Nothing Itsy Bitsy About This!

I didn't realize Dave had a picture of a spider--the kind we were battling after we moved in. (Please see an earlier post to read about those experiences.) Anway, here it is. For your viewing pleasure.

The Best Shower in the World

Picture credit belongs to my dad, Fred Alderman. Thanks, Dad. We could not find our pictures so Dad pitched in and did his part.

You see the picture. You may be thinking that the itty bitty bathroom was not so bad when you see the picture above of our outdoor shower.

You might be wrong - well maybe.

It may not be pretty but it worked really well and we had hot water, and it was summer and early fall when we were using it.

We looked at plans for a lot of outdoor showers and they were all very beautiful and dignified. They were also permanent. We needed temporary and we needed it fairly quickly.

We have taken a lot of ribbing about our outdoor shower but there are times we have considered putting in one of those dignified permanent showers when everything else is done. Why, you ask?

Because there is something utterly pleasing about taking an outdoor shower on a brilliant summer day with a slight breeze blowing against your skin.

However, let me also say that when you must take a shower and there is a thunderstorm going on or it is night and you smell the powerful odor of a nearby skunk and you have forgotten your glasses, well, those are the not such nice experiences. Or, when you are standing out there in your birthday suit and the neighbor comes riding around his field closest to your property on his tractor and you find yourself huddling in the farthest corner (if that can even be done) of the shower so as not to be observed, well, that's not such a great time to be showering outside either.

How we did it

Dave is ever resourceful. I must say that. He keeps things around sometimes and I do not know why. Now I know.

To build the shower, Dave bought from Lowe's:
2 4' x 8' sections of Spruce Rustic Stockade Fence at a cost of $44.78.
4 Tan Landscape Blocks at a cost of $7.96
1 roll of 1/2" x 100' of pex piping/tubing at $25.97
6 miscellaneous push couplings (see note) $29.13

Note: Dave used the push couplings but they were extremely tedious to work with. He prefers using the Shark Bites and says, "they are nice." He also said to tell the readers "The difference is Lowe's sells the cheap push couplings and Home Depot sells the better Shark Bites," which are what we used later on. Dave also stated that both options should be used in temporary situations, only. He says he would never use either option behind an enclosed wall.
The rest of the story
There are obviously more parts to this cute little shower than the parts we purchased. That's where we reused material.
We used the same hot and cold dials and the shower head from the house shower in the itty bitty bathroom. We also used the shower pan for the base of our shower and the drain hardware.
Here's how Dave did it
The fencing was cut to fit around three sides of the shower base (32" square). We did not put a door on the shower because it faced a field and woods.
Dave laid a base of pressure-treated 2" x 6" pieces, laid flat. The four blocks went on that and then the shower base sat on that. He attached the fencing to the wooden base. He used 3" decking screws to attach the sides to each other. He then cut the holes in the fencing and when he removed the piping from the old bath he just cut some of the piping along with it and poked the stuff through. We (notice I said we) connected the Pex tubing to it (hot and cold) and ran the tubing.
Dave just asked me if I ever saw deer out in the field. I said no. I just saw Harry. LOL. Harry was our neighbor that came by on the tractor one afternoon. Figures.
To drain the gray water from the shower we simply attached a couple of old pieces of gutter from the house to the drain hole beneath the shower pan and ran it out to the back yard. The only problem we ever had with that is we occassionally got a chipmunk in the gutter. Easy to fix. Run the water and the chipmunk comes tumbling out and runs away.
The Pex was run around the house, tucked up close to not get caught in the mower, and then fed into a basement window to be hooked up.
Preplanning for this hookup
When Dave cut the pipes in the basement to the hot and cold water, he cut them about 8" or so away from the shutoff valves and then we connected the Pex to those. That way, if we needed to shut off the water to the shower, we could without shutting off the water to the entire house.
What was difficult
I think the hardest part of all this is we really needed a shower. Trust me. We really needed it. The hookup of this shower took longer than planned (and it always does). It got to be dark and we were hooking this up, outside at night at 11:30 PM with a flashlight. I kid you not. The snarky couplings (see above) kept leaking. To get to the window where the Pex was coming in, Dave had to keep climbing in and out of the cistern (now empty). Right near the end he was in the very far corner of the cistern and the bulb on his flashlight went out. We were so exhausted but we had a shower.
Note: You see a bungy cord in the picture, appearing to hold the sides of the shower together. That was simply a precausion because we experienced some high winds. But, that shower held up and held well. A job well worth the effort.

