Recap: Jan-March 2020 at #TheBerg

Welcome to 2020! You are almost caught up on all the hard work that has gone into renovating #TheBerg. Here’s a recap of the last few months. Enjoy!

Kurt isn’t much for long vacations so on the first of January, he set the tub and surround.

Apparently our electrician and plumber didn’t think much of vacations either, because by January 2nd, they were both hard at work re-wiring and re-plumbing the whole house.

It took nearly a month, but they got it all done, including installing exterior lights on the front porch and the side entrance, and putting can lights in the living room.

Meanwhile, Kurt installed sheet rock and insulation in the upstairs bathroom. It is starting to be put back together and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

By mid-February, the insulation guys arrived to blow-in insulation from attic down into the walls, into the holes that Kurt had drilled in the walls, and into the weight pockets of the old windows.They put spray-foam insulation on the ceiling of the downstairs bedroom and bathroom (under the roof deck), the kitchen’s exterior walls, and in the crawl-space under bedroom/bath (which was later painted with fire-block paint), as well as on the attic floor, and around the plumbing run in dining room.

Kurt filled in the door opening between the kitchen and downstairs bathroom, adding extra insulation for soundproofing, plumbing, and electrical and a vent pipe.

By mid-February, he repaired the plaster near the chimney in upstairs hallway with sheet rock…

And built out the basement laundry area, with plumbing, a wall, and new electrical.

The electrician came back in early March to install the exterior lights on the roof deck. Doesn’t that look sharp?!

Finally, we were ready for the sheet rock crew. They came in early March and replaced the living room and dining room ceilings, while adding a special “racetrack” border.

Then they sheet rocked the kitchen walls and ceiling.

Finally, they skim-coated the plaster walls in the upstairs bedrooms and hallway, stairway, living room, dining room, and den. Now everything is the same color!

Kurt has come home looking rather ghostly the last few days because he is sanding all that plaster to prepare for the next step (which I think is painting!!!)

And now that we are all caught up, I will do my best to make more frequent updates. After all, things are moving quickly now and our hope is that #TheBerg will be ready for furnishings by summer! So please, stay tuned!

 

 

 

Recap: Oct-Dec 2019 at #TheBerg

Ok, I’m back with more photos from #TheBerg last fall. Enjoy!

Kurt started October by building out the shower in the downstairs bathroom.

Then, before the weather prohibited working outside, he made and installed the railing on new roof deck. I love how the black railing looks with the blue and white house, and I still can’t believe how beautiful that maple tree is during the fall! Both are spectacular!

Next on the list was new plumbing for the upstairs bathroom and adding insulation to the floor for extra soundproofing.

Then, new PVC drain and PEX supply lines (i.e. more plumbing throughout the whole house…)

By mid-November, Kurt shifted gears and decided to remove all the wallpaper in the living room, den, and upstairs master bedroom.

This made it easier for him to prepare for a visit from the insulation guys. Kurt drilled holes in the walls to check the current insulation levels and to provide easy access for blown-in insulation to be added.

Then came installing the bathtub and building out the shower walls in the upstairs bathroom.

December saw the beginning of rewiring the whole house, removing all the knob-and-tube wiring, and installing can lights in attic for the upstairs bedroom and hallway. (Much more electrical work took place in January 2020.)

Finally, to close out 2019, Kurt removed all the old cast-iron and iron plumbing system. That brings us to our final recap: everything that has happened thus far in 2020. Stay tuned!

 

Recap: June-Sept 2019 at #TheBerg

So it’s early June, 2019 at #TheBerg and Kurt is hard at work. Here’s a recap of what he accomplished last summer. Enjoy!

Back to the basement, he scraped off all the loose stuff on the foundation walls and patched them with mortar, before painting everything down there white. An amazing transformation from creepy basement to crisp and clean!

Moving on to the staircase to the basement, he removed the wallpaper, patched the old plaster, and replaced part of it with sheet rock.

Upward! He then replaced the ceiling sheet rock on the second floor (while teetering over the stairwell!)

Next, he removed the flooring near side entry door, repaired the floor joists, and added a new threshold and new storm door.

Late July saw the beginning of a BIG project. Kurt started overhauling the roof above the first-floor bedroom to create a new roof deck!! The roof, built in the 1950s, had leaked and the rafters were spongy, so he started with demo, many layers of demo… the rubber membrane, some insulation board, then 7 layers of rolled asphault (red, green, black) over shiplap decking.

Under the shiplap was insulation to scoop out, then the sheet rock ceiling of downstairs bedroom. He had to remove rotten rafters (which was all of them except 5).

This was the day that I prayed it wouldn’t rain! Thankfully, he promptly started rebuilding the roof. To make sure it met modern safety regulations, he added tons more 2×4 rafters with hurricane straps (for proper bracketing), then a plywood deck surface, protected with a rubber membrane that ran up walls and over the fascia. Since he was still many months away from anyone using the new roof deck, the custom-built steel railing would have to wait.

This was about the time that the girls and I stopped by for an afternoon to help remove the wallpaper from the downstairs bedroom (which once again had a ceiling).

During this renovation, we decided that the first-floor bedroom should have an attached bathroom (instead of accessing the bathroom from the kitchen, through the old accordion door!) So the next step was to remove the sheet rock wall to create a door into the bathroom from the bedroom.

Kurt hoped to have at least one working bathroom in the house so he went to work beefing up the floor joists in upstairs bathroom. (As you’ll see, it didn’t quite work out that way.)

But then he decided to repair the hole in the master bedroom where the AC unit had been. He had fixed the exterior siding before painting it last year, but the interior needed some plastic sheeting and sheet rock.

Next, he removed the stairs from the kitchen to the side door and replaced the floor of the landing. (As you can see, there is no shortage of projects to do at #TheBerg.)

On my request, Kurt then removed the curved archway between the dining and living room. Hooray!

Back to the upstairs bathroom, next he removed the plaster ceiling and removed the lath and the plaster from the walls, finally installing new studs.

With fall/winter fast approaching, he took a break from the bathroom renovation to climb onto the roof and install a new chimney cap.

And that brings us to October 2019. On to our next recap… Stay tuned.