Category Archives: Old House

Giant yew bushes OUT… azaleas and hostas IN! Emily didn’t like the giant shrubs on the front of our house (neither did I). So we ripped them out. Then we went to the nursery and figured out what we wanted back in.

The dirtiest part (so far) of our entire renovation (and that is saying something) was our laundry room renovation. I had to pull the ceiling in this room, and half of the back yard came out of it. I guess a family of squirrels had lived in there at some point over the past 135 …

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3 trees removed (2 massive and 1 dead) and a ton of cleanup on others was a lot to deal with. We basically spent the entire summer getting tree work done. I always joke with Emily that anytime I spend $1k I have to at least get a video out of it. Well, I should …

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Build That Wall(s)! I’ve framed an entire basement remodel in the past. This was much less than that…but…it was not easy at all. In order to minimize demo (and not tear into the entire house), I had to tie my new framing into the existing framing. The existing framing was “wonky” to say the least! …

Continue reading “Master Bath Renovation – Part 3 – Framing The Wall (This Old Dean House)”

The side yard of our house was a disaster from earlier projects. We’d replaced both HVAC units and the water/sewer lines from the street. I needed to level it out and get the area around the HVAC units put back together. I brought in my heavier equipment for some ‘light’ landscaping work. This made the …

Continue reading “This Old Dean House – Sideyard (Phase 1) – HVAC Area”

This bathroom was like demo’ing a lasagna…layer upon layer upon layer. Paneling, drywall, wallpaper, beadboard, wood lathe…you name it, and this bathroom had it. I was already planning to remove one wall entirely. As I dug deeper, I realized I needed to get all the way to the studs to make sure the structural walls …

Continue reading “Master Bath Renovation – Part 2 – Never Ending Demo (This Old Dean House)”

Our tiny “master” bathroom had the pipes for the upstairs bathroom running through it. We think they added the upstairs bathroom in the 1940s. Both bathrooms have been remodeled several times since then. To repipe the entire house, I had to find those pipes. This was one of my very first projects. It started a …

Continue reading “Master Bath Renovation – Part 1 – Find The Missing Water Pipes (This Old Dean House)”

We repiped the house, and the upstairs bathroom was above the dining room. The quest to find the plumbing led to the excavation of the dining room ceiling. This eventually led to the entire drop ceiling coming out to complete the room’s renovation. It was interesting to try to piece together 135 years of home …

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There were about 5 layers of wallpaper in our 135-year-old foyer. I say ‘were’ because Emily went wild and started rippin”, tearin’, scrapin’ and sprayin’…and now there are zero layers of wallpaper in our foyer. We were going to repaint (or rewallpaper). I say ‘were’ because we decided we ain’t gonna do that.

I needed to weed some beds. I didn’t want to use chemicals. But really, I just wanted an excuse to use a flamethrower. Win-Win-Win…especially the flamethrower part! LOL