebuilding a house. I think that's more fun then building a new house IMO! It's very much an adventure, with lots of interesting discoveries and lessons along the way!


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

I agree completely! We bought with the full understanding that it would be down to the studs. The fact the outside was so well maintained as well as updated was a huge factor for our purchase of this one. New roof, siding, etc (well done work as well) really takes a lot of the variables with cost out of our equation. We know roughly how much new plumbing (subbed out) is, new electric, insulation, floor restoration, cabinets, insulation, new framing, etc. would cost. This is a 9+ month project, so obviously a lot slower than even a new home build, but I think the final product that we have envisioned could be a truly special place for us to live!


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Hello all and sorry for the delay! After a nice three month hiatus do to the addition of a new member of the family (now three months old), we decided to get back to the swing of things with the house. I will take some pics of the house as we have passed both rough electrical and rough plumbing. The monster, framing, is next in two weeks. I have one more consulation with the SE prior to the inspection. In addtion, fire blocking in this house has been pretty intense and very time consuming. These ballon framed homes have so many areas that need to be blocked. I have decided to hire out insulation and drywall and AC/Boiler upgrade. I will post pics on here as the boiler will be going in tomorrow (Bosch High Efficiency combi) and the AC next week. For those in NJ please be aware that you can earn up to 5K rebate (straight credit against the installation) for certain "energy efficient upgrades". This has been a pleasant surprise as has been the 10K interest free loan we were able to get for this same item.

Hope all is well and will get pics on ASAP!


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*Boiler Replace*

Today is the day when the old boiler will be replaced (well - today, tomorrow, and Friday). I (using the term loosely) will be replacing it with a Bosch Greenstar Combi-boiler. In addition to this work, I have also subbed out the AC/Heat duct work. I have decided to go with a Unico System as my research has shown good things and I would like to keep the soffit work to a minimum (none hopefully). I have attached some pictures of the old boiler which works, however after 35+ years is most likely on it's last leg. I will post pictures of their progress as the week goes on...


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Took a picture of the new boiler/water heater combination. The guys have been installing this and the AC since last Wed and should be completed at somepoint this week for the inspection on Monday. Framing inspection will be next Wed. and I will get some final pics before we close up the walls...


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Ok - I have officially passed all of my inspections and took a bunch of pictures of every wall before it is being closed up. Sorry for the rough looking photography, I passed my inspections on a Monday and Insulation was going in on Tuesday so these photos were taken at 6AM in the morning.

The attached photos are as follows: 

1 Front door entranceway facing "TV room" and reframed closet (left side)
2 Entranceway facing front door - new header and new bathroom framing 
3 Bathroom Framing - these were originally rotted out. When the front entranceway addition was put on no headers were installed. 5 studs were cut out for this. The only thing holding up my upstairs bathroom was the 1 x 12 sheathing that was nailed into the floor joists.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*TV Family Room*

TV/Family Room -

1 - The original header/beam that was here was a double 2 x 6 that was bellying like crazy. We swapped that out and added a parralam PSL 4 x 10. Not going anywhere anything soon...We added fireblocking and blocking accordingly.
2 - This is the view from the other side facing the back of the house. You can actually see three different headers/beams that we replaced from this side. 
3 - Entertainment wall - This is the entertainment wall, with really only cable and power going to it, and an extra support brace for my TV. We framed this with 2 x 6 in order to line up properly with our bathroom and closet.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Kitchen/Kitchenette

This was where the majority of the work/time was spent. 
1) This is an 19 ft. parralam PSL (4 x 10) that was used in replacement of the original exterior of the house. They had a 36 inche doorway originally in which they cut three of the existing studs out and again replaced with nothing. We addited some blocking and bracing for additional support.
2) When we took out the plaster and drop ceilings, we noticed that the last addition they did they built an addition over an existing smaller addition; so I had two roofs. I cut this all out and then unfortunatley realized that the ledger attaching this addition was a 2 x 4. It wasn't that bad b/c the joists attached to the ledger were only 2 x 6, and spanned almost 20 ft. Yikes. So we rebuilt that as well with 2 x 12's (sistered to the 2 x 6's) and added supports mid-span. We also added a new 2 x 12 ledger. We also made the kitchen window on the left smaller to allow for cabinets and sink underneath. We re-sided the outside.
3) This is just the back kitchen wall where the majority of our wiring for appliances was done.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*Floor Plan/Layout*

As my pictures were mostly taken for me to view what is in the walls at a future date and not necessarily to show off the progress I will attach the plans that I did with a little help from my friend who is an airplane engineer. (he had the software so we went with it). This is only the first and second floors.

NOTE: The room off of the back of the kitchen we are calling a three seasons room - just getting tiled, a fan, dryall, etc. No plumbing or heat out there. More or less a covered back porch.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Stepping back a little - when we demo'd the kitchen and took out the wall between the kitchen and kitchenette's we noticed that the floors were not even. This picture with my friend in the background shows the discrepency (a few inches). It also shows the original 2 x 6's that span almost 20 ft. with that little double 2 x 6 brace thingy supporting it. We ripped that out and put a double 
2 x 12 in its place and sistered the joists with 2 x 12's.