Advice:
1. If you are going to do a major demo like this, or if you are going to do a big bath remodel and it's summertime, we urge you to consider a simple shower like this. It was amazingly wonderful to be able to clean off after a hard day gutting the house. We got filthy. We also rinsed off all our equipment (hard hats, respirators, goggles, etc.) in the shower.
2. Get the Shark Bites.
3. Have a runner or a buddy with you if you are working like this and especially if you are tired. Better yet, if you can, wait for another day and get some rest.

The Itty Bitty Bath That Could

Oh my, what a bathroom we had.

As you can see in the pictures, you could look right through it from the dining room to the dressing room and vice versa. It was a real downer when we bought the house but I conceded as we planned to remodel the house. There was no bathtub and a rather small shower, a very small vanity and a narrow built-in linen cupboard, and a toilet. The door to the dressing room was an accordion-style pull-across vinyl door. Guests never felt privacy using that bathroom even though the door from the dressing room to the living room and the dining room doors were all closed. I can understand why. I will not paint you a picture of two of us trying to use that bathroom. LOL

Ah yes. We laugh. But, that shower actually came in kind of handy as did other parts of that bath. You shall see.

The Dressing Room

When we bought this house we originally planned to have this room as an office area. It was very small, had one window, a creepy door to a creepy basement, another door to the bathroom, and a door to the living room. The prior owners used it as a bedroom and about the only thing that fit in there was a double bed and a small dresser.

Think again. We couldn't get our dressers up the narrow stairway and ended up putting them in what we came to know and love as "the dressing room." Here are a couple pics of that, too.

Cabinet and Wallpaper

I have posted a couple of pictures here of the dining room cabinet interior. The second picture gives an idea of some of the old wallpaper we found under layers of paint and newer wallpaper in the house. I don't know the vintage of the wallpaper seen here but we pulled it out and did not keep the little we found. I would be interested if anyone out there could perhaps date that paper for me. I photographed it to preserve it digitally.

More Dining Room

Here's another picture from standing in the dining room. In this picture you can see a closet/cabinet with doors removed and an entry to the bathroom. Most old houses have no closets or closets that were not much more than makeshift closets. This house is no exception. This closet held seasonal coats and a good chunk of my clothing. The top shelves also held a miscellaneous assortment of extra paper towels, serving platters, pop, and anything else we needed to store and we could find the room. Oh yeah, it also held the broom, dust pan, dust mop, and vacuum cleaner, and a bucket.

The picture also shows the opening to the living room.

You can also see fake brick which was covering a chimney that ran from the basement through the roof. When we moved in there was a great big old woodstove sitting right in front of that brick and it jutted out into the dining room.

We don't heat with wood and never planned to do so. We eventually removed the woodstove in the dining room and did a terrible patch job knowing the chimney would be coming out at some point. The stove also did not meet code as far as setbacks were concerned. It was a little scary. The woodstove in the back of the house also was not up to code as far as setbacks were concerned. That stove was also removed by us and we purchased a gas fireplace and stuck it there for the time being. This also supplied our heat in the back of the house as there was no other source other than that other woodstove.

Sealing Off the Rest of the House

As I said before, we are living in the back of the house. The back of the house consists of a kitchen which was remodeled in the 1980s and a family room that opens from the kitchen which was also added when the kitchen was remodeled, we believe. We also think that is when the siding was added to the house. Anyhow, within that space there is also a powder room with a washer and dryer. More on our bathroom issues later. :)

In the second dining room picture you can see at the opening that there is a wallboard/drywall boxed-in area. That area was the way to get to the kitchen. That is also where the stairs were (enclosed) to get up to the second floor. We sealed off the kitchen but left the area open to get to the stairway.

Now we could no longer get to the kitchen or family room from the front of the house which also included our only full bath, which equated to our only source of bathing (shower). We were now completely committed to our project.

Oh, this just gets better and better.

The Dining Room

My last post showed you the front door. That door opens into the dining room which is next to the living room. The dining room also faces the front with one window to the left of the front door if you are looking at the front of the house. There is also a window to the south.

The dining room is going to remain in this area but will actually have a bit more space. You will see as we progress...

