Renovation  Scrapbook

Before...

We immediately discovered that the house was not stucco-covered wood frame construction, but cracked and broken masonry tiles, which are like hollow terra-cotta bricks with open ends, easily smashed.

The house had never had central heating, so the first thing Jan did after removing half a dumpster of garbage and wrecked appliances was to install a furnace and ductwork with the help of our good friend, Rick, of CFS Refrigeration.

Rick wasn't too fond of the bats in the cellar.  It took us a couple of years to find them all and relocate them to other nearby habitats, with judicious use of Ben's butterfly net and Kritter Keeper.

We gutted the interior, which had drywall screwed to 2x2's which in turn were glued to the weight-bearing broken masonry.  The old wiring was just lying loosely between the 2x2's, so I ripped that out and re-wired the house with 200 amp service when I re-framed the interior properly with load-bearing 2x4 walls.

The inner masonry was covered with black mold, so I wire-brushed everything with bleach, repaired the masonry and then primed it with an antifungal before putting up the stud walls and running the wiring.

Masonry tile-looks like brick

Jan tore down a wall which seperated the parlor from the dining room, and I built a foyer and closet around the front entryway.

This photo shows the front of the house after we had repaired and primed the masonry.

We painstakingly wheelbarrowed in a ton of rich earth to  cover an old driveway and turn the gravel into lawn and garden..