The Studio Demo

At every point of this project I've contemplated hiring some help to get things wrapped up.  This was one of them that I kept coming back to.  The problem was that I always felt I would run into these points where I would just have someone standing around waiting for me to make decisions, so I ultimately never did get any help moving debris.  It made me stronger right?

So to start into this part of the project, I wanted to get as much of the place pulled down as possible before renting the dumpster.  I didn't want the dumpster sitting idle in the driveway while I tried to figure out how to tear something down, so I got it to a point where I had as much debris next to the studio as still get around and then I started looking for dumpsters.  After looking through several different companies, I was blown away on how much they wanted to for 20 yarder ($350-500).  I ended up using Ponce Services.  The didn't have the absolute lowest price, but it wasn't the worst.  I wish I would have asked if the price was with taxes, since it came up to around $430 once Texas got his cut.  So when they delivered it, I was totally amazed that the driver was able to get dang thing in our driveway since it's barely truck width as is.  One thing I didn't think about until after the drive was gone was that the bar to open the door to the dumpster was on the same side as the fence!!  My only option was to pull out some planks on the fence and see if I could get it open.  No joy since the bar would have to pass thru one of the posts of the fence.

So I stopped worrying about that and started loading it up.  I was really suprised that the 20 yarder didn't hold as much as I would expect.  I got the studio down to the floor and didn't have anymore room, so I called the company and had them pick it back up.  Not sure how I will get ride of the rest, but at least it's down to the ground and not a problem.  I'll have to finish the job before I can work on the fence....

Finally got the roof all the way down!  I wanted to save those door, so I have to be a little more careful the rest of the way.

Wall Repair

I torn down the old stairs back in October sometime.  Then I had to start repairing all the water damaged siding on that same wall of the garage.

This required a lot of gentle removal of the siding to preserve wood that could be reused.  Once I got down to the studs, I made the decided to rebuild the wall too.  The existing studs at some point had some water damage along the sill.  One of the previous owners just simply tacked another 2x4 on the side of the other and replaced the sill.  The sill wasn't attached to the concrete and the studs were a total mess.  I started on the end by the door and began pulling out all the framing around the existing side door.  I new I wanted to open up the door to about 4 foot, so I went ahead and framed in for a custom door (more on the door later).

Once I got the door framed in, I continued down the wall, shoring it up, removing the old wood and replacing it with the new.

Next was to replace the siding... Since the wood was in pretty bad shape, I decided to go ahead and replace it with new wood.  Luckily the local Grogan carries the old 6" pine siding with the same profile in 16 footers. The cool part is bring home 16 foot lumber in a Prius!  Almost like a Tundra, except it gets 45MPG.

Then all the wood had to be primed.  I primed all sides but the front, figuring it would be easier to paint the front once it's on.  After getting everything primed I started hanging.  Luckily my neighbor was nice enough to let me borrow all his tools I needed, so the siding went up pretty quick.  It did rain a few of those days and since the days were getting shorter, I wasn't getting a lot of daylight after work.  Had to tape up some plastic over the wall a few days since the front wasn't primed yet.

Once I got a chance I laid a couple coats of primer and then Karen put down the first coat of the blue to match the existing.

Studio Or Door?

So the next decision was whether to start tearing down the studio behind the garage next or get the door finished.  I had a pretty good idea of the design I wanted for the door, which involved using the table saw a lot to make all the lap joints. Since the only room I had for the table saw was in the studio, I started the door first.

What's happened so far on the remodelling

So pretty much one Saturday a few weeks back, I woke up and decided to start on the backyard renovation. I decided to start with the most dangerous part, which was the stairs to the garage apartment. The basic problem with the stairs was that they were built out of none treated wood that was painted on all sides and also built on the wall of the garage without any flashing at all to keep water and leaves from getting in between the stringer and the garage wall.  Here are some pics of the problems (the Befores)

As you can see the stringer is in direct contact with the siding.  Also the existing siding for some reason appears to be pieced together. 

Since the stairs and porch were in really bad shape it only took me about an hour and a half to turn it into a pile of wood.

Catch up!!

So it's been a really, really long time since the last post. To play catch up about the last 4-5 months:

• We've decided to go ahead and work toward getting our house ready to sell and start looking for properties. We think we can get anywhere from $50-100k more for our house then we would spend on a lot.
• We put and offer down on lot on White Oaks. It turns out the lot is in probate, so we're going to keep looking around.
• We've also started working on cleaning up the backyard since this is part of the house that needs the most improvement.

That's pretty much the gist of the last 4-5 months. We've looked at a lot of different lots in various areas. We're trying to keep it to, the Heights, Rice Millitary, or Montrose right now. All the lots in this area range from $150-250k. So we're shooting in for the mean or lower if we can get it. With the economy what it is, builders haven't been eating up all the lots like in the past. So this is definitely a benifit for us.

Next posts will be all the work going on to get the house ready for sales.