Occupancy -YEAH!!!

Yesterday, October 23rd I was granted Occupancy. Now you are probably wondering what I'm hooting and hollering about. You see, the County that I live in instituted an Occupancy Law earlier this year stating that all properties must pass code and be up to neighborhood standards. I've seen many houses that are in such disrepair that I can clearly understand why they could institute such a ruling; but never imagined that the house I had just bought would be such a disaster.

When they inspected the 1st time, I was left with a list of 40 things to remedy within 90 days. Now some were super easy like installing smoke detectors in all rooms...what crazy person wouldn't have them to begin with, I don't know. Others were harder like remove all of the yard debris, redo the plumbing, pour a new concrete garage floor, etc which ended up costing me a pretty penny and alot of time; but the results were well worth it. Now seriously, if the Previous Owners weren't so bad at maintaining the house, I wouldn't have been in this predicament in the first place; