Status Report, 17 Jan 2022

Big Picture: Where are we?
Inside, Began tile work on second floor guest bath and also began trim work on the third floor.
Outside, it’s too cold to do much other than keep it clean.

Goals for Week of 10 Jan

• Start trim work on third floor. Should be able to complete everything that doesn’t touch a doorway. This will include some custom-milled work for the windows. {started as planned}
• Start tile work on second floor guest bathroom. {started as planned}

Accomplishments

• Plumbing fixtures installed in 3rd floor bathroom. Wrapping that up and the room is basically *done*

Corp Update

• We reduced our offer for Duncan based on the sewer issues we found. Seller accepted our reduced price, so we are moving towards a close on 13 Feb 2022. Collecting bids for rehab work there, as I’ll be too busy to take that on myself.
• Mom arrived this weekend.
• Mortgage restak continues. Target close will be early April. We will buy Duncan from the LOC, then pay it off from the proceeds of the mortgage.

Mintwood St

• Demolition:  Work is complete.  See blog post
• Roofing. {no changes from 4 Oct. Roofing is complete}
• Carpenters: {no change since Jan 3 2022} Framers came out this week to adjust some door heights on the third floor. When we planned to reuse the old doors, the heights were somewhat mismatched. (in a hallway with 5 doors, we had 4 different door heights). Since we ordered all new doors this week, they’ll be the same height. Work was completed quickly and efficiently.
• Windows: (no change since May 16)
• Insulation {all insulation complete as of 27 December} Insulated the basement rim joist this week. It has made the basement noticeably warmer.
• HVAC {no change from Dec 6} Third floor furnace has been connected and is running. Need to get the plumbers to connect the humidifier on at least the basement furnace (not sure if they connected the 3rd floor unit).
• Plumbers:  No change in the (external) plumber this week. Still waiting until the trim is done before we bring them in. I’m expecting that will be in the late part of January. Only remaining items will be setting the tub and tapping the humidifiers into the water supply.
  We installed the vanity, tub fixtures and toilet on the third floor. It looks like a real bathroom now. (See photo above) We have a little bit of touch-up on the tub, and some paint work. Like all other rooms, trim work is “pending arrival of the doors”
• Electrical: {No change from Jan 3} We had the electrician out this week to look into the short in the master bedroom. Problem has been resolved. He was also highly complimentary of our electrical work. I guess “not fast, but neat” is preferable to “fast and sloppy” – but I knew that already.
• Masonry {no change from 1 Nov} Glen came and worked with the plaster guys to remove the mantle in the dining room. Kathryn has done an amazing job of cleaning it (photo above). We will aim to reinstall on Nov 8th.
• Plaster:  {no change from Dec 6} Per notes above, the plaster & drywall work is complete. All equipment is out of the building.
• Painting: James continues to crank away on trim. We bought some drying racks which allows us to dry the pieces in a much more condensed space. He paints the trim pieces in one room, then moves the pieces to the drying racks in another room.
• Finish Work
  • Remaining cabinet arrived this week, so we have all kitchen cabinets. We will install them later, though. We aren’t trying to finish the kitchen until we’ve worked through the upper floors.
  • We started tile work on the second floor guest bathroom. Paused briefly until we get some additional Schluter components.
  • We are installing trim on the third floor. (Photo below) In one day, we managed to get all of the baseboard up in the back bedroom (just the baseboard, not including the base cap). I’m very pleased with the tools we bought to help with this process, and the results look very good. I expect we’ll both increase in speed and precision as we work our way through more rooms.
  • Interior doors were all ordered this week. They’re saying 5 weeks, but so far they’ve beaten each date they’ve set for me, so I’m hoping the doors will be done before the end of January. The price includes delivery from Youngstown, OH.
  • Proposal came in from Chris (RetiredWoodworker) for a fireplace mantle in the 3rd floor bedroom. It was a good bit more than I expected, so we may do this in house instead.
• Design:   Kathryn is making solid progress on the various light fixtures for the hallways and upper bedrooms. Feels good to have this getting taken care of. Thanks, Love. We keep looking for the right pieces for the LR and DR
• Design board is available here, though we made some slight changes after this board was produced.

Next Steps

• Finish trim work on third floor, net of doorways. Should be done this week. This will include building new window sills and framing the windows.
• Continue tile work in 2nd floor guest bathroom.

Pearl St.

• Rich has given me contact info for the inspector, but inspector isn’t very responsive. It is clearly going to take some work to get him out to close out this permit.

Next Steps  

• Paint door to Zoe’s room.
• Finalize electrical inspection, close building permit.

Goals for Week of 17 Jan

• Complete trim work on third floor (net of doors). This will include some custom-milled work for the windows.
• Continue tile work on second floor guest bathroom.
• Get stairwells cleaned and sanded (Team Grey)