These are a couple of pictures of the dining room. You can still see the carpet that is on the floor. That was in both the living and dining rooms.

One picture is oriented to the east or front of the house, the other is the opposite side and shows the molding around what was the entry to the kitchen. Those moldings were mostly just stained plywood.

Our Front Door

We think our front door is original to the house. We like it and we want to keep it. We did look into replacing the front door but we didn't find anything that looked similar without custom ordering and that would have cost us about $2,000, an amount we weren't willing to pay. So we compromised.

So what did we do? We hired a local furniture refinisher, Don Behlke, to come and remove the door and and strip it down for us. We also asked that he remove the glass as it was cracked and we were going to replace that. Dave knows how to cut glass so that would also save us some money.

Don began the work then called us. The door had had a lot of repairs and was partially repaired with plaster. It couldn't really be refinished. Don had completed the hard parts by removing the glass and getting the door sanded down. He charged us $50 for his work and we picked up the door and decided to paint it over, add the glass and rehang it.

Color: I didn't want the traditional red door on a gray house. I wavered between dark blue and this yellow/gold color. I decided to be bold and went with the yellow. I still like it. We primed the door and painted it, cut and fitted the glass, and glazed it, replaced the old hardware and rehung it.

Storm Door: The storm door that was there before was, I think, what you call a cross-buck door. It was half window. It was dirty and dented and didn't fit the house very well either. We opted to buy a new, full-light storm door that would allow our newly painted front door to show through. It's almost like you have the protection of a storm door but it isn't there. You focus on the front entry door and not on the storm door.

Why did we do these doors before we finished the house? It was a concession on Dave's part. He wanted to rehab the barn first and my concession was that I could buy all new bathroom towels and get a new front door. LOL. I guess I won. The barn is waiting until we get the house done and I got the new towels and the front door.

If you want to contact Don Behlke, make a connection through The Brick House Antique Center in Palmyra, NY at (315) 597-3883. I have also linked to Brick House in the links section of this blog.

Welcome to the Living Room

Safety first, of course. I wrote this little article called, "Personal Protection Gear for the Home or Room Remodeler." You might want to take a quick read before swinging your crowbar for the first time.

Since that first hole went into the living room, I figured I would put up some pictures of that room before we really started gutting. The first picture is looking to the north and east. The two-window wall is the wall that faces the road and the one you see in the Hardy House blog picture.

The second picture is from standing in the living room looking into the dining room. To the left of the opening is were a door was, original to the house. This was common and probably went into the parlor, or what we have now, the living room. We also pulled up wall-to-wall carpeting in the rooms and discarded it.

Advice: When pulling up carpet, cut it in strips with a utility knife. It makes it really easy to handle and throw into a dumpster or garbage can.

Grab the Crowbar 'Cause Here We Go

We couldn't wait to swing that crowbar for the first time. Here's a picture of the first wall hit. It is on the inside living room wall and was placed there because we needed to run electrical from the basement to the second floor and had to run it up through the wall for the time being. This picture gives a little idea of the work we were in for.

Ready, Get Set, Pack!

Isn't this picture lovely?

Before you start ripping out any wall, you need to pack up your belongings. This may take a bit of time. It took us about a weekend. We didn't have enough boxes so we visited Uhaul and bought some. We spent approximately $50.00 on boxes but we can reuse them and we can also take them back to Uhaul and they'll let others use them or they will be recycled.

You are going to need somewhere to store your stuff. We were lucky. We have a big barn and that's where most everything is. If you don't have a barn, consider renting a storage unit of some kind.

We also are able to live in the back of our home while renovations are going on. This saves us tons of money in living expenses. We opted to work on our house in phases with the back part of our house (the kitchen and family room area) as our living quarters during this first phase.

It's tight quarters but luckily Dave and I get along really well. :)

So, when you start your remodel, expect close living quarters, expect messes, expect lost items, expect getting along without items, expect the renovation to take longer than you thought, expect to eat out frequently.

MORE PLANNING...

Last night, Dave and I spent some time deciding on window and door placement in the family room/kitchen area. The work on these two rooms (where we are currently living) will be done in Phase II of our remodeling project. We had to figure out placement and approximate sizes of the doors and windows now because we are having a consultant determine optimal placement of the ducts in the entire house, along with furnace/air size recommendations. I'll let you know how we make out. The consultant is fairly inexpensive but he requires a ton of measurements.

