Craftsman Bungalow: One Year Update
September 14, 2020
Well, it’s been a year (and what a year it’s been, amirite?)
We originally hoped to make faster progress than our first flip (which took two years), but at this point I am anticipating we’ll need another year to finish.
I have been remiss in updating you on our progress (2020, guys), so this post skims over a lot of things that were accomplished in the last several months, along with a comprehensive list at the end of what we still have to do.
I know I already told you a bit about our framing work on the main level, with all the walls changed and added. Over the course of the spring and summer we got quite a bit more done, and overall I would say it was a productive year:
The detached garage:
This little garage got so much love this summer! We scraped, primed, painted, caulked, reroofed, added gutters, added a new garage door, a new side door (that didn’t exist before), added new electrical, had the entire concrete floor smashed out and repoured, and added new concrete outside the garage so you could pull a car in without driving through mud and grass. Now I just need to landscape a bit and add the light…and it’ll be done!
New colors! Siding: Inkwell Trim: Pure White Door: Embellished Blue
The path from house to garage:
Remember what we started with out behind the house? That nasty old deck out back that you couldn’t even access from the house? And as for a path from the house to the garage…there wasn’t one. Not even a path to that deck.
We realized a patio would be so much nicer (actually the concrete guy suggested it, and we realized he was right…good salesman, right? Ha!).
I posted the old deck on Facebook Marketplace and someone paid us to come and take it apart so they could have the wood.
ready for concrete!
The new sidewalk and patio from the house to the garage are such an improvement, and this garage really feels usable now!
The roof:
This house still had the original 1920 slat-wood underlayment with large gaps between boards, creating a prime situation for continual roof leaks. Bruce tore off all the old stuff, RESHEATHED the ENTIRE ROOF, and then re-roofed properly with all new materials. At that time he also added bathroom ventilation (there was none before) and kitchen hood ventilation (also none before) and brought in a pro to create proper metal flashing around the chimneys. I assisted minimally with cutting sheathing and helping carry it to him, a few close friends donated a day of their time, and Bruce’s dad assisted every single day from the ground in endlessly helpful ways. Other than that Bruce did this singlehandedly. It was a tremendously taxing and exhausting and endless job, and I have two words: NEVER. AGAIN.
The basement:
This unfinished space had tremendous potential, but we needed to insulate, frame, add HVAC, add electrical, and rebuild the stairs to be wider, less steep, and up to code. Now we have a family room ready for drywall where before there was none.
Mechanicals:
A new furnace was installed, Bruce dug out and installed a sump, Bruce worked with a professional plumber and installed all new plumbing with a central manifold, we added a water softener, we had an HVAC pro re-run the house so it has air returns and proper air flow throughout, our electrician put all new wiring in the home (replacing knob and tube and adding a lot of new wiring as well, for all the lovely lighting I selected), and I’m happy to say: we passed rough-in inspection!
Skim Coating:
We did it in the first flip everywhere, and here we go again. In this house over 50% of the main level will be new drywall, which led me to the realization that the remaining plaster/lath walls needed to be skim coated since the new walls will be smooth. I got good at it on the first flip, so I am tackling that once again - I’m about half way done.
Artistic close-up shot showing the first coat of mud covering the old scratchy plaster texture
The front porch:
This old front porch was not great. A tree had fallen on it years ago and knocked the brick columns crooked.
We brought in A1 Concrete leveling and they dug under the columns and squirted in a foam product that leveled our columns back up! To do that they needed the old porch structure removed (which we knew needed to happen anyway - those stairs were treacherous!). So we ripped those out, designed a new support structure, and rebuilt the entire porch and stairs.
The porch decking is composite (thus explaining the massive amount of wood we used to create the support structure for the decking); even though that’s not historically accurate we thought it would be a nice upgrade. We did use wood to create new side walls, stairs, and railings. It looks really nice, it’s about 100% more safe and solid, and I can’t wait to get landscaping around it and get the house painted and the new front door installed!
Side note - can you see under the new stairs where the concrete ends and the dirt begins? That was the starting point of the old stairs! Talk about narrow.
We are still hoping to get the exterior of the home painted before winter, and then all winter we’ll turn our attention back to the interior of the home.
At the moment, off the top of my head, the to-do list looks something like this:
When will I have another update for you? Well, I just don’t know. Bruce’s teaching job is…well, let’s just say it’s reached levels of demanding that didn’t seem possible until 2020. Everything else in his life is on hold this year. In the meantime, I’ll keep painting and skim coating between design jobs. Let me know if you want to come have a painting or dry-walling party this fall - I’ll bring Starbucks. :)