Renovating Denver – One House at a Time

Paint

Drywall is done, and we’ve moved on to priming and painting. We should really rent a sprayer, but we don’t have a sink here to wash it out in. We’ve been using rollers and brushes. It kind of sucks, but it’s kind of fun because the floors aren’t in yet so we can be as messy as we want. Mike and I painted most of the downstairs already. We picked a couple of Behr colors: Palatial White for ceilings and trim, Navajo White for most downstairs walls, and Soft Denim for the kitchen/sunroom. Our kitchen cabinets are painted off white-ish, with a brown glaze. I think it’s called Vanilla Bean finish. The cabinets are Merillat, which is the same thing as Kraftmaid at Home Depot. The idea is for the cabinet color to fall in the same family as the Navajo White and Palatial White.

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HARDWOOD FLOOR DELIVERY

We painted most of the downstairs to prepare for the flooring delivery today. We ordered the wide plank floors in a heart pine. The widths of the planks vary from 4″ to 8″. Some of the boards are as long as 16 feet! We had to stack the floors a special way, with lathe strips in between all the boards. This helps air circulate through the boards while they acclimate to the house for a week. The floors will be stained a dark red color … which is similar to some wood that was in the house originally. The stain color is called Autumn Leaf, if you look hard at the first photo in the Paint section above (click to view large image) you can see the floor stain sample in the middle at the bottom.

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More Drywall Photos

Here are a bunch more photos of the drywall when it was first hung. The walls that still look brown and blotchy are exterior plaster walls. We didn’t tear the plaster down from these walls, because it was adhering to brick. We were afraid of opening a can of worms by tearing that down. The drywall guys are going to skim coat those walls with mud when they mud the new drywall. We passed the drywall inspection, so mudding and taping has begun today!

DOWNSTAIRS
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MASTER BEDROOM/BATHROOM
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OTHER UPSTAIRS ROOMS/HALL
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Drywall

Drywall has finally started! It took a while to get that squared away, but now it’s cruisin’. Should be mostly ready for the first drywall (screw) inspection by Friday. Our floors and cabinets have arrived, but until the drywall is done, none of that can be installed. The floor is first, and it has to acclimate for a week in the house first. The floors are going to be wonderful – the fine people at Carlisle Wide Plank floors hooked us up! We got the wide plank heart pine floors. We are using a stain called Autumn Leaf, which is a pretty close match to some hardwoods already in the house (in the front office room).

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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!

Pocket Doors

Got the pocket doors installed this week! The pocket doors will close off the front room of the house. That room will be an office for now, and maybe a bedroom if needed. The single pocket door by the front door was purchased from dealer in Iowa. It arrived in great condition, already stained, sealed and glossed up.

The double pocket doors were purchased from Queen City Salvage in Denver, on Brighton Blvd. These doors were covered in many layers of paint, and it took many many hours and days to get these puppies clean. They are in OK condition, we will stain/seal them soon.

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Also, the door for the master has been cut out. The mason had to come do that. Now, we’re ready to install the French doors, but I think we’ll wait until we’re certain they won’t get dinged up by the drywallers/other contractors.

 

More Photos

Here’s a quick photo update! Sorry I don’t have more time to reflect – but things are moving along.

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Interior Walls / Air Conditioning / Electrical / Plumbing

It’s all starting to come together. The main walls are up on the first floor. We took down a wall separating the dining area from the TV area. This required a huge header to carry the weight the wall was bearing. Tony brought in these cool old jacks to use to support the weight while they built this massive header. We are also preparing to tear out the concrete pad in the backyard.

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We decided to open up the wall separating the sunroom and the kitchen. This will let more light into the kitchen and allow us to move some kitchen things into the sunroom (like the fridge!). We hired a mason, because it required a steel lintel to support the weight of the bricks above. This will eventually be drywall over, so he used “shit bricks”. I did not know this was a technical term

Work continues on. Our plumbing inspection passed today. The air conditioning and electricity are pretty much done. This week we are building another wall or two, installing closet doors, cutting the opening for the master bedroom French doors, and finalizing our kitchen. More updates soon. Oh and here are some final pics of the deck with handrail – still to come are 3 masonry columns around the beams.

 

Woo Hoo! Something’s almost done! (Almost)

The decking for the upper front deck is going on! Now you can step out the window and stand. The handrail will probably go up tomorrow, then the mason needs to come to finish up the brick columns and half walls. The electrician has wired the lighting already for this project.

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With the decking on, we could finally take down the awful awning covering the second story windows. Looks much better from the outside and inside!

Some more pics of the deck: