The biggest renovation item so far has been replacing the roof on the house. Fortunately we did not even consider tackling this ourselves, but left it to the professionals. Our home has a ridiculously complicated roof caused by the several renovations that have been done over the years (and yes, we just made it more complicated with the ceiling bump-up in the master bedroom). The original structure started with just three roof lines in the form of an offset “H.” There are now eleven!
We knew when we bought that the roof would need to be replaced as it was buckled and the shingles were curling up in places. There was also evidence of minor leaks in a couple of spots. Prior to our purchase we got estimates and used that to negotiate the price down. Unfortunately the actual cost of the job was only a little less than double the estimate! Yikes! That was a little tough on the budget and will put some of the other renovations and furnishing off for a while.
Before the roofers started we had the brick chimney at the front of the house repaired. It had loose and flaking bricks and needed both re-pointing and some new bricks. Another job left to the professionals.
The chimney at the front of the house had many loose and damaged bricks.
After removing the bad bricks the chimney resembled swiss cheese.
The mason puts the finishing touches on the cap with a grinder.
The house had two brick chimneys when we bought it. The one at the front of the house is architecturally essential, but the second one in the middle of the house had long since been converted to gas and would have required much additional maintenance. Rather than leave it as a potential weak point in the roof, and one more big item to repair and maintain we had the brick chimney removed to just below the roof and now have only the small gas insert vent stack penetrating the roof.
We did not go with the lowest bid for the roofing as we really wanted it done right. That alone probably added 15% to the cost, but I think that they did a good job, one which I hope will last close to the 50 year warranty we got.
A conveyor truck arrived and delivered shingles to the roof.
2 1/2 pallets of shingles were stacked along the ridgelines of the house.
Work started with tearing off the old roofing from the rear of the house.
At the end of a summer of unusually warm and dry weather the roofers started by removing a large section of the roof at the rear of the house. Immediately they found lots of failed roofing plywood that needed to be replaced…39 sheets on the first section of roof alone! Much of the damage to the roof decking was due to inadequate or missing eave venting. A large part of the extra expense was adding venting.
The giant dumpster and a large stack of replacement plywood.
After the old roofing was off, many sheets of old and damaged plywood were replaced.
Work underway on the back of the house and the kitchen skylight.
Naturally the first weekend of the roofing job we were treated to a wind and rain storm that did major damage throughout the region. The roofers had done a good job of securing tarps over the roof so that we only got a few small leaks in the part of the master bedroom where the roof had been removed. Fortunately no damage and only a little clean-up was required. That first bad storm signaled a change in the weather and increasing rain and cool weather. The roofers continued to work on dry days and did a good job of protecting the stripped portions of the roof from bad weather.
The northern side of the roof required LOTS of replacement roofing.
To avoid future problems with the roof plywood we greatly expanded the ventilation in the eaves.
Our large circular drive provided lots of space for the many vehicles (including ours) that needed parking.
One of the repairs we had done while the roof was being replaced was to replace two 1970’s style 4-foot by 4-foot plexiglass bubble skylights with new e-glass opening skylights. Not only do they look better than the old ones, but they should add some much needed ventilation during the few hot days of summer.
The roofing crew varied in number a bit but was never less than 5. The youngest was the designated gofer and clean-up man. They provided a giant dumpster for the debris and parked it as close to the house as possible. Although it was possible to toss whole shingles and large pieces into it, it was still too far to empty the trash barrel into it from the roof. The gofer would carry the barrel to the edge of the roof and toss the whole thing into the dumpster. He’d then climb down the ladder from the roof and climb up and into the dumpster to empty the barrel before tossing it out and climbing back onto the roof.
Nearing the front of the house the roofers strip off more old roofing.
The front of the house gets underlayment before the shingles go on.
The shallow valley between one of the additions got special attention from the roofers.
The building trades in Whatcom County are dominated by workers from Latin America. We enjoyed the opportunity to practice our Spanish on them and they seemed to enjoy our pathetic attempts too.
We ended up with a nice roof with PBO portions over the now only slightly sloped roof on the bump-up and in a particularly flat valley between two of the additions. The PBO roof was frightfully expensive, but that is part of another blog on the master bedroom remodel.
Completed roof showing a bit of the PBO shed roof, one of the new opening skylights, and the absence of the central chimney.Gone is the leaky masonry chimney and the ratty furnace exhaust (visible in the headline photo) is replaced with a single white PVC pipe. New kitchen skylight, too.
When I started this blog thought that I’d write about each project as it wrapped up. Since then I’ve realized that this approach really misrepresents the reality of an extensive renovation like the one we are undertaking. At any given time we have multiple projects underway. Some proceed along day by day, but more happen more haltingly with delays while things dry, while we wait for special order supplies, while we wait for trades to work us into their schedule, and of course those times when our own lives interfere.
Starting with this blog I’ll write more often, updating the many projects we have ongoing rather than waiting for each to wrap up. It should be more representative of the actual reality of swirling chaos with which we are surrounded!
Garage – painting done!
When we bought the house the garage had an enclosed workshop at its rear. There was only a single door allowing entry and it had a low ceiling. It was dark and filled with discarded junk left by the previous owner. The garage was stained a dark brown tone that made it gloomy even with sunshine streaming in through the large triangular windows on the gable wall of the roof.
Junk and trash removed from the garage filled 1/3 of a large dumpster!
The first order of business was to get a dumpster delivered so that we could dispose of the junk and the demolition debris from the garage and other projects. Just removing the junk (including an old and broken exercise machine, a stroller, and two baby running carriers) filled almost a third of the large dumpster.
Most of the junk as easily disposed of by a quick toss into the dumpster, but the 45 old cans of paint are a continuing problem. Latex paint can be thrown away in the trash, but only if it is dried and hardened. A few of the cans had only a little paint and dried quickly, unfortunately many of them were over half full and would never dry on their own. The paint and hardware stores sell a latex paint hardener, but it costs about $5 to harden one gallon of paint! Given that I had 40 cans of paint, including a couple of 5 gallon ones, I’d have had at least a couple of hundred dollars just in paint hardener. Instead I opted for the old standby…kitty litter. I’ve opened the cans and poured in generous amounts of kitty litter and stirred it in. Every couple of days I add a little more and stir up any of the still moist materials at the bottom of the cans. It seems to take about 2 weeks for a half gallon of paint to get dry enough to pass the red-face test to put it out with the trash.
The oil based paints and stains are more of a problem as they have to be held until one of the household hazardous waste events. As a side note, in Bellingham one can donate usable leftover latex paints over 1/2 gallon to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. Unfortunately all of the paint I inherited was old and of questionable usability.
The storage room / workshop filled the back of the garage
The workshop area was too small for large power tools and lumber.
Deconstruction of the workshop.
Vines which had been allowed to grow on the outside of garage penetrated and flourished atop the workshop.
After emptying the garage I demolished the wall and ceiling that created the workshop. I have several large power tools mounted on wheels so I can store them against a wall, but pull them out to use them. The old enclosed workshop would not allow me to do that so it had to go.
There were lights, switches, and an outlet in the workshop wall, so prior to demolition I had to shut off the power and disconnect those power lines. While do that I was distressed to learn that the only power source in the garage was the lighting and door open circuit. It turned out the wall outlet was actually an extension cord plugged into the door opener supply and stapled to the wall! Yikes! I guess when the electrician comes to visit he’ll be adding a couple of circuits to the garage.
Painting the ceiling with the airless sprayer.
Painting the ceiling with the airless sprayer.
Painting around the garage door openers was a challenge.
Primer and white paint lightened up the interior.
White paint and primer lightened the interior.
Triangular gable windows let lots of light into the garage.
Triangular gable windows let lots of light into the garage.
The next step in the garage was to banish the dark stain on the walls and ceiling under a coat of white paint. Because of the old stain on the wood I needed to start with a coat of primer. For most projects I no longer use big-box store paints, but stick to products from my Sherman-Williams or Benjamin Moore dealers, however for the garage I figured I could go with cheap paint. Because the garage walls were mostly rough exterior wood and the ceiling was unfinished with exposed rafters I didn’t want to try painting with brush and rollers. That left spray painting. I started out using a HVLP (high volume, low pressure) painter that I had used with good results painting boats and furniture, but quickly realized that it was completely wrong for this job. Far too much over-spray, frequent refills, and pretty onerous cleaning after use made it impractical. Great excuse for a new tool! Since I am also going to be painting the exterior of the house I invested in a Groco X-7pro airless paint sprayer. Great tool for large jobs. Using the big sprayer I could put a coat of paint on half the garage in about 45 minutes. Clean up takes a little time, but total job time is so reduced as to make it just fine.
A coat of white paint on walls and ceiling has really made the garage a much nicer place to work!
Banish Popcorn (Ceilings)
I had thought to wait a while before fixing up and repainting the two bedrooms we will use for guests, but Heather (the Admiral) rightly reprioritized my plans. The first task in the bedrooms was to remove the 70s vintage mirrored sliding closet doors and dreary splotchy paint in one room and intense bright yellow paint in the other. But the most important task was to eliminate the textured popcorn ceilings. It is hard to imagine that anyone ever thought popcorn ceilings were a good idea. They make rooms feel smaller and are great for holding dust and grime…yuck!
Ceiling Texture Scraper
I had read that there was a scraper tool specially made for removing ceiling texture, but despite asking several workers at our local Lowe’s I couldn’t find one. As it worked out I discovered an unused one in the rubble left in the garage by the previous owner. But that came after I had already finished scraping the first of two ceilings.
The process starts with protecting the floors with a layer of ramboard (a thin cardboard that comes in rolls) and a layer of plastic sheeting taped down around the edges. The textured ceiling is then sprayed with a small amount of warm water. I like to use a pressurized garden sprayer for this job. After waiting a few minutes the texture softens and can be scrapped off. If one is careful and the ceiling isn’t too wet the texture can be removed without damaging the underlying sheetrock or the joint tape. The trick here is to get the right amount of moisture on the texture without getting enough to soften the paper on the sheetrock. Any errors at this point will have to be repaired before the ceiling paint is applied. Using a regular wide scraper works okay, but does require many many trips up and down the ladder.
For the second room I used the newly unearthed ceiling scraper. This tool is an angled scraper blade with a metal frame mounted a little below. The scraper screws onto a standard extension pole. One can attach a plastic bag to the frame to catch the texture as it is scraped. This does work well, but the bad must be emptied very frequently as the weight of the material scrapped quickly makes the tool too heavy to lift. I permanently attached a small garbage bad to the frame and dumped it into a trash barrel after ever couple of scrapes. It worked well and really reduced the amount of material that had to be cleaned up after the job was done.
1970s mirrored closet doors and bright yellow paint in 2nd bedroom.
Step one is to protect the hardwood floors with ram-board and plastic.
Scraping the first bedroom ceiling with a putty knife.
The slightly dampened ceiling texture peeled off the sheetrock.
Texture removed!!
Putting a skim-coat of mud on the ceiling prior to painting.
Painting the ceiling.
Fresh paint and smooth ceiling!
One note on safety here. Older formulas for ceiling texture often contained asbestos which can be released in the removal process. The use of asbestos was prohibited in texture by the late 1970s. If in doubt, get the texture tested before removing it.
After the popcorn was gone and the mess cleaned up I repaired holes in the ceiling from removed swag lamps and damage from the scraping. A coat of primer followed by two coats of ceiling paint, two coats of wall paint, and some trim paint on the crown molding and the rooms look much better.
The finishing touches of new trim and new doors will come next.
Beating Back the Jungle
Heather has decided to defeat her brown thumb and learn to take care of the landscape surrounding the house. One of the previous owners was a landscaper by trade so the gardens were extensive, and at one time well organized. Several years without careful maintenance has allowed all the plants to interpenetrate s they struggled for light and survival. Heather has retained Debra to work in the gardens and to teach her as they work together. The first step has been to cut back, prune, and in some cases, remove plants and trees that have grown too much. Some plants are getting relocated and a few removed entirely.
In just the first five or six days of work over 2500 lbs of compostible material has been hauled off!
Everyone who has ever bought or sold a house knows about the mountains of papers that have to get signed to transfer a piece of property from one owner to another. Over the last two weeks we have signed about an inch of papers to buy our project home. Having bought and sold houses in three states now I thought that I knew what to expect. Well the differences between states are interesting…
Alaska – for my money the most civilized of the states we have dealt with. With the cooperation of the various realtors, or on your own if you wish, the buyer and seller come to a mutually satisfactory deal. If financing is involved so are appraisers and possibly inspectors. A banker approves a loan and the deal is set for a closing. Usually the seller shows up first and signs the deeds over. They leave then the buyer shows up and produces a cashier’s check for the down payment and other costs and signs the note and the deed (and about a thousand other notices). When the last signature is on paper the keys are dropped into the new owners hand and they take over the property.
Massachusetts – where lawyers call the tunes. Earlier this winter I orchestrated the sale of my mother’s home in Massachusetts. The process starts out in the usual manner with offers exchanged between the buyer and seller until a mutually unsatisfactory deal is arrived at. It is at this point that it gets weird. The buyer and seller AND the financing entity all bring their legal warriors to the arena where they begin to joust. The sellers’ attorney drafts a multi-page sales contract which has a few boilerplate provisions, but which is mostly custom worded for the occasion. This then goes to the other two attorneys who each get to make proposed revisions. The draft goes around and around until all the attorneys have accumulated sufficient hours to make their boat payments. All parties eventually sign the sales contract and then the fun begins. At each stage of inspection, repairs, and independent confirmation of repair, the attorneys get to put their oars in to stir the waters. When the closing is finally scheduled the fun really begins as all the parties sit down with the bank’s attorney in the across a table from each other. As the attorney’s have made this a pretty adversarial process to this point the buyer and seller now get the opportunity to sit across from each other while the papers get signed…all the papers get signed. The seller signs the deed and a few assorted papers and then gets to sit while the buyer goes through and signs all the loan documents, disclosures, etc, etc. It is bad enough to sign all those documents but even worse to have to sit and watch someone else do so. At least when it is all done the seller hands the keys across the table and all walk away.
Washington – where the day ends at 9pm and the seller keeps the house after closing. At least Washington does not subscribe to the “lawyers full-employment act.” You can involve a lawyer, but you don’t have to. The parties’ realtors manage the deal making and negotiation including issues involving inspections and the like. The banks deal with the financing and a title company handles the closing. Here is where it gets weird. In Washington the buyer goes to the title company and signs all the document 2-3 days before “closing” and then either hands over the cashier’s check or wires the money to the title company. The seller then comes in an executes their share of the documents. On the day of “closing” the title company confirms that both the buyers and the sellers money is in hand and transfers it as instructed. They then record the title transfer at the county records office. The seller can stay in the house until 9pm that evening even though he no longer owns the property and has no legal right to it! The seller has already paid for the property, the transfer is already recorded, and yet no keys. Not yet!
11th Hour Hiccups – All went smoothly with our closing until the very last minute. We are long time clients of Wells Fargo and wanted them to hold our mortgage as they don’t resell loans, but keep them for the long haul. Unfortunately Wells Fargo has such a reputation for delay that in the Bellingham area most sales contracts are written with a “Wells Fargo delay clause” invoking penalties for failure to close on time. In our case we arranged to finance through Bank of the Pacific and they agreed to sell the loan to Wells Fargo. As part of that sales process Wells Fargo got involved in the application process. The approved everything except for the appraisal. Three weeks before closing they asked some questions which the appraiser promptly answered. Then they apparently went to sleep. During the last week before closing our banker called the reviewers 3 times per day. Bank of the Pacific offered to keep our loan, but not at the outstanding interest rate Wells Fargo had locked in for us. Eventually the Bank of the Pacific CEO got on the phone with Wells Fargo, and we threatened to remove our and my mother’s money from the bank. That seemed to do it. With literally minutes to spare for the funds transfer deadline, Wells Fargo completed their approval and the transaction closed.
