Pamela's Positive Possibilities

  This is the key to my new world!
  As I wandered around the house yesterday getting some before pictures so that I could share my progress, it all seemed a little overwhelming. To easy to anticipate problems than to focus on the possibilities.
  I will put my sunshine glasses on and get you caught up with where we are now.
  My new home is-will be a 3 bedroom 2 bath with a finished attic upstairs. We entered in to this agreement-plan a month ago right after an electrical contractor helped pass the rough electrical inspections. We waited a week and a half for the plumbing contractor but last week we passed the plumbing inspection. All the wiring and plumbing is new but since this was started a decade ago not only were there some loose ends to finish up but there were some crazy things done that needed to be undone and some of the codes had changed. Contractors are wise people worth waiting for. The new central heat and ductwork passed inspection way back and once its passed it stays that way.
  The two men involved in this project are Henry, who is the seller, and Wayne, who is the father of both my children and partner in this project. Positive possibilities of project partner. AHHHH! We will save that for a future post.
  After a couple of weeks of work Wayne got the framework done and we passed that inspection Monday. 4 days ago. Well it was a lot more than frame work. Upstairs the old floor joists and new needed to be tied in together and turned into something level for a floor to sit on. Henry had done the framework for all the new walls but he ignored that wall joists have to be 24" apart so that there is one where the sheet rock ends to nail to. Also one bedroom door frame and the closet door frames needed longer headers above them to accommodate what is called a cripple support. This involved moving a few walls so that the closet doors would fit.  He also had to build a floor where my dryer will go. There were stairs to get under the house there. Wasted space. There will still be an access door to get under there.

My next project is to take on two of the living room walls.
 The house is adobe and with all the new frame work and drywall going up it is important to me to honor the original southwest style, other than all my doorways(the existing original ones- front door, from living to my front bedroom and living room to kitchen) are about 16" thick.
Still at the read and research phase of my adobe and
plaster project. Henry has left plenty of materials so I
 probably have what I need just have to plan out the how and decide what I want in my finished product before I get started.
    Playing in the mud! How awesome is that. This is a picture of one of my living room walls made of mud and straw(no big bad wolves or huffing and puffing allowed). They are not all like this. Its just where the plaster has been removed and the adobe has been carved out to accomodate the new electrical. It is by my front door. See, that one goes to the switch to turn on my porch light.

Here is the first piece of sheet rock going up in Angie's room. Angie is my youngest daughter in case a stranger reads this. No- She does not have a toilet in her room. The toilet will be in her bathroom I promise. This corner of her room was originally part of the kitchen. The weird wall to the left is where the wood burning cookstove was. It will be beautiful soon. This corner of the old kitchen and what was an enclosed back porch are a bedroom with bathroom now. Kinda the Master bedroom but with a shower not a bath. Angie is so excited it doesn't have a tub because if it did it would be mine and not hers.


This is the other side of Angie's Room.  NO- She does not have a hot water heater in her room. This picture was taken when the plumbing contractor was there. He reinstalled 2 brand new hot water heaters. One for each side of the house. Angie shares this one with the kitchen and the other is by the 2nd bath and is shared with the laundry. Less energy used piping hot water across the house and heating the water that replaces it for it to sit in the pipes getting cool. All the windows in the house are new double paned insulated. her window looks onto the back yard. The wall behind her closet is where the original window was. From the outside you can see the board where it is all ready for tar paper wire lath and stucco. While I am blogging my drywall is going up. This has been a long post as I try to show where I am. I will continue later because I have more pictures of possible positive probabilities.
Pam