Lanai Victory!

What a long crazy trip this room has been. When we moved in it was 2 rooms... with a dropped ceiling in the 2nd. Everything was bad. Bad bad. The concrete patio was poured and overlapped the lanai's slab between the posts, then the walls were built on top of that. So, this room was lower than the outside. Of course there was rot where water drained down into the house. The 2nd room's dropped ceiling was exposed to the outside... as there were no panels between the rafters in this section. 50+ years of dust and debris on top of that ceiling. Very bad. Wiring held together with electrical tape. Chopped framing inside the walls with no rhyme or reason. Ductwork going to nowhere. Oh, the little things you discover after having moved in.

But, after a full rebuild of this room, I am sitting on the sofa in a room with no tools and it feels pretty good. This one is really just waiting on the floors, but it's good enough for now!

When we moved in there were 2 rooms, posts were not aligned under rafters, much badness.


Human tornado 1 and 2:



Walls framed and furred out where needed. Garbage sparkles under the new lighting.


We added recycled denim insulation to the new exterior walls. It might not do a whole lot... but this side faces the street so we might as well try to cut the noise and wind a bit. BTW, this stuff is a pleasure to work with. Just use your bare hands, tear it and stuff it.


Here's a good example of one of the many surprises along the way. After tearing off the paneling attached to this beam, we found out how the electrical was run to the 2nd room. This one hurts my brain. Nothing a little bondo can't fix though.



Only one way I know to get straight lines. Tape.


Ahhhh. It was nice to rediscover our storage units that had been in the garage for the last 10 months.

Drip Edge Challenge

Something has been bugging me about the way we redid our lanai enclosure... It's the way the siding comes up too high and actually runs up between the rafters. This is really hard to explain, even with pictures. Let me just say that it was a test of bravery for me to fix it. I had to snap a chalk line and run the length of the lanai with a skilsaw, cutting through only the siding and no deeper so as to not nick the beam beneath. It would probably be no big deal for a career carpenter, but for me it was a little scary. But I know that once we're painted it will be one of those details that makes a difference. Do you have any idea what I am talking about? No? That's okay.

Before:


The point of no return:


Successful cut:


Drip Edge installed. Getting ready to paint:

Beam Caps

It really, really, really bugs me that some termite people will just lop off the end of a beam rather than repair it. Actually, it really, really, really bugs me that a home owner would let this happen. Luckily, the ends of the chopped beams were sound so it was simple enough to cap them. I feel much better now. After the house is painted this will be our dirty little secret.

New siding & some concrete

Wow... it's been 2 and 1/2 months since the last post. Well, it's not for a lack of working on the place. There just hasn't been anything that's been fully completed. We have a lot of things happening at the same time. But before too much time gets away from me, I'll share some shots of the new siding and concrete.

The front of our house, if you were to be able to view it in 1953, would have been louvered panels that allowed a partial view into the patio (now the den). We discovered that each foot wide board on the front of the house was actually 2 of the original louvers placed side by side. Difficult to explain, but basically it meant all of our boards looked split down the middle. In addition to this, the concrete around the perimeter of the slab stopped where those panels originally were. So, in order to properly close in the den, we poured new concrete where it needed to go (in 3 places) and replaced the siding on the front of the house.

There are so many details of what was wrong... I could go on and on. But it's fixed now. New electrical is being run as I write this. Here are a few shots of this phase.

One area where concrete will be poured. See the 6" wide boards?


Concrete poured:


Front of the house with split boards and no concrete. BTW, before we poured the concrete the siding was nailed into a couple 2x4s loosely attached to the slab. Way janky.


Redwood factory. We had to have it milled because it's no longer stocked locally in a 1" net thickness. Any loose knots I removed and did preemptive bondo-ing.


In some areas I was able to use salvage redwood. The pinkish color is the original color of the house. The green is the current color of the house. The white is the new stuff, primed. Here is some art of all three together.


Front of the house pre-battens. This front wall had to be re-framed on the inside as well. I'll share those shots when I post the new front room... hopefully some time this month.


New front. Woohoo! Check out the clerestory windows. Those probably deserved their own post. I emailed a sketch and dimensions to a local glass company, fabricated the stops, and popped them in. That was a simple thing that made a big difference. New sconce lights, too. Should be working by the end of the day...

New Doors & Windows! (in progress)

Our particular Cliff May floorplan is one of the "Lanai" models, which means it had an open patio as the front room. This was closed off a long time ago. (Actually it was done in 1970, as I discovered a Dodgers schedule in the wall). While part of me would like to open it back up to it's original state, it's really more practical for us to keep it closed in, so it can serve as our den. So, the goal now is to follow the lines of the house as closely as we can, to do it how we estimate the architect would have. We had door and window panels fabricated to match the originals as closely as possible. It's not totaly done, but it's quite a dramatic improvement from the outside and the inside. We'll post again when this front room is finished off. It still needs everything on the interior. Good thing I've honed my drywall skills...

More Drywall & Paint (boring)

Here are a few shots of the guest room. They show holes punched in the wall where we ran new electrical. We ran 3/4" romex from the panel up into the soffit in this room. I'm told we can run up to 10 circuits through this line. So, now we'll be able to run electrical throughout the house as we need it (i.e. kitchen make over). Hopefully from here on out we can keep this punching holes in the wall thing to a minimum.







Again, Pay no attention to the beam or window panel colors... we just had to get some paint on the wall board so we can move on to more urgent things...

New drywall, paint, desk

The last couple weeks have been spent getting my working situation in order. I work from home, and until now, my office has been a bit of a dump. We had new elecrtrical installed, so the office is now on it's own properly grounded circuit. Many holes were punched in the drywall when doing that, which helped us discover the water-rotted wallboard on 2 sides of the office.

Holes in the wall: I cut the bottom 2 feet of drywall out on the 2 rotted sides and replaced it w/ green board. This is the shady side of the house. The original board lasted 50 years, so the green board should do us for a while. I thought I took pics of the drywall patchwork, but I guess not. I have to get better about documenting all the steps...


New paint: So far we've only painted the drywall boards... everything else comes later...


New desk: I built a simple desk using legs from Ikea and 3/4 inch Birch plywood with an MDF overlay. We have a dresser made of MDF, and I like the simple utility of it. I finally have my printer and scanner off the ground. I think this set up really helps open the room up and makes the most of the 10' by 10' space.



Braced with redwood: