Scott Street

Scott Street
THE house

Thursday, September 22, 2011

ROOF- 3 days turns into 3 weeks !

The roof is finally done!!  What was supposed to be 3 days took over 3 weeks to complete.  The problems started when I noticed on the 2nd day that they were putting on the wrong color shingle.  After that, a roofing crew left to go do another job, a few guys quit and a few got fired.  Then came Labor Day weekend and I think noone wanted to come back to work.   They ran into problems with the attached garage.   The last people who attached the garage and roofed it (50yrs ago?) kinda just threw it on there.  There were valleys and bulges and holes and saggy places all over.  After 3 different ideas, they went with one which included building up a slope on the whole back of the house.  They had already ripped off the flat roof which was on the addition on the back of the house and made that a slope, so they incorporated that into the garage addition.  The garage 'workshop' area ceiling is about 3 foot higher than before, so we have a loft in there now-ha! The whole thing looks wonderful.   Better than I hoped for.  And a little more money than I hoped for, too!!  Now we need to get new gutters and power wash the house and it will be (almost) brand new.
We got all 4 basement windows repaired, reglazed, repainted and back in, so Cori and I are putting in window wells today.  That way we can bring in a load of  dirt and build up around the foundation so water flows away from house.  Of course, it looks like we have a chance of rain for the next 7 days!  At least we got a new roof to keep us dry...

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

WE HAVE LIGHTS!

Hello,
The last couple of weeks have been crazy at the house with all the workers doing their 'thing'.   Yesterday the electricians wrapped up their work and are finally gone.  They will be back to install ceiling fixtures and switch plates and anything else that needs done in the next few months as we slowly finish.  They did leave a mess all over house and I am going to have to call the boss this morning to talk about it.  Especially after I gave him the BIG check yesterday.  By BIG check, I mean REALLY BIG.  This is what happened- I called this electrician that I had used before for my rental and he lives 3 blocks away so I thought it would be convenient.  (He did it on the side from his Monday thru Friday job).  We walked through the house and I gave him a list with 11 things that I needed done.  He called early one morning, on a Wed, and asked to be let in house to start the work.  (this was before I got any estimate).  I asked how he could do it on  a Wed and he said that he had his own business and he had 2 guys working for him now.  After 2 days of his workers doing WAY more than I wanted, I called the boss and asked for estimate and he put me off  til over the Labor Day weekend.  After that, I asked 2 more times before he finally told me the price.  It made me swear outloud!!  They did a TOTAL rewire of the whole house, including smoke alarms in all rooms, CO2 alarms, cable wire, telephone jacks, and a bunch of other stuff not needed or wanted (the above picture is a bedroom where they destroyed the walls-making more labor and $ for us-to put in the new outlets). When he asked for money yesterday, I had a talk with telling him I never asked for any of that and he never gave me an estimate upfront, etc etc.  Well, I am soooo weak, that I gave in, paid him and then life goes on...LIVE AND LEARN...
Next, I'll be giving updates on finished roof with pictures.  What a difference...

Saturday, September 10, 2011

BEST DEAL EVER!!

The room we are trying to finish first is the main floor bathroom.  As of Thursday afternoon we still hadn't found a vanity for it, so Cori (sis) and I headed to Menards and Lowes looking for some cabinets we could use to make our own.  After we saw the prices-$300 or so, we went back home so we could think about it.  Within an hour, Cori was looking on Craigslist and there was a perfect old dresser and mirror set for sale for $35!!  She immediately emailed them and we picked it up yesterday. ( It was only 2 blocks away from the house! ) The mirror we will use in the upstairs bath cuz it matches perfect.  But the dresser will replace the 2 sink vanity. (see before pic)  Livi did a good job of taking the picture of the new vanity-we told her she better NOT get our beautiful, hard-working faces in it!

Friday, September 9, 2011

The Crazy Things You Find!!

Hello,
 Hello,
My sister and niece made it here from San Diego-Yippee!!  Finally, some family close by.  Never in my adult life have I lived by any family members and I am so excited and happy...Family is Everything!
Back to the house project..... The first picture is what you find when you take out an old-type medicine cabinet from a really old house-TONS OF RAZOR BLADES!  There is the little slot in the back of cabinet where men used to put their used blades.  I guess it was for safety reasons.  They probably weren't thinking that somewhere down the road, you might want to remodel.  Does anyone know any craft projects using razor blades?  ha!
So, I let my sister and niece sleep in their first day and we headed over to house yesterday.  Livi (niece) wanted to work on getting all the carpet tack strips out of stairs so their dog wouldn't get hurt by stepping on the sharp buggers.  (is that how you spell buggers? or is it boogers?).  The roofing crew still there and wandering through the house-they climb in open window upstairs instead of using ladder-I don't know why.  They did get the garage roof and add-on framed  in and will be back today.  More on our new 'garage loft' later...
The electricians are still there, too.  Today is their 7th day on the job and still not done.  Got the 'estimate' from boss and almost threw up (more on that later, too).
The second picture is the main floor bath before anything was done to it and the other pic is a surprise we found after pulling off 'nice' 12x12 mirror above tub-The old back door!!! They had glued those mirrors right to the glass on the old back door!!  We knew the bathroom used to be the old back porch but we couldn't believe that they just left the door there and never did anything about it.  Wow-this is one  crazy house so far!
gotta go and let roofers and electricians in and it's just after 6:30am...bye

