I've added a new photo album for the rebuilding portion of the remodeling John's room project. This way if you've already been through the other photos, you don't have to wait as long to get to the newer photos.

Today Jason installed the thrermostat control for the electric heat. The room is plenty warm today with all the new insulation. We insulated the interior walls also to provide a bit of a sound barrier between the kids' bedrooms.

We are also throwing around the idea of carpeting the room now also instead of repairing the areas where the wall was removed. That will also provide a good sound barrier for the living room below. LOL!

Jason also added electricity to the attic so he doesn't have to hold flashlights up there now. Anything to make it a little easier for the long haul of doing each and every room up there!

 

All for now...

 

We've been working hard finishing the tearing out of the walls, insulation, and wiring from John's room. Jason added all new wiring for electrical, telephones, and cable. That is so exciting as we have never had cable tv or telephone service to the second story before... the kids are excited about that! However, the cable and phone lines are not live yet. The electricity is.

Jason needs to finish the electrical on the north side of the room and in the north closet and for the electric heater then the wiring for John's room will be complete.

But we did notice yesterday that John's room is quite warm. Some of the spaces in the wall had no insulation, while others had insulation that had settled down to the bottm of the walls. Others had multiple kinds of insulation in the space. Having better insulation and having insulation in every knook and cranny sure helps keep the warmth in the room... and that is the best part of this project - keeping the second floor WARM!

More updates to come...

enjoy the photos! 

Better late than not at all! I hope you all had a great day!

 

I had a superb day! I had to work in the dementia unit and it had been a full moon but all went well. Many of the residents got Valentines from friends and family.

 

Jason brought me a beautiful bouquet of roses! They are absolutely gorgeous! I've attached a photo of them below. They are best described as a peach color with reddish tips. Anyone who knows me knows that I love things that are multiple colored and not typical... so these were perfect! And better yet, he hand delivered them so that was such a surprise! I was the envy of everyone... LOL!

 

After work, I gave the kids each a bag of Kissables candies. Then we ate KFC for supper. I love their chicken!

 

Again, I hope you all had a wonderful day!

 

 

I added a couple more photos to update the John's room remodeling project.

 

We tore out Elainie's closet and will go ahead and redo it while we are in the "general area".

Her closet will go back up as it was originally, just loosing about 3.5 inches because the wall will now be 4 inches thick instead of 1.5 inches thick like the wall that was originally there seperating John and her closets.

 

More wiring also went up today. And Jason found two rolls of insulation in the garage attic so that will give us a start on that.

 

Change in plan includes leaving the south closet open and putting the north closet back in. We discovered that the south window let in a lot of light and the space made the room appear bigger, and so the plans changed. We are adding a small light to that area to brighten it. I haven't got anything picked out yet as it wasn't originally planned.

 

All for now...

 

I'll keep updating as the project continues to progress.

 

Today we did it! We found the way to run wiring to the basement and to the attic!

So, Jason ran the wire and installed a new breaker box in the attic to bear the load of the upstairs rooms.

We also ran a ground wire, cable tv wire, and telephone wiring. None of it is connected to anything yet, but it is beginning to look like we're making some progress

I don't know anything about wiring, but it looks and sounds good to me.

 

 

Trying to wire a room isn't as easy as one would think.

Jason is in the process of trying to find a good wall to send wiring through. Hollow walls in the first floor.

We thought we had one last night but send a weight on a string dow it and it stopped about 4 feet down.

There must be boards that run parallel with the floor in the dining room walls. Argh! LOL!

So, anyway, that is where we are at. Still trying to find a hollow wall and run wiring.

 

I haven't slept very well lately and have experienced some body strain so I decided to try to figure out how to get better sleep. I laid in bed the other night thinking how poorly of a job my pillows do for proper body alignment and comfort. Perhaps that is my problem. My pillows are purchased every two months or so. They are the cheapies available at Wal-Mart for like $2.92... so I decided to look into buying a better pillow.

I saw an ad in the Sunday paper that had pillows for $30.00, all the way up to $200.! You must be joking if you'd spend $200. on a pillow! It better provide breakfast in bed for that cost!

