Category Archives: Reno

We Have Plaster!

June 12, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

I went over to the house yesterday to find that the “plaster guy” (plasterer?) has been a very busy bee!! The biggest changes were to the dining room and one of the guest bedrooms upstairs. Check it out! (Please forgive the photo quality…some of these are iPhone pics.)

The dining room before:

The dining room now:

The guest room before:

The guest room now:

Of course, fixing things always brings about the unveiling of more things to fix. Here are a few of our latest blemishes.

Not to mention the mess that all of this is creating. For example:

Now that I have seen all that’s going on, I wonder how people live in a house through renovations. Sure, not all renovations are the size of this one, but any renovation causes a big mess! I don’t know whether to think these people are brave and patient or just gluttons for punishment! ;)

Also, there is no longer anything attached to the outside of the house. All of the shutters have been removed, and even our mailbox and “Taylor Gaylor” house sign are gone (although the sign did leave a nice shadow mark). It looks so bare, especially with all of the scraping!

Lastly, the paint scraping on the brick columns has begun, and repointing should start soon. Here is a picture of a column before:

And here’s how it looks now:

After talking with our contractor yesterday, I’ve learned that we are right on schedule and right on budget so far. (Miracle, right?) But I also learned that things will be slowing down a bit pretty soon. The carpenters are still finishing up another project (thanks to all this rain we’ve been having), so it may be a while before they get to us. That pushes back the painting, obviously. The plaster is moving along, but will have to sit for a few weeks before the walls can be primed and painted. We’ve come so far, but we’ve still got a long road ahead!!

Update and Pictures

June 11, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

The house is really coming along, even in spite of all the rain we’ve had! The entire interior has been scraped and is now ready for new plaster, and eventually primer. I met with our contractor last week to lay out where we wanted outlets in the house so that he could tell the electrician. His best piece of advice? Think “CHRISTMAS!” We definitely don’t want a bunch of extension cords and power strips hanging out, so we will have plenty of outlets. (Although, the contractor laughed at me when I asked if we would even be in the house by Christmas!!) We figure the electrician has to get in there and pull wire anyway, so why not? We will have LOTS of exterior outlets too!

Even after being slowed down by all the rain, much of the exterior has been through the first round of scraping. Next up is applying the stripping chemicals to get the rest of that stubborn paint off. This would be so much easier if we had bought a brick house!! But we love ours just the same.

Speaking of rain, we learned last week after the heavy rains that our sump pump was not working in the basement. Our contractor went over one day to find about half a foot of standing water in the basement! Luckily he knew just what to do and the problem is fixed now…and there wasn’t any damage (knock on wood).

We are now at the 3-week mark in this construction process. For more pictures, check out Week 3 at http://702parkproject.shutterfly.com/!

Progress

June 3, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

As I’m saying this, I’m knocking on wood, but so far I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the progress at the house! Check out some of the work that’s being done. (I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures…iPhone isn’t quite as good as the Canon!)

1. The two dead/diseased trees in the front yard have been removed. It really opens the front of the house up and gives one of the bedrooms a completely different view. We plan to go back with something smaller in place of the pine that used to be on the left side of the yard.

2. Pretty much the entire interior has been scraped to prep for the plaster repair. I was a little worried at first when I saw all of the cracks, but I learned that the workers try to exaggerate the cracks so they know what to fix.

3. The painters have begun to scrape the exterior of the house. The shutters are off, and there are piles and piles of paint chips all over. As you can see, this will take several “rounds”…some of that paint has been on there for several decades!

The house is looking pretty rough right now, but in a few weeks, it will be scraped, prepped, and painted and looking like new again. In the meantime, the plumber and electrician are working away and the house is buzzing with workers.

Stealing My Thunder

May 31, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

Now that I have sufficiently “cooled off” on the subject, I’d like to tell you a little story about, as Nanny would say, hateful people.

Last Friday, I was happy to be off work early and heading to Greensboro to see my husband (who I hadn’t seen in a few days) and celebrate his graduation. It was a beautiful day, all of the traffic was going in the opposite direction, and I had chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes in tow. Needless to say, it was a good day. Unfortunately, the excitement ended quite abruptly when I got to our apartment and learned that our Park Avenue house had been robbed….again.

The first time, our basement was broken into (doors and windows broken) and our copper pipes were stolen. The basement flooded and our sump pump was destroyed. Luckily, the bank still owned the house at this point, so besides the hassle of having to arrange with the plumber, we were in the clear. And the first thing we did after closing on the house was install an alarm system.

