Yea! A we have a toilet - well kinda.

Utilities -

If I had to sum up the last week in one word, it would be 'utilities.'  The folks from Air Extreme (heating/AC guys)  got furnace fixed, gas lines ready for inspection.  City inspector approved the gas lines.  Atmos came out to put the gas meter back on and reconnect the gas so we have heat in the house and are ready for those cold days to come!  YEA!!!!  So far the only thing keeping us warm was the 1000 trips up and down the stairs (see below!).

City's water meter guy came on Thursday and swapped out the meter and then turned the water back on.   Although many of the pipes are split, we now have one faucet in the basement with which we can fill up a bucket with water.  And with that bucket of water we can flush a toilet!  This alone will save quick trips around the corner to Carl's Jr. 

Saturday, Oct 20, 2012, was a quick clean up day.   We hired a high school student to help us carry out all the demo'd basement walls.  The three of us carried everything in the basement upstairs, packed the dumpster with drywall, packed the pickup with paneling and a made a big pile of scrap wood in the garage.  When I say packed, I mean carefully layered, each piece laying flat with as little airspace between pieces as possible.  A bit OCD?  No - I'm just too cheap to pay for a 1/2 empty dumpster!  (See $$ alert below)  We also pulled nails and knocked out the drywall in the basement staircase. 

Finally, we talked to a contractor about installing egress windows in the basement and doing all the work in the basement.   

$$ alert -
We had 2 cubic yard dumpster delivered. Cost? $60/load - emptied on-call
Diego took a 1 1/2 cubic yard pickup load to the Larimer County Landfill and it only cost him $10.69. What is wrong with this picture? Of course he was already in Loveland, so there wasn't the issue of driving over there AND the extra time it take to get there.   The dumpster is definitely a necessity but it sure is a money-saver when we can take a load over ourselves! 

What's up next? 
1. Call electrician to rewire the house (with the 1956 original wiring fairly exposed, now is the time rewire!)

2. Give a key to the contractor so he can get started in basement while we're gone.  We'll be out of town for the next two weekends, so we're trying not to lose momentum. 

3. Keep an eye out on Craigslist for used kitchen cabinets.  By the way, I used the Virtual Room Designer on the Lowe's website to redesign the kitchen.  Love it!  (the software, that is!). 

Reciprocating saws and brute force!

Renovation - Day 2

Recriprocating saw and brute force.

Deconstruction:  We got a late start today since church took priority!  More de-construction.  I don't say demolition, since that implies total wreckage.  We've learned that plunging in with a sledge hammer isn't always the best approach.  Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't demolition!  Crowbars and a recriprocating saw were the 2 most used tools of the day.   We still have 2 more rooms to clear out.

Neighbors:  We met the neighbors on both sides today.  Sounds like a really stable neighborhood - the lady next on the south has lived there for 23 years and with the exception of our house and one across the street, they're all owner occupied for years!  That's encouraging.  We also got some of the gossip -

Water:  Diego inserted a faucet right above the shut-off valve for the house.  He'll do an air pressure-test and if that's good, then we'll as the City to turn the water back on.  We still need to replumb the house, but this will at least give us one source of water and the ability to manually "flush" the toilet. 

Electricity:  On Friday Diego noticed that some outlets worked, but other didn't.  My husband, the Hardy-boy detective, discovered that we only had one leg of electricity coming into the house.  Translation?  Apparently there are 2 legs/wires of electricity that comes in from the street.  Each leg has 110 volts for a total of 220 volts.  We called Xcel and they sent someone within 20 minutes.   The power comes into the house through some tree branches.  The branches were weighing on the wires and effectively broke one of the wires.  A definite fire hazard, according to Robert,  my favorite electrician-friend. 

A dive into the pool!

We've taken the plunge again and bought a house intended to be a rental.  It's a HUD home, had been foreclosed and vacant for a long time - so we knew at the outset that this would be a crazy ride.

The ride began in earnest this week. Here's the list:

1.  We can't turn the water on because the pipes have been frozen and blew out in numerous places.  Additionally, the existing plumbing is corroded and in some places the pipes are touching either heating ducts or other metal surfaces, causing them to corrode and leak. Many of the joints weren't soldered well and are literally breaking apart in our hands.

We'll have to completely re-plumb the house.  Meanwhile that means we can't wash our hands or answer nature's calls while we're there.  Good thing Carl's Jr. is only a block away!

2.  There is no heat -The gas/furnace guy hasn't made it over to the house yet, but this we know:
2a  the furnace won't turn on - why?? Diego has tracked down wires and fuses, but it still doesn't come on. 
2b  The gas lines leak. 

3.  The basement is 'finished' but horrible!  So we had a dumpster delivered and started tearing the basement out today.  We filled up the dumpster, but not by dumping!  We carefully packed the dumpster so that there is no empty space - really, the stuff in the dumpster looks like a completed Tetris game:  paneling, ceiling tiles, shower base, more paneling, some drywall, a few wall studs (we separated most of those out!). 

Whoever 'finished' the basement loved construction adhesive.  The light switch in the bathroom wasn't even nailed it - it was glued.  On the other hand - they also were screw happy.  They used scraps of drywall on the ceiling and used 2" drywall screws every 3"

The basement bathroom is a plumbing nightmare - so we tore out everything except the toilet.  Ultimately, we'll have to jackhammer up the concrete floor and move the pipes.