BTW - sometimes these decisions are a point of stress, especially when you are already tired. We made our decisions between 9 - 10:30 PM. Dave and I tend to want the same things but express them differently and that can make me snarky. :) I ended up pulling out our notebooks on things we like (see the picture elsewhere in this blog). By looking at the pictures we were able to actually show each other what we were thinking and get a visual on size. We also took a measuring tape around and got a visual that way. It does work to do that.

Get Ready! We'll Be Stepping Inside Very Soon

Here's a little tease of a picture. What the heck is that thing in the picture, you say? Well that thing would be a debris slide or chute that Dave made. More on that later.

Get That Building Permit!

I hear so many people complain that they have to get a building permit from their town’s code enforcement office for changing something in their house or erecting a deck or a fence, or whatever. I never understood that line of thinking.

Of course, I used to work for our town so I know the code enforcement officer and understand the job he has to do. I wouldn’t think of NOT getting a building permit. Here’s why.

1. The permit keeps everyone (homeowner and contractor) on an honest playing field. There won’t be any shortcuts by the contractor that might affect the owner’s investment or safety. Upon inspection of the work by the code enforcement officer, that kind of issue would be identified.
2. You get free inspections of the work the contractor does. For example, at Hardy House, when the construction portion was completed, the code enforcement officer came out and inspected the work, making sure it was “up to code,” that is, the work was completed as outlined by the rules mandated by the state. Once the code enforcement officer gives the okay, work can continue. That inspection is all covered by the building permit. Our inspection sailed through.
3. When we get to the point of our plumbing and electrical installations, those efforts will also be inspected by the code enforcement officer.
4. The code enforcement officer may make surprise visits to your construction/remodeling site just to check on things. This is a benefit. It keeps everyone honest.
5. Before we can occupy our new space, the code enforcement officer will also give us a certificate of occupancy which equates to all the work being up to code. This also means everything is safe.
6. Another benefit from the building permit is that if anything should happen to the house while under construction (say an electrical malfunction that causes a fire) you will be able to claim insurance easier than if no building permit was issued. This is a huge benefit. As we all know, stuff happens.

Building permits are simple to obtain. You might have to have a drawing of the work but then again, maybe not. Sometimes just a hand sketch is enough. The code enforcement officer is your friend not your enemy. You can call on your town’s code enforcement officer anytime, not just when you are building something. They have the knowledge and expertise to help answer many remodeling questions you might have. And their salary is normally paid through your property taxes so it seems like it’s free advice. Don’t hire an extra consultant. Ask your code enforcement officer first.

The cost of the permit can be very minimal, depending on the work you are having done. For Hardy House, the permit cost us about $100.00 and is often based on the estimated cost of your project.

Tankless Water Heaters

It's been a quiet weekend as far as work on Hardy House is concerned. Dave has been researching tankless water heaters for the house.

Right now he is asking me how many output sources I think we are going to want for the tankless water heater. I have no idea. I have to count. Here's what I'm thinking:

Washing machine, dishwasher, two showers, all faucets/sinks.

We have decided that we will only purchase the size of a unit that will supply two of the above units at once, i.e., the showers, washing machine and/or dishwasher, not the faucets. Dave says to do more than that will significantly add to our costs. We don't want to do that and think we can live with this option.

Early Considerations

Preparing to remodel your home is usually not an overnight decision. As previously stated, we had wanted to build for many years and did not. Because of that early desire we had already done a little planning.

Get Your Visuals Organized
This is easy. Get a notebook of paper (like a 5-subject notebook used in school). Get a roll of tape and start looking at magazines. Rip out anything that you think you might like and tape it in your notebook. We started ours several years ago, then quit, then pulled it out again. We now have two of them.

Your first clippings will be of anything you like. After you get a little more focused in your design you will start to clip pictures that are more focused toward your desired outcomes. For example, I found a picture recently of some wallpaper that had the exact colors in it that I was looking for for upstairs. I clipped it, taped it, and wrote a note next to it. That's important, too. Write on or near the picture what in the picture has attracted you.

Make a List
This is also easy. Write down what you think you must have. Write down what you might consider. The list can be changed whenever you want. It's a work in progress but helps clarify your desires.