This time, we owned the house. Our house, our problem. Charles got a call late Friday afternoon from our neighbor (a retired NC judge)…he had heard something going on over at the house and walked over to discover a man removing the copper piping that runs from the HVAC units into the house. When Judge questioned the man, he made up a very shady story about doing some work for his uncle, who was a subcontractor on the project. Not at all believing this, Judge went back to his house to call the police and the thief hit the road with his new-found copper. A police report was filed, exterior motion lights were installed, but the damage was done. Our contractor estimates it will be about $3,000 to replace the copper. The worst part is that our HVAC units were working prior to the event (not in great condition, but band-aid-able). Now we are almost guaranteed to have to replace both units. My dreams of one updated bathroom in the house are slowly slipping away…

A good friend and HVAC specialist came by the house to assess the damage yesterday and is preparing a report for us. We will have to look at the numbers to see if it’s even worth it to file an insurance claim. [If you are not in the mood for an insurance rant, stop reading here.]

So this is absurd to me….we bought a very expensive 3-month builders risk policy. Unfortunately we could not get a homeowner’s policy because we will not be living in the house for the next 3 months. So on top of paying a premium for insurance, we will have to pay the deductible to file the claim. Then, when we go to secure a homeowner’s policy in a few months, our rate will likely be increased because we filed a claim. Let me get this straight–we did the responsible thing and insured the house and even set up an alarm system. Through no fault of our own, we were robbed, and now because we have insurance, we have to pay more? Am I missing something? As a first-time homeowner, I’ve never dealt with home insurance before. How is this ok? How do people just accept that this is the way it is? I know my sad little story isn’t going to change anything, and I know the person who stole the copper could not care less, but this experience has certainly opened my eyes to the total racket that is home insurance.

Ok, enough complaining/venting/ranting. It’s FRIDAY! We are hitting the road for a weekend of wedding festivities for some of our best friends. We are so excited for them and can’t wait to celebrate!

Although this “incident” was a blow (probably to our spirits more than anything), we have so much to be excited about and thankful for. Lots of major progress going on at the house. You’d be amazed at how much has already been done! More updates and lots of pictures coming soon…

Graduations and Gardening

May 28, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!! Between graduation festivities, packing, and moving, ours was pretty hectic. Charles graduated on Saturday and luckily his family and my family could all be there. We had lunch with friends, and then watched Charles get “hooded” Saturday evening. I’m so proud of him for all he has accomplished!

And yes, there was even an ice sculpture…

Back at the house, there was lots of progress too. Check out a few of the before and after shots (well, really middle shots) of the landscaping!

Also, the 1970s floral wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom is gone.

Unlike last week, the weatherman is calling for bright and sunny skies all week. I’m hoping that means a lot of work will get done! We have the electrician and plumber coming this week, hopefully with good news!! I hope you enjoy your short week! :)

Abracadabra!

May 23, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

I stopped over at the house on my way home from work yesterday and didn’t even recognize it! It is AMAZING what a little tree trimming can do!!

No more overgrown bushes taking over the front of the house. No more scraping your car on tree limbs when pulling into the driveway. No more “hidden gem” from the street view. Old girl is now shining in all of her glory!! As our contractor and neighbor both put it, it looks like someone loves her now.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s still plenty of work to be done. But we are definitely seeing progress on a daily basis, and that makes this girl happy! Speaking of progress…the porches are officially “jacked up” and even safe to walk on. What a major change from 2 days ago!

(Sorry for the graininess in that last one. Our contractor assures me that the upper porch is safe to walk on, but I’m just going to take his word for it and take pictures from behind the screen door for now!)

I got a call from our contractor yesterday afternoon and he told me that I would want to go by the house and check out the wall next to the fireplace in the dining room. He said that there was a “surprise gem” waiting for me. When I went over, this is what I found:

The painter and wallpaperer (I looked it up, it’s a real word!) signed and dated the wall before finishing it in June of 1954. How cool is that!? I can’t wait to see what other treasures we find during this process!!

Oh, and yayyyyyy for no more wallpaper in the dining room! It’s almost unrecognizable.

I am leaving straight from work tomorrow to head to Greensboro to celebrate Charles graduating from law school (SOOOO proud of him, by the way!), so it will be a few days before I get another look at the house. I can’t wait to see the progress!