Shiplap

Wow how time flies.  Once again I'm way behind on posts though progress on the house has been great.  In any event, today is father's day, and I think it is only right that we recognize those that have imparted to us their mastery of the home improvement way.  Those budda's of the work bench. The swami's of the hammer swing.  The king's of carpentry...You get the idea.

So we left off with shiplap.  As I previously posted we had no luck getting the type of product we sought.  Elizabeth was able to come up with an alternative, however, after some internet research.  So off we went to Lowes where we had them rip 4 x 8 foot sheets of utility plywood into 6 inch strips.  In order to obtain that classic spacing look between boards we used pennies to separate boards before nailing.  In the end we are very happy with the look.  It creates a bit of a cottage effect that breaks up the sheet rock wall look and it pairs well with the bungalow style of our house.  Plus, it cost us less than $100 to do the wall and the area over the fireplace.  

 To tie it into the living room I rebuilt the frame around the chimney and faced it with the shiplap as well.

That brown you see poking out from under the shiplap is the paper backing of fiberglass insulation I placed in the space around created by the framing.  It hadn't previously had insulation and I can only imagine it was a major heat sink for the house.

Once the shiplap was up the trim needed to be added both to the chimney area as well as the walls and baseboard.  I was able to salvage some of the trim I had removed though most of it had so many layers of sloppily applied pain that it wasn't worth re-hanging.  The trim for around the fireplace was courtesy of the wood that came when I tore out the drop ceilings. 

So with the walls up and the trim coming together its was time for a little clean-up.  We could finally start getting some of that paper off the wood floors that had gone down for protection. Plus, the walls were ready for paint. Elizabeth has a real eye for color so I turned her loose, and as the upcoming posts will show she has really brought things back together. 

Task completion

So after almost two months since we took possession of the house I feel like some  spaces are starting to come back together and some critical fixes are done.  One of the major things we knew we had to do going into all this was to update the electric.  The house was on 100 amp service with at least 70% of the house being old nob and tube and the plan was to upgrade to 200 amp and run romex to replace the old stuff.  Given that you can't safely insulate around nob and tube it leaves the house vulnerable to heating and cooling issues.

On a recommendation from a friend we hired a local solo electrician by the name of George Thompsen.  George really took the time to listen to what we wanted and made suggestions so we could stay within the budget.  Having opened up some of the interior walls made things much easier for fishing wires.  Initially I wanted to be more hands on with the electrical but with a full time job and all the other work needing to be done there weren't enough hours in the day.

Part of the old Nob and Tube system

Some of the new Romex going into an exposed wall

I was finally able to finish up the flashing around the chimney.  My friend Kevin loaned me a rope and harness so I could properly anchor and secure myself while working on the roof.  It doesn't look like it but that roof has quite a pitch.  I used a tar flashing system that integrates fiber glass mesh and is applied right to the shingles and chimney.  It worked pretty well and based on my quality control checks it appears to be working.   Thetop picture shows the up-slope side of the chimney before application.

The photo above shows how I used duct tape to create a clean edge when removed and the next one shows the results. 

While simultaneously finishing these projects we were dealing with, and still are, a partially clogged drain in our kitchen.  At some point we'll get around to snaking it but for now we are getting by, particularly since we had a work tub installed in the basement so we had a place to clean tools and pain brushes.  We were going to let the plumber snake the drain until we got the estimate.  We decided it was better to have the work tub and we would just make do until we tear out the kitchen and put in new plumbing.

With the electrical roughed in, the sheet-rock work could begin.  We hired Finish Line Drywall on a recommendation from George.  Ryan, the owner, has been great to deal with and we are very happy with the work.

The wall to the right, visible in the upper picture, was intentionally left clean of drywall so we could do shiplap.  A lot of people aren't familiar with the term shiplap though likely they have seen it.  It used to be an inexpensive way to finish walls when people couldn't afford lathe and plaster.  Instead they would hang strips of boards with a slight gap between them to allow for expansion.  The problem I found though, was that it was impossible to get true shiplap on the west coast.  After a lot of research Elizabeth struck on what someone else had done when they faced the same issue.  Take a look at the pictures and then I'll tell you how we did it in the next post.  Plus I'll include some pics of Elizabeth's amazing painting and the eye catching colors she chose. 

Lastly, my apologies to those of you waiting for this update.  We have been trying to keep some balance between work, remodeling and having fun.  The weather has been great and we have really enjoyed getting out fishing and hiking and spending time with good friends.