Renovating Denver – One House at a Time

More Front Porch

Here are a few more pics of the front porch masonry. Still not totally done (the brick columns need to be finished), but getting there!

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Master bedroom insulation turned out to be harder than we thought. We ended up hiring Big Al’s Insulation to come and blow it. Took them one day, where it probably would’ve taken us several. That stuff is nasty, too, so glad someone else had to deal with it.

Drywall is next, I PROMISE this time

Front Porch Masonry

The mason has been working on the brick walls/columns for the front porch. Once this is done, the porch project is practically done. The front of the house will only need some paint work and the addition of the window at the top to be done!

The mason carefully picked out the bricks he’s using. The are probably about as old as the house, they came from a demolition in Denver somewhere. The color is really, really close, maybe a tad more orange, but you can barely tell. He plans to match the mortar to the same red color as is used on the main house. Once he’s done, you will barely be able to tell it’s brand new. That’s the idea

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We have passed most of the major inspections (electrical, plumbing, mechanical and framing), so we just have the insulation inspection and then we can start the drywall. We started doing some minor insulation on the ceiling of the first floor. This is mostly for acoustical reasons.

We are starting the bulk of the insulation tomorrow. We had the supplies delivered today, now we just need to figure out how to get it up correctly. This stuff needs to go on the cathedral ceiling in the master, on the top of the exterior wall in the master, and in the attic floor. Wish us luck!

Almost Ready for Drywall!

Finishing up a few minor things before we are ready for drywall on the inside. Still need to get AC inspection, we’ve passed the electrical and plumbing rough inspections. Then the final framing inspection – and we’re ready for drywall. Mike spent the day scraping a few walls of wallpaper and falling plaster as well as pulling weeds in the backyard. Backbreaking!

I have been working on finishing the deck – caulking and painting the white. We think we’ll keep the exterior color scheme to white, a few shades of greyish purple and the red brick. We are soon installing a window on the upper (attic) portion of the front of the house. The master bedroom runs along the front of the house, so that window will allow light into the vaulted ceiling area. We originally had skylights planned for that room as well, but we bagged that – maybe forever, maybe until we replace the roof. There should be plenty of light in that room, so maybe skylights are overkill anyway.

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We also picked up our kitchen cabinets and they’re being stored in our garage. To save a few bucks, we rented a Uhaul and picked them up ourselves at the distribution warehouse. I’ve only opened one box so far, but they look great!