The Not So Big House

My brother, Stu Alderman, is an architect. It's always nice to have one of those in the family when you are doing a remodel. :) Over many, many years, Stu has sketched out a couple of houses for us and answered about a bizillion questions. The last big thing he did for us was after we bought Hardy House. In all our years of wisdom, we felt we needed three bedrooms, an office/den/home theater, a family room, a large kitchen, a pantry, a walk-in closet in the new master bedroom (with master bath, of course), an interesting stairway, a dining room and a living room. Oh yes, we also wanted porches - side and front, and back, especially. Not only that, we told Stu we wanted to keep the same "look" of the house to the street,for the most part, to retain the flavor of the time period.

WE WERE NUTS
What the heck were we thinking? Stu did exactly what we asked him to do. We paid for his plane ticket (from Austin, TX) and he hung out with us for a couple days. He sketched a fantastic home for us. It had absolutely EVERYTHING we wanted. We stared at it. It appeared to be twice the size of the existing house. And that was just the addition!

I looked at it and tried to imagine the two of us in this house. I started laughing. Were we crazy? Yup. We were crazy.

It took an architect's drawing to make us realize we didn't need such a big house. We decided to work within the footprint we had. It would also cost us a whole lot less money. Duh. It was our Aha! moment. We had been thinking of resale value and were still in the mindset, I think, of having kids around. We will have kids around but they won't be staying long with us. We decided we had to build the house for US. We also had already decided this would be the last house we owned so we would design it for us and nobody else. Everything else fell into place after that. Stu also recommended we read THE NOT SO BIG HOUSE. What an eye opener.

ADVICE
1: Hire an architect to show you what your design concepts look like. It really puts your thoughts and ideas into perspective. It will be money well spent.
2: Read THE NOT SO BIG HOUSE and learn how you can do a lot in the space you already have or are planning to have.
3: If you don't plan to sell your home anytime soon, build for yourself. You will be happier.

Slideshow added!

I finally figured out how to add a slideshow. Basically, these are a variety of photographs from around the property. The backhoe pictures are from us being concerned about some things that might have been buried there. We were happy to find almost nothing - just some tires and some old wood. We had been suspicious because the ground had been graded over and there was a lot of stuff in the barn when we looked at the house to buy.

The horses are not ours but belong to our southern neighbor. We love the horses and they're pretty friendly. They only got out once and came for a visit...

Repointing

I forgot - we also had the stone foundation repointed. That was not very expensive. We hired Brad Jacobs (a local company) to do the work. I belive the cost was approximately $200.00. It was well worth it and improved the look of the foundation as well as giving it a longer life.