Nerve wracking for everyone involved (except perhaps for Wells Fargo), but the job got done and we got the keys and got into the house! Now the work (and fun) begins!
After 12 years living aboard our sailboat and crashing in temporary housing with relatives or employers during the summer season it is finally time to return to a land-based home. Although our families are mostly in the East, we spent too many years in Alaska to be comfortable there. Since we wanted easier access to things on the road system, and didn’t want to deal with real winter we choose to search in the area around Bellingham, Washington. A generally mild climate (though too wet for some), a vibrant foodie culture, and great boating opportunities made it a good match for us. Not to mention that many friends from our years in Alaska are located in the region.
Our sailboat being loaded onto a freighter in Manzanillo, Mexico.
We shipped Legacy, our 43 foot sailboat north from Mexico on a freighter to avoid the long windward bash back to the northwest. After we picked her up in Victoria, B.C. we sailed her over to Semiahmoo Marina in Blaine, Washington right on the Canadian border. Semiahmoo Marina is private and one of the few in the area that would allow us to live aboard our boat while we searched for a house.
Our search started long before we arrived in Bellingham. We had selected a real estate broker last fall and they had been providing us listing matching our wants by email for most of the winter. This helped us to understand the market and get a sense of what was available. When we arrived in Bellingham we already had a list of about 20 possible homes to look at. The first couple of days were sufficient to eliminate some neighborhoods and number of houses by merely driving by them.
Before long we had found two houses of particular interest. The first was in the gated resort community of Semiahmoo. It was well priced, had a great layout and had lots of architectural interest. The only problem was location…it was in a gated community, which is not really our vibe. It also was about 40 minutes from Bellingham with its arts, shopping, and services. We had been living the beautiful marina, but found the drive to town rather a burden.
The second house had a less perfect layout and a distinct lack of maintenance but a really primo location in the Edgewater section of Bellingham. Located near the Fairhaven historical district it was only about 1.3 miles from shopping and restaurants, and less than 10 minutes from most of Bellingham. It was also right at the top of our budget, which would make the needed renovations harder. After some back and forth with the owner we agreed to a price and moved on to inspection. As expected we found a long list of issues ranging from big (leaking and failed roof) to minor (loose paving bricks on the patio). Based on the inspection report we were able to get additional price concessions from the seller.
The house has had some nice remodeling over the years which is well shown in the pictures that accompanied the listing.
Aerial view of the property.
Driveway and front entrance.
Kitchen
Kitchen and peninsula (looking towards front door)
Dining Room
Living Room
Living Room
?? Room - possibly the original dining room, but now ??
Office / Front Room (not a legal bedroom)
Master Bedroom
Master Bath
Master Bath/Shower
Front Entryway
Patio off Dining Room
Backyard and Pergola
Backyard
What was not shown was that many of the rooms not featured in the listing were unchanged from their original 1970s style. Popcorn ceilings and mirrored closet doors featured! Outside the house is in need of many minor rot repairs, paint, and thinning of the overgrown landscaping.
Mirrored closet doors and popcorn ceiling!
Un-renovated 1970s bath.
Overgrown landscaping in the side yard.
We have lots of renovations to come, both major and minor, so come along and enjoy the ride without the expense or the blisters!
The biggest renovation item so far has been replacing the roof on the house. Fortunately we did not even consider tackling this ourselves, but left it to the professionals. Our home has a ridiculously complicated roof caused by the several renovations that have been done over the years (and yes, we just made it more complicated with the ceiling bump-up in the master bedroom). The original structure started with just three roof lines in the form of an offset “H.” There are now eleven!
