Renovation Adventures hit two milestones this week.

First, the new HVAC system is in and running. It’s clearly too late in the season to use the new cooling, but I’ll be ready next summer. The system was installed by Michael Becker from All Season Heating & Cooling. He’s out of Cloquet, MN. It took about two weeks to finish it all. There were a few days in there where he wasn’t on site. In the end, it’s a top notch professional installation. I couldn’t be happier.

Here’s a couple of before pictures of the utility room above.

Now the after pictures. New furnace and nice clean epoxy painted floor. Notice the missing chimney. I even had him add in the whole house humidifier, which integrates nicely with the furnace.

Now on to the master bedroom.

Each step that I complete is like another layer of myself. Renovating this house peels back the years of old layers. I never know what I’m going to find as I dig in. Sometimes the ugly goes out, kinda like what happens on self reflection. Examine it and clean it up. Patience is needed on the tougher parts. Don’t do it right and the lesson repeats. I don’t know how many times I had to redo things. I knew I wouldn’t be happy if I let it go in a substandard way. Lessons I continue to apply to myself.

Here’s the before and after pictures of the master bedroom and closet.

I’m going to install some modular type stuff in the closet to help organize things. I think it’ll be a nice addition.

If you notice the color outside the window you’ll see why I picked the color on the accent wall. I wanted to blend in the outside with the inside.

Now on to the livingroom.

Are you kidding me!!! I went downstairs this morning to visit the daily constitutional outpost and discovered water had been leaking at a steady pace since all night. Ugh.

My first reaction was shit! My new floor. I just finished the reno.

On further review the water was located over the bathroom sink and toilet. It was escaping from the shut off valve itself. I had to go further upline to turn things off.

I zipped into town to the local Ace Hardware for a new valve. Got home, and realized it would require some soldering and such. I’m thinking there’s got to be an easier way.

What did I do? You guessed it. YouTube. I found a video explaining the exact problem I had. How to replace an in-line ball valve using the new Shark Bite components. Wow!

I zipped back to Ace Hardware and they had what I needed. I was able to assemble in five minutes.

Of course, I didn’t do this until later in the afternoon. I decided to take a grass mowing break. The weather was awesome after the last several days of rain.

The good news is the water is restored. And yes, I took my daily constitution before heading to town the first time. Priorties.

Milestones are something when you achieve them. I think back to the beginning of my basement renovation adventure. I started this just after Christmas of 2019. At the beginning, I was only planning on replacing the carpet with new wood laminate flooring. On closer examination I decided to pull out the old 1960’s wood paneling. And so it began.

Yesterday, August 9, 2020 was my official completion data of basement reno phase 1. So, I’ll call it eight months, plus or minus a bit.

As I started peeling the layers back on the reno, I discovered many things that needed to get done. If I didn’t do them at the time, I think I would have regretted it. I could picture myself sitting down there thinking, gosh I wonder what’s under those walls.

Here’s the highlights of the basement project:

• Discovered there was no insulation on the outside basement walls. I was able to insulate and get the vapor barrier up.
• The Electrical Panel had exceeded capacity in my opinion. The electrician agreed. I had him replace the small panel with a new larger panel. I then put a whole house surge protector in there. Each breaker now serves one circuit; no double taps in place. This really added peace of mind for me.
• Wet and dry rotted wood discovered. I removed a closet near the garage entrance. This revealed rotting wood in the framing. As I dug deeper, I discovered water would flow in directly off of the deck above. More peeling revealed black mold. This made the decision for me to pull out all of the walls and ceiling. Good that I did. I was able to clean the mold, then rip out and replace some important framing. I also had to take the siding off the house up on the deck so I could repair from that side.
• I discovered a water cutoff valve near the garage. This had been drywalled over. I’ve installed an access panel over it now.
• I discovered the clean out piping for the septic. This had also been walled in. It’s now exposed and painted. I haven’t decide yet what to do over that. Maybe nothing.
• I discovered the drain for the washer, which is in the bathroom, had been hidden by a built in desk in the great room. I added a wall that now puts that drain in the bathroom next to the washer. When I do the bathroom reno, this will be revealed and used properly.
• I removed two sections of wall to vastly open up the great room. But, prior to removing these load bearing walls, I had to install a 20′ 2 x 12 LVL. I glued and screwed that to the existing center beam to provide additional load bearing support. This allowed me to remove the walls. Ethan, my son, helped with this part.
• I had to have the gas line to the stove re-run. For some reason this had about 15 extra feet looping over near the wood stove. Yikes.
• I framed in the HVAC and other utility conduits down the center line of the house.
• Drywalling was sub’d out. I decided to let a pro do that part and he did great. I painted this up pretty quickly with an air sprayer. I remember doing the color first in a light blue. When I came down the next day I felt like I just walked into a giant bathroom. So, I changed it.
• Then the flooring went in. Recall this is what I wanted to actually do in the beginning. Eight months later here we are.