Stuff We Did Before Touching the Inside of the House

After we bought the house we realized we had other stuff to do before we could touch the house.
1. The well water was bad. The prior owners had lived here for 50 years and drank the well water and never had a problem. The basement included a cistern that was full of water. We had the water tested twice over a couple weeks. Both times it tested for E-Coli. We shocked it but decided you would never know the exact moment it went bad. And it smelled bad. It smelled like a pond. When we took a shower with the water it smelled like you were showering in a pond, complete with frogs and seaweed. Yuck. No real frogs, it just smelled like it.
2. So what did we do? Well, we were approximately 900 feet from town water which was down at the next road. We contacted the town and requested we be hooked into the water line. We were then considered an "out of district water user." Plus, we had to foot the bill. And we have to pay extra on our property taxes for it. We paid approximately $7,000 for water. That was about $5,000 for the contractor to dig a line 900 feet, dig a pit for the water meter, lay 1 1/4" black pipe, and grade over and plumbing. Since he already had the backhoe on the property, we also had him pull a big old stump that was sitting in the middle of the front lawn, and take out a really bad arborvitae tree in the front yard. Then we spent another $2,000 for the town to install and connect the meter. We also signed an agreement with the town that when water was brought up our road (probably this Spring-2009) that we would hook in. We will get a break on the price, though. This was a huge expense and one we were not expecting right away. However, it is probably the best thing we ever did. We have fantastic water and we have had no problems with the water line. Also, becaue we still have the well, Dave (hubby) was able to rig up a PEX line and the original Goulds pump from the well, to install a line to the opposite side of the basement. Dave then installed an outdoor faucet to it and we run a hose from that to water our vegetable garden and do any other outdoor watering we need to do. This saves us money. Yes we have an old water hand pump and it still works. We pump the water into a bucket to use on flowers.
3. All gutters on the house AND on the barn (which we did not realize right away) were aimed at the cistern which we no longer needed and wanted to remove. We reoriented all the gutters away from the house and also had to install some extra drainage pipe because of that.
4. Draining the cistern was a project in itself. Once we changed the gutters on the house, the cistern was still filling. We were so frustrated. Once we realized the barn was also being piped over there, we could correct that and eliminate the water going in.
5. We put a submersible pump with a garden hose attached to it in the cistern and drained it. At one point there was a dead squirrel floating on the top of the cistern. Another reason for not using the water. Gross.
Most of the drainage work cost very little. Just time and sweat - mostly Dave's. I would not go into the creepy basement unless I had to.
6. Spiders. Big, black, brown, fuzzy things that would carry away a small baby, I swear. They completely freaked me out and they were the hardest things to kill. One night, I was in bed and waiting for Dave to come upstairs. He had gone into the basement and I don't remember why. All of a sudden I heard this HUGE WAP WAP WAP! I knew exactly what he was doing. He was TRYING to kill a spider. He came upstairs and even he was freaked out. He said, "I can't even tell you. That's the biggest damn spider I have ever seen." He had been wacking it with a 2 x 4. I shiver to think of it. Sometimes we would be sitting watching television and all of a sudden, one would run across the floor. Up went my legs and I would screech. I hate spiders. We realized that there they were probably in or around one of the outside walls where the previous owners had kept a woodpile. It was also near the exterior basement stairs. We have since been able to eliminate the spiders. There were also tons of webs and dried up spider thingies in the basement rafters. Dave cleaned them out. Did I mention Dave's a really good guy? :)
7. After a hundred years of no powder post beetles, all of a sudden we had them. We had to have an exterminator come in at a $500.00 pop.
8. We found that the barn roof was not in as good as shape as we had thought and we had to replace the back section. We replaced it with green metal roofing. We spent $4,000.00 on that for materials and installation.
9. We sold a building we had and with the $10,000 profit we re-roofed our house. That was in 2007. We purchased 30-year shingles. I'll have to look up the manufacturer on those and the metal roof for the barn. We are pleased with both.
10. There was a 1970's-era trailer home that was on the property right next to the house. It was being rented out at the time we bought the house. We had to evict the tenant as we were going to have it dismantled. Because of its age and town zoning laws, we couldn't have it sold (or give it away) and moved elsewhere. The cost to dismantle and remove it was approximately $1,700.00.

Why We Love This Place

This was taken one evening. The field and woods change all the time. It's one of the reasons why we love it here. Sometimes the land is the tug at the heart and you find yourself going to great lengths to make the house a home.

A Couple of Stats About Hardy House

AT PURCHASE

Built: 1890s

Architecture: Late Victorian

Construction: Wood frame

Water: Well and cistern

Foundation: Stone

Basement: Stone and concrete

Siding: Vinyl over wood

Interior Walls: Plaster with horse hair and lathe, some with drywall over the plaster and lathe

Floors: Wood, carpeted over, some tile

Attic: You could pop your head up through a hole in the newer part of the house (the back)

Acreage: 13, 10 acres farmed in hay

Outbuildings: Two-story barn (built 1910) and a shed of unknown vintage

PrePurchase Picture of the Hardy House

Here's a picture of the front porch the day we made an offer on the house (2005). I am putting another picture with it which shows what it looked like after we moved in and did just a bit of cleaning up. The prior owners heated with two wood stoves and that's why there is so much wood on the porch.

Why Hardy House

I decided to name the blog, Hardy House, because we have found the house has good bones. For being an old house it is rock solid, hence it is hardy. And besides, I like the way it sounds.

The Hardy House - In the beginning...

In 2005 my husband and I purchased this house on 13 acres in upstate New York. We loved the property. The house...not so much. But, we thought, we could live in it and it had potential and the kitchen was only 20 years old which was a real plus.

The house actually looks pretty good here. If I can locate the other picture from when we moved, you will see the improvements already. That's the barn in the background. That's a whole other blog...

The Hardy House Blog is our journey. We had always wanted to build a house but nothing ever worked out. The kids were grown. It was time. We found this spot and loved it.

Stop back as I'll be taking you through our remodeling process. I'll tell you what we did and what we didn't do and why. I'll also let you know what products we used and why. Maybe you'll be able to learn a thing or two and perhaps the research we have already done will keep you from having to spend the time researching yourself.

Spring is coming and the work continues. Come join me.