I started looking around and then purchased a 100% Memory Foam Contour Pillow. It claimed that it is designed to give a restful night's sleep by supporting the head and neck so you feel weightless, pressure-free support. It supplies proper support and alignment throughout the night and it conformes to your body's own individual shape, weight, and temperature. How many of you own or have tried this pillow?

It sounded good so I tried it out. It was like sleeping on a lumpy brick! I tossed and turned all night trying to find where this individual area was that conformed to me. It never did. So I figured I'd take it back the next day.

Jason decided he liked stiff pillows so he would try it. This morning he decided that he hated it too.

Now John wants to try it, so I gave it to him.

So I went out searching for another pillow. Was I expecting too much from a pillow?

I found two more candidates that may work out. I had a hard time deciding but finally picked one. I figured if I didn't like it, I could pawn it off on Jason.

This one is called Memory Foam Quilted Satin with Theratouch Memory foam. It too promises a more restful night sleep by supporting head and neck with the feeling of weightlessness, pressure-free support. This one is a traditional shaped pillow that adapts to any sleeping position. I also purchased a new pillow case for it. I tried it out last night and I slept the entire night through. I was nervous at first though because it is a very stiff pillow, much like the other one, but this one actually conformed to my head and neck and was very comfortable. I love it! I will probably let Jason try it out and if he likes it, purchase one for him also. Well, that is, as long as I can let go of it long enough! LOL!

Today was the official fourth day of the remodeling project. How many more days to go is anyone's guess!

 

Plans have already changed though. Seems everyone likes the open wall on the south side of the room. It brings in more sunshine to the room and makes it feel a little bigger. So, plans are to tear out that wall and make a stud wall and bigger supports for the roof and leave that ope. Then we will close the Norht wall back up and return that to a closet. It will have a bigger door and the rod will hang the opposite direction than it originally did so it will eventually hold more clothing.

 

John is very excited about this project.

 

The dumpster was FINALLY (*wink) emptied this afternoon so we can work on load number 2.

 

Jason will be buying a bunch of supplies on Thursday to get started on the new wiring.

 

The next group of photos to be added will be of the fall of the East wall. Since it is insulated... andhis is IOWA, it is best to leave all that insulation right where it is until we are ready to put new right back up. So the East wall will come tumbling down on Thursday or Friday.

 

Until then...

 

moi

 

Welcome to those who are new visitors to my space! We started remodeling John's room today and thought it better I share photos through a website than through cluttering everyone's email boxes. To view the photos best, click on "Slideshow", then click on "Full View".

 

The new project involves removal of everything old... and replace with ALL NEW!

 

New drywall, new wiring, adding wiring for cable tv and phones, new windows, new wood work, new doors (closet and main)...

 

This sounds like a huge undertaking because... it is!

 

We tore out the north closet. It was small and was obviously not originally there as it was added over the hardwood flooring. We have decided to leave that closet out and make it a nice niche for a computer desk. It will make a cute space in the room for whatever John uses it for! It was the smaller of the two closets.

 

We also tore out the north, west, and south walls. These are mainly all interior walls because of the floorplan of the upstairs. We can't continue because the dumpster we rented is completely FULL! It needs to be hauled away on Monday and we have requested a larger dumpster because we still have to tear out the East wall and the interiors of both closet areas, ect. Plus we are going to do something else that I have wanted to do for years... but I can't tell what that is right now. ;-)

 

A few years back we discovered fire damage in Alexis' bedroom while insulating. A call to the fire department revealed the house had two fires in it's history with the worst and most recent being in 1932. The record indicates the fires were caused by the old wood burners homes used to have. It says that a piece of lit ash came out of the chimney and landed on what was then a wood roof and caught it on fire. The fireman said that this was a common problem back then and many houses had fires caused by this in our area. That was pretty interesting.

 

So, anyway...

 

I'm so excited to get this project going and now I really can't wait to get it completed! I will continue to share photos this way as the project moves along.

 

Enjoy the photos!