I’m very proud of the work I did. I didn’t know how to do all of it. I asked a lot of questions and studied a lot of content on the internet. I figured someone probably made a video. YouTube is a great resource for the How-To videos. Perhaps they should just take political videos off of there.

I go down there and just feel joy and blessings. I thank God for all of the lessons I experienced along the way. I hope I learned them so I don’t have to repeat them.

Here’s a photo montage of the old to the new.

Yep, my knee’s are a bit sore from the weekend. And my back. Oh, my hands and wrists too.

No, it’s not because I’m getting older. Has nothing to do with that. It’s everything to do with crawling on all fours; along with the get up and down. I’m so excited to have the new flooring in the basement done.

It was a chore. It took me a good chunk of Saturday and most of Sunday to get it all down. A neighbor friend came over near the end to help me move the freezer and wood stove up over the lip of the new floor so I could get under them. Here’s some pictures.

I’m going to paint the steps white on the risers and an interesting dark shade of gray on the steps. I think it will be a nice accent in there.

The hallway was the toughest part of Sunday. I ran the flooring all the way back into the closet. I hope I didn’t screw myself on that move. I don’t remember if I included the closet in the original estimate when I ordered the wood. I can get more if I need. I’ll still have the back bedroom to do in the basement. I’m going to tile the bathroom.

I was tempted at this point to be done for the day. But, I talked myself out of it.

My next steps?

I’m going to get the trim in. I still need to paint it all, then I’ll put it in. I also need to check to see if my nailer can do the longer trim nails. If so, that’ll make it go quick.

In the end, I’m pretty proud of the work here. Each step to the finish changes the energy of the place. I’m already starting to think ahead on how I’m going to begin work on the upstairs. But, I will force myself to wait until I am done with the trim and outlet covers down below. Otherwise, it might not get done.

Last weekend I was able to paint the walls. Deciding on colors is sometimes a challenge for me. In the past, when I was married I was always told what colors to go with. Back then I didn’t really care and it was good someone else made the decision. Today I care. It’s just me and the cat.

I have spent countless hours over the past many weeks looking at color samples in the neat brochures you can get at the paint stand. In those perfectly staged and lighted pictures, the colors look awesome. Once the walls were done, now I had to decide which color scene would translate over into my new space.

In deciding how I would apply the paint I also purchased a paint sprayer. This turned out to be a great investment because I am able to spray up a room in less time it takes to tape it all off properly. In that scene, I wanted to switch colors. Lesson learned here folks. Wait until the first color is dry before going on to the next one. Just a tip.

Back to my color choices.

I picked my colors. I’m ready to go. With the sprayer I’m able to pump through five gallons of white primer in now time since it needed to cover everything. I didn’t need to tape anything off at this stage except the windows and doors. Perfect. Now I’m excited because of how quickly the paint went up.

It’s color time.

I tape everything off. The ceiling. The accent wall. Go.

I paint.

I’m done.

I decide I’ll sleep on it before deciding the outcome. Maybe the lighting is off. It’s something.

The next morning I go down and look and it hit me. The color I picked made this giant family room look like a bathroom. Yep. I wasn’t happy with it.

I’m learning in this process if I don’t like something, I must stop and fix it before going on to the next phase. I don’t have to settle. I want the space to be a reflection of me and the things I like. The color I put up did not match that criteria. I didn’t love it.

I called over to Ace Hardware in Sandstone to order up a new color. I toned it down a bit and went with Louisburg Green. Some historical Benjamin Moore selection. Turns out, I like how the historical paint went up and covered over the bathroom blue very nicely.

Once I finished the new color I went back and touched up here and there. I then installed the lights. Those came out nicely.

Then I cleaned up. I’m pretty happy with the results.

What’s next? Well, I think I will go ahead and paint up the stairway a bit. Then I’ll feel better about laying the flooring. That’s the project I’m excited about next. Maybe this weekend I’ll get at it.

I’ve learned everything in renovations will happen in layers. You never know what you’ll find when you peel the layers back. Mold, leaks, rotting wood, dirt, dust, and all things in between. Things need to be repaired and cleaned up. I’ve written about those before.

The fun and excitement builds when you get to put those layers back. Especially when they are big layers. This past week the drywall went up. I hired this part out. It ended up being 37 sheets of drywall. Joe made it look easy getting it up and even easier with the taping and mudding. He did an excellent job and it was fun to watch.

Each step in putting things back together creates a different energy feel in the space. I’m excited to get on to the next step. Painting. After that, the new flooring goes in.