# Small project turned into a renovation



## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

Kim standing inside the workshop. Its much cleaner now. Yes we are young 24/23 to be exact.









This is the kitchen before the PO moved out. Trust me youll see its different now.


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

That wall had to go!!!!!!!!!!!









This was on the other side.









You can sortov see the lack of a wall, and the newfound openness.









Woot open floor plans rock the cat box.


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

Well so far so good. We ran into a couple of problems today. First off in one of the pics posted below, you can see that on the double door setup, the left door does not have a header. The other door does. I want to tear all that out and rebuild a new proper header above both doors, and open that entire throughway up. How far should my headers extend past the outermost door frames, or should they stop at the double studs? Here are more pics.

Almost all the credit for this goes to the wife. Shes been bustin her ass while Ive been at work. Enough talk heres the pics!

They pressure washed the workshop. Its acctually cedar siding so thats gonna stay. Looks alot better, no?









Took the upper cabinets off the wall, see the grease. Started taking out the countertop. Might use that in the workshop.










Better shot of the pure nastyness. Bonafied dirty right there(no range vent period!!!)









All cabinets, counter tops, sink, and other ************ gone...gettin more open eh.


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

As you can see the header that is above the other door does not extend to this door even though this is a load bearing wall...Problem #1 install proper header. That center post area is goin away and that will be a open walkthrough.










Better shot of teh lack of a header.









Anything missin here...oh yeah insulations out. In the back right you can kinda see where they used to have a window unit A/C. You can tell by the badly done A/C support that this kitchen didnt always exist.









Better shot of the super strong A/C unit support structure. Im sure I should sister in some good studs here, or should I just replace these all together?


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

Hrm lemme think...ITS FRIGGIN BURNING THE WALL...DONT USE IT ANYMORE!









This wall is completely SCREWED, and I dont mean wood screws. Its separated at the bottom about 3 inches, and the insulation was just open to the ground, not only that they used roofing tin as siding, and it was not sealed at all. No house wrap, no plastic, nothing. Problem #2, install house wrap on all walls, floor, and celing. Rebuild wall outside dinning area, and bathroom. Replace tin with proper siding and exterior grade ply, and for Gods sake pull the wall back to the house, and secure it. There was burnt insulation, and animals in here. This house was a dry winter day from goin up in flames. 










Better shot of the wall that will get replaced.









And that is all for now. Im off tomorrow and wednesday, much progress to be made. Its gettin rough measured for new cabinets tomorrow, as well as getting all the remnants of insulation out. Getting that window out, and starting on the wall to be removed. What do you think? Doing pretty good for amateures. I know the rebuild is what counts.

Lots of things happened today. 4 runs to the parish dump, and alot more teardown, and alot more problem discovery. Thank you for that information Glennjanie. Very informative, as far as the stove goes, it was too far gone, but I wish we could have kept it. My real name is Logan JSYK, but I dont mind Phatboy. Obviously...sorry its late.


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

The representative(my former step father), for the cabinet making company stopped by today to take some rough measurements. Looks like we are going with a natural maple cabinet, with corian countertops. Most likely the countertops are going to look like a poured concrete, but that could change. Deffinitly going to have a lazy suzan, and a two door pantry. We also decided to use a charcoal range hood with an incorporated microwave. They will have a 6inch void at the top where we will be installing some low wattage mood lighting. Yes kitchens can be sexy and functional at the same time. He told us that it could be upwards of a 500 dollar difference between finished and unfinished. We're finishing them ourselves...nuff said. Here are the pics.

You can see the large hole where this wall separated, and my wifes lovely self.









Found this little guy above the back door behind the insulation. We accidently killed its eggs, but there are tons of these around so Im sure we didnt hurt the population.









AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh. Clean...much better. Lots more work to do.









This is what was under the toilet, the doggon thing wasnt even bolted down properly, not to mention they used the tub surround as a trash can. These people were disgusting. I wont tell you what we found.


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

Attic access. Its about 1.5ft sq...thats gettin changed. Stairs goin in. This was above the tub, which by the way is getting moved.









You can see some of the crappy work here. The walls for the bathroom were built on top of the subfloor, ok no problem, they are completely inside the outter wall of the house. Hes loosing half a SQFT of space per linear foot here. What the heck man. The carnage from the other wall with the hole, continues behind the outside bathroom walls. After we get a new header put on the outtermost wall of the house, we will remove all the inside walls, and subfloor, and start over. Gimmie our space back dangit.









The HVAC unit was installed 2 years ago, and left just like this. The drain did go out the side of the house, but it leaked on the floor also. Why would a a/c drain have a P-trap installed? Is it needed, and can I omit that little token of terror. It was causing the drip pan inside the unit to over flow. 









And this is how it sat as we left tonight. Going to town tomorrow to get some lumber, and make another dump run. Yay...gettin to the time to start building back up. 









Wish us luck. More pics and progress tomorrow night. Thanks for watching ''This young couples new house!'' Ahha, I crack me up.


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

Today was a good day for progress. Acctually started rebuilding some of the frame. I have a migrain so Itll just be mostly pics for tonight. We decided to demo the outside wall today and replace that. Most of the day was spent on doing that, and reframing the dining area wall. My new air nailers are not here yet, so I used 3in wood screws to hold it all together today. I must have run 150 of them damn things, my drill got a workout, and so did I. Anyhwo heres pics.

Well we decided to rip down that tin siding, and so we did.









There was 3/4 particle board behind the tin. You can see about a foot of water damage at the bottom of that. Kim took that out with a big mallet.









Were going for a very open floor plan as you can see. LOL









From the other side


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## Logan/Kim (Oct 3, 2007)

This is the original wall and header, if you can call it that...









This is my new header work, its a triple with 2 2x10s and a 2x4 for bracing. I had to do it that way. I didnt wanna lap joint the studs, but it was all I could do. The outside 2x10 was nailed to the outside of the 4x4 posts. Its rediculously strong trust me.









And...drumrolll..................................h ere is my handy work. The window is the same size and height as the one in the kitchen and will center the dinning table.









I have to pick up a low velocity gun tomorrow to set the lower 2x4 onto the slab. Oh and that bottom one is treated as well. How does it look? Kim kicked it and it kicked her back...LOL It wont wiggle more than a 8th of an inch in any direction.


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## ajan246 (Oct 18, 2007)

well man looks like you got some SERIOUS work!! Best of Luck!


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## Zel1 (Mar 21, 2007)

Looks like you got your hands full! I hope you asking your questions in other sections, cause not everyone checks up here for questions. That house looked like it was a basket case, good to see someone come along and fix all the safety concerns, like the furnace chimney through the drywall. 
What kind of lizards are they? Looks like a bearded dragon?


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