Little House on the Prairie – 2012

      No Comments on Little House on the Prairie – 2012

IMG_1513

Archived on the old site are annual recaps of the work we’ve done remuddling our semi-four square farmhouse. I never seem to have gotten around to documenting 2012, so here it is.

Status Report

As I’v done with each annual report, here’s an overview of the work done so far:

I had set a goal at the end of my 2011 report to finish the dining room and install new siding and gutters on the house in 2012. Neither one of those goals was completely met, but progress was made, and an additional project was completed as well.

Done:

  • Bored a new 50′ well
  • Replaced about 1/3 of the foundation
  • Rebuilt numerous structural areas
  • Rewired the whole house
  • Redid all of the plumbing
  • Replaced all flooring downstairs with new sub and finish flooring/carpet
  • Reshingled the roof
  • Installed new furnace with A-coil for future A/C installation
  • Laundry / Mud Room
  • Downstairs Full Bathroom
  • Downstairs Guest Bedroom
  • Music Room
  • Living Room & Staircase
  • Upstairs Hallway
  • Upstairs Full Bathroom
  • Kitchen
  • Boys Bedroom
  • Dining Room (partial)

Still left to do:

  • New siding and gutters
  • Finish dining room
  • Remodel the remaining three bedrooms upstairs
  • Remodel the sunporch
  • Install air conditioning
  • Insulate and convert attic to playroom
  • Pave the driveway

IMG_2064

The next step for the dining room was installation of 25 vintage “tin” ceiling tiles. These had been given to me in exchange for some work I had done for a friend, and they all needed stripping and repainting. The first painting attempt was a dismal failure, so they had to be stripped again using my handy-dandy electrolysis tank. As the “tank” consisted of a walmart kiddie pool, I could only do one tile at a time, and the typical cycle took 3-5 days to complete. Needless to say, I had this process going on for many weeks.

IMG_2102

Finally the day came when they were all painted and ready to install. Alignment was critical and had to be based on the center light fixture box. Amazingly, all twenty-five tiles went up smoothly, and I spent the next few weeks painting and installing trim.

IMG_4294

The final step was to hang the chandelier, and the effect turned out quite nice.

IMG_1513

As for the house exterior, a trio of high school boys was hired to do the tearoff of the old aluminum siding, followed by the original wood siding underneath that. We had a number of huge bonfires after that work was done!

IMG_2163

The south wall of the house had a small enclosed doorway over the cellar access, and after some contemplation, I decided to tear that off as well. We discovered that the exterior wall of the music room had *no* sheathing at all, and the wall studs sat flush with the sheathing above and to the side, which meant we had to re-sheath the whole south face of the house (so it would all be even).

photo

Once this work was done, I decided to go ahead and extend the front porch around the south side of the house – something I had been noodling for some time.

IMG_4058

We finished up the year with the porch roof done and the rest of the house wrapped up like a huge Christmas present. We would go through the winter of 2012-13 with constant fluttering as a result.

My goal for the coming year was to complete the siding job and build a work island cabinet for Beth’s kitchen as well as build cabinets for the dining room (the final step to complete that room).

Leave a Reply