It's been a while since my last post. Life just gets busier, especially in the Spring. Hopefully these photos will suffice if you've been jonesing for some updates.
Fielding local labor for drywall hanging turned out to be a less than opportunistic proposal. In fact, it turned into about 60 hours of my own time fixinig a bunch of very poorly hung drywall. I was really hoping that it would save money, but in the end it probably cost the same in $$ not including my time of going over everything with a fine tooth comb.
On a good note, however, we've signed a lease with a future tenant. Let's just hope we have this thing pretty much wrapped up in time for them to move in.
With the drywall hanging behind us though, it became extremely important to find some good finishers. I knew a couple of union guys who wanted the side work, and they did a fantastic job of making a poorly hung job look extremely good.
And now for the nearly finised product...one more coat on the walls and they'd be done. We're waiting until the very end though.
With the warmer weather came quite a bit of exterior work. I also had the pleasure of finding some more local guys who are very good with concrete and masonry for the $$. Actually they're good at a bunch of stuff, and I'm trying to keep them busy with as much as they're willing to do.
We put new drainage in along the sides of the house, formed up new walks around both of they houses, made a new curb along the sidewalk where we took out the tree in the front, and poured two new 10' x 10' concrete pads in the back yard for a patio. So far in all we've placed 8 yards of concrete on two separate days. I'd run home from work, change into concrete clothes, place concrete for 2 hours, then change back into work clothes and head back while the concrete guys finished it up for the day. No wonder it's expensive work to hire out, man. Concrete is work, especially when you can't get the truck near where you want it to go.
Once the concrete was placed, we needed to get some stairs back on the rear of the house. That was all me. In a few days I had the platforms framed and the stringers built and put the deck boards on. I'll get to the rails later.
Of course while that was going on, I gave Poncho, one of my local jacks-of-all-trades, the chance to prove himself on the masonry. I was told he could lay some brick, but the proof is in the pudding, you know. I think the work speaks for itself. He has been a great find.
We started here, on the south side where the brick had pulled away from the house 4 inches. The hole that used to be in the roof allowed water to leak onto the porch. It probably ran off to the masonry wall, sunk into the brick and eroded the masonry strength, causing the wall to pull away and sink. We fixed that by parging the wall surface after pulling the outside wythe of brick off. Poncho cleaned most of the bricks to the degree that I may not have to buy but a couple hundred new bricks to finish off the masonry restoration work.
And shoot, as I'm sitting here I realize that I haven't downloaded the finished wall pictures yet. Trust me it looks awesome now. And here's the other side, where we had to remove the masonry column as it was nearly falling over.
This brick was pretty soft too, although I think it was more the column that was causing the problems.
We removed all of the brick and column foundation, poured the new foundation in concrete, and laid back up CMU in place of the interior masonry wall. Those pics are still on the camera too, but it's coming together really nicely too. I may not have to paint the masonry after all! More savings!
UPDATE: Here's one wall rebuilt.
We also borrowed a large disc sander for the floors in the living room. This might end up being the biggest surprise of the project:
These floors will look fantastic. Stay tuned I guess!
And now for the nearly finised product...one more coat on the walls and they'd be done. We're waiting until the very end though.
With the warmer weather came quite a bit of exterior work. I also had the pleasure of finding some more local guys who are very good with concrete and masonry for the $$. Actually they're good at a bunch of stuff, and I'm trying to keep them busy with as much as they're willing to do.
This brick was pretty soft too, although I think it was more the column that was causing the problems. 
We removed all of the brick and column foundation, poured the new foundation in concrete, and laid back up CMU in place of the interior masonry wall. Those pics are still on the camera too, but it's coming together really nicely too. I may not have to paint the masonry after all! More savings! 