Sunday, September 4, 2011

LOOKS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER

Hello..
The electricians showed up early Wednesday morning.  Two men worked all day Wednesday, Thursday and half a day Friday because of the holiday weekend.  And they still aren't done.  They have done waaaay more than I thought they would be doing.  I finally called the boss to ask if he could give me an estimate (I never got one!) because all I was thinking was "cha-ching-$$$$".  He said he would give me one on Tuesday after the long weekend.  Well, by that time I will probably already be handing him the money for the job. 
  The above pictures are the before and after of the room that used to be a kitchen when it was a 2 family home.   It had paneling and the electrician asked if I was going to be taking it down and drywalling.  I said 'yes' and he said  'is it all right if I take it down so I can put in outlets easier?'  Silly me.  I didn't think it was going to look this bad!!  My niece, Livi, will be here in 2 days and this was supposed to be her room!  It is unliveable right now.  She is going to have to take the ' wonderful purple' room til we get done with this one.  The door is taken out and framed to be a window now.  They added a slope roof instead of a flat one that was on the addition on the back of the house.  The roofers left the hole for the window and left on Thursday having it wide open.  Today I pulled up and a cat was on the roof.  I quick screwed the old screen door over the hole so animals couldn't get in the house.  I hope there weren't any in there because now they can't escape!
Sister, Cori and niece, Livi made it to Illinois from San Diego.  DeWitt, Michigan next stop!
I'm going to watch a movie now. Take my mind off the house for a few hours :)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

OOPS!!!

Good morning!
This week is going by fast.  The roofers showed up early Monday morning.  There was about 8 of them working hard getting rid of all the shingles before new ones were delivered at noon.  I tried to stay out of their way and would drive by or ride bike over every so often.  At 7pm when I went over to lock up for the day the main man told me that when they took off the roof of 'attached' garage, it was done so bad that they were going to have to reframe the whole thing but he would keep the cost under $1000.  I knew the garage was going to be a problem.  Whoever had attached it years ago, didn't know what they were doing and it was only held up by 3 nails toenailed in.  So the roofer said it would be another day of labor for the crew.  I showed up at 7am to let them in on Tuesday.  I had things to do and drove by once at 2pm and then again at 7 to lock up.  It was then that I noticed they had put on the WRONG color of shingle!  It was a golden brown (which doesn't go with the light blue) and I had ordered a grayish color with flecks of blue, green and terra cotta.  Well, I thought that I was imagining things so I climbed in dumpster to get a scrap piece and put on my reading glasses so I could see better.  Sure enough, all this shingle had was browns and golds in it.  So I called roofer and left a message telling him that I think they had put on wrong color.  I thought I would do some more research so headed back over to house and found the bundle and brand - Everest, and color was Sunset Cedar.  Well, I had ordered Mystique, and color was Cedar, NOT Sunset Cedar.   Finally got a hold of roofer.  I felt so bad but I knew it wasn't my fault.  Everything got taken care of the next day.  I even went with roofer to make sure I got the right color.  The store said that because of the names being so close that there are mix ups all the time.  But, never this bad because the house was halfway done!  Framers never showed up yesterday and never got a call so don't know about them but new shingles being delivered this morning.
Also, got a call late Sunday from furnace guys so they installed the new furnace Monday.  Had to work around the roofers but what I have learned is you plan, plan, plan and it never works out how you expect it to.  oh well....
Another also,  electrician called at 7:30am (!) yesterday and wanted to get in the house to start his job.  It was already opened because I had got up at 6 and went to unlock it for the roofers. Two electricians showed up and worked til 4pm and still not finished.  There is a lot more electric work to be done than I thought.  All new outlets in each room (4-8 per room), new outside lights and outlets, smoke detectors in bedrooms and upstairs hallway, ceiling lights in 2 rooms that didn't have any, outlet for dishwasher and garbage disposal since they never had one, special outlet for microwave and all those fancy GFCI outlets for bathroom and kitchen.  The upstairs had its own electric box because it was an apartment at one time so they removed that and combined with the one in basement.  And there's other stuff they have to do according to code.  This is going to be a bigger expense than I was budgeting but new owners will never have to worry about electric, plumbing, roofing or furnace!
Bye for now, got to go and make sure I am getting the right color shingles