New Years Rockin’ Eve?

Well, we thought so.  Here’s a rundown of how we kept ourselves busy over the three-day weekend.

On Friday, after taking some time to walk through our project and dream a little (I suggested a pull out kitchen spice rack, Ryan suggested we be reasonable…), we turned our attention to replacing our temporary beam supports with Ryan’s permanent solution.

In an earlier project that did not make the blog, we placed two lolly columns (adjustable steel supports) under the center beam in the basement so that the weight of the house was more distributed across the beam.  Before that, an old post had supported the beam, as well as a series of lolly columns around the chimney (now removed on all levels besides the basement).  We planned ahead when we placed the lollies so that they would be in the same place as the columns upstairs and would carry the load of the house straight down to the ground.  The lollies worked great, and after a couple weeks, the old post popped out since the new lollies had taken the load and distributed it across the beam.

After much thought, Ryan came up with a solution that transfers the load down through two new fir 4”-by-6” columns, across a double-stacked 12” LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) and the floor joists it sits on, and down to the new lolly columns.

To pull it all together, we (Ryan mostly, but I helped!) pulled up some flooring, made a temporary support for the beam, and lag bolted the double-stacked LVL into the center beam below. 

Ryan the cut the columns tight and knocked those suckers in.  There was a swell of testosterone around this point.

The clang of an old lolly the next day confirmed that we’d successfully redistributed the load and corrected part of our structural issues in the basement.  Sturdier floors on the second floor are also evidence of improved conditions.

Readers may be wondering about the stacked LVL now in the center of our open-plan living/dining room.  We’ve decided to build a sideboard between the two columns, with storage on the dining room side for large platters and serving dishes and space on top for those large platters with food on them!  So, the cabinet will hide the LVL.

That afternoon, we continued to dig out from the blizzard earlier in the week.  We moved a lot of snow from one pile to another (with a small yard, it’s a little hard to find a good place to throw the snow) and freed the gutters of ice.  Over achiever that he is, Ryan hopped up on the lower roof and cleared that off, too.

After a materials run to Home Depot, Ryan just had to get on to our planned project for the following day before 2010 came to a close.  More on that in a bit.

New Year’s Eve was pretty crazy.

Tela got after it, too.

We were awfully fancy, and used our big kid champagne flutes that Eric and Tatyana gave us for Christmas.

The next morning, we had our first breakfast in the breakfast nook, made possible by a griddle Ryan’s parents gave us for Christmas.  Until the kitchen is done, I have big plans for that griddle.

We then picked up where Ryan left off the evening before and applied insulation and drywall between the exposed beams on the living room ceiling.  The insulation won’t do much for heat (it’s R 6.7), but it will help a bit with muffling sound from the living room and TV to our bedroom above.

We also spent some time on the design of the built-ins in the living room and some overall plans for the front room which needed to get nailed down before we could work much more, specifically plans that will impact wiring for lighting and outlets.

We’ve decided to reuse the fireplace surround we salvaged from the dining room side when we demo’ed the front.  This choice impacts what kinds of gas fireplace kit we will eventually purchase, which impacts dimensions, electricals, venting needs, etc.  Nothing is simple, readers.  We first measured everything out and started to draw it on the floor, but I was having trouble visualizing, so we hauled in the surround.

Looks big, but appearances can be deceiving.  It actually took us a fair amount of looking around to find a gas fireplace that will fit this mantle.  We did, a Heat n’ Glo model which Ryan was able to get CAD drawings of so we could figure out how the wall would need to be framed out.  Because of minimum clearance to combustibles guidelines, we won’t be able to hide the flat screen in a recessed cabinet and instead will have to mount it above the mantel.  Bummer, but I don’t mind so much.  We’ll have room for other stuff on the mantel to make it look pretty.  

Once Ryan started drafting and I started talking, it was hard to stop.  We ended up drafting the whole scheme for the built in wall, which starts with the fireplace/flat screen set up, continues on with a bookshelf dimensioned to reflect the window on the left side of the wall (existing corner cabinet to be demo’ed), drawer storage below, and a bench with more drawer storage to wrap around the corner and under the window.  The one large bookshelf is to hold all our architecture, art and design coffee table books, which I can never fit in a standard bookshelf.  We also figured out the placement of some recessed lighting above the mantel and outlets for table and floor lamps.

Then, Ryan drafted up what our sideboard will look like, with the columns trimmed out square and the living room scheme in the background.

And after the elevations, we updated our master floor plan.

I have problems thinking in the third dimension, but Ryan also did a couple section cuts to help me understand the different depths of the built ins.  Here they are.

Design discussion ensued throughout the evening and we decided to keep the staircase wall in the dining room side closed.  We didn’t really want to have the stairs as a circulation point from the dining room, but I was having problems with putting the baluster straight across to the wall to block access from the dining room.  It just seemed weird.  Keeping this wall will also keep the dining room feeling cozy and a bit separate from the rest of the first floor, which will be nice.  Open plan is good… but so are delineated, intimate spaces.   

Another thing that became apparent as we worked on elevations was with this open plan and built-in scheme, there was limited space for wall art, which Ryan and I happen to have a lot of.  By keeping this wall closed, we can have a mirror reflecting the front window directly across the space, again giving symmetry like the bookshelf in the built in scheme.  I’m thinking small art on either side of the mirror.  The wall perpendicular to this wall will be our opportunity for a larger piece of art, probably a painting by my grandfather.  Everyone in my family has a boat painting from Grandpa Thiem in their dining room.  We are going to plan for this accordingly and put some spot lighting/gallery lighting in the ceiling to hit this wall, in addition to a candelabra on a dimmer on the dining room side.


Sunday, we completed the ceiling in the living room and I began to tape off the beams so that I can finish the ceiling with joint compound.

Ryan also put up strapping on the third small bay of the living room, which will have recessed lighting on the mantel and bookcase and also cover up some less attractive exposed beams.  It looks like there was a very small addition at some point which added this third bay.  The quality of lumber is much different and just not worth leaving exposed.

We then pulled out the corner cabinet we had so carefully wrapped in plastic sheeting way back when we were planning on saving it.  We also did a little exploratory demo to figure out the state of the walls and discovered that some parts are insulated, others not, and that if we pull it all down to insulate and put up fresh sheetrock, we will gain another two inches all around -- score!  (I should add here that the work light Mom and Dad gave us for Christmas came in mighty handy while we worked.)

Happy New Year's to all -- it's hard to believe we are approaching an entire year on this journey... we put our initial offer in on Valentine's Day last year!  I've asked the architect if he'd like to do a year in review (well, 7 months of working), which he's agreed to do, but I'm not sure he'll have the time with everything else on his plate... stay tuned!