Anyway, back to the floor.

1 - After we ripped out the wall inbetween these rooms, we had some obvious floor problems. Even more glaring to us was the fact that our kitchen, which did have tile, was framed with 2 x 6 floor joists spaced 16 inches apart, with the span of 10 ft. Not good. 
2 - In talking with the engineer, he wanted 2 x 10's sistered to the 2 x 6's. We added a few extra runs in between just to be on the safe side. This is in a crawspace-ish thing that extends from our basement and is below the kitchen. Judging by newspapers found in the wall this addition was done in the 50's...
3 - Here is the pic of the finished product after we installed our subfloor.
4 - same as above - we now have a flat surface to tile on


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Before and after - Front to back


Here is a before and after from the front of the house (TV Room) to the back of the house with fireplace (kitchette).


The fireplace in the first picture is hidden by the wood paneling and is on the right hand side in the very back of the picture.

Sorry that they line up so poorly - I am kicking myself that I didnt get some better "after" photo's.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Entranceway - before and after

Originally the door to the bathroom was facing the front entranceway, which we were not crazy about. We loved the view into the house into picture number 2, however we had one big issue, which was closets. There were none on the first floor.

Our solution was to move the door to the bathroom from the entranceway of the home into the playroom (former dining room) and add a nice big closet in the front. This cut our view walking into the house however it gave us some closets and also added some more substance to our TV room wall...


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

May I make a suggestion, before you get too much in your walls you may want to take a good long straight edge or string the walls to check the plane. From my experiences, walls where plaster and lath were original are usually in need of a lot of work to get ready for sheet rock. It is for sure much easier before electrical, plumbing and insulation is installed. Usually during and after plumbing you will have to rework some areas anyway.

I am sure not trying to rain on your parade but I have found it cost more to restore the old homes than to build a new one. Hopefully you have already priced everything out and have that under control. I am not trying to scare you, just wanted you to be aware.

Are you going back historically or just modernizing?


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Na - no worries about the scaring. Some of the walls are definitely off a little (not the walls, more the ceiling). In the upstairs i completely rebuilt the ceilings to add some strength and level them. B/C I did all the work myself, minus the boiler/AC (which i got energy credits for), plumbing (dont know how), and drywall (due to time) I saved an good amount of money and a conservative estimate at the end of the day will put me at over 100k less than a new construction of equal size with 1/3 of the yard in a less desirable area down the street- so we built in quite a bit of equity as well which was important to me as a finance guy. I did all the electric, framing, designing, jacking (we jacked 2+ inches in the center of the house) and install on everything else like bath fans, etc. This is also one of the best lots in the whole town that backs into a park so there is no new construction that could get us that in this area - just way to cost prohibitive and you would have to buy something like my house and knock it down. 

This is also not our first one of these projects so we are well aware of what can happen when you open one of these up. I spent about 1.5K in extra lumber. Money is obviously an issue but we are doing this over the course of a year so we are able to bear the brunt of it. The worst parts are over.

As far as the "historic" peice I really only took off the thick wooden trim around the windows and am going to refinish and put back on. Also the hardwood floors are being refinished. It is gorgeous stuff and I was able to get it off in tact. We are keeping a colonial feel in the house as best as possible but at the end of the day this needed to be done to the property. There was nothing "historic" about the renovations that took place in the 70's.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*Progress*

All - just wanted to give a brief update. I unfortunately have not really had too much time to post on here as I have been in Anaheim on business for the past two months and only come home every other weekend to work on the house. I had drwallers and floor guys come in while I wast gone and they did a great job. Here is two pics that my wife sent me on the phone. I will take some more pics this weekend and update. This has been a year long project and is finally coming to a close. We are hoping to be in a little after Christmas, although I have to admit I cheated a bit. I hired floor guys, people to hang my cabinets, and the trim. Basically the finish work, which was good as that part in particular takes me forever to do. These guys knocked it out in a week. 

Cheers!:thumbsup:


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

*More Pictures*

Actually found a few more on my phone with a few different views. This was before we had the Finish contractors in. Here we are just hooking up some outlets. This area will be the kitchen, which I have attached our "design".


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

She's coming along real nice.

Looks like the finish line may be coming into view soon. :thumbsup:


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

House is finally completed, moved in a few weeks ago. All in all an awesome project which has paid off. A lot of tough days (just ask my friends) however we could not be any happier with the result. Here is a few pics of the finished product, mainly the downstairs and kitchen.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

A few more...


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## 123pugsy (Oct 6, 2012)

Very nice Thomas. :thumbup:

Thanks for taking the time to post.


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## mikegp (Jul 17, 2011)

Looks awesome. Just curious, does the transition between the wood and tile behind the stools cause any problems when you sit in them? Looks like it would be pretty close when a person is in them.


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## tjbingha (Nov 28, 2012)

Nope, has not been a problem to date. We shortened up the overhang from the standard 12 to 10 inches to accomadate the tight space. We are also going to purchase smaller stools as those are bulky and from our last place.


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## rtmunro (Jan 30, 2014)

*wow*

"Bottom line is we like doing the work (for the most part) and we like knowing even better that everything that should be there is there."

that about sums it up perfectly for me. very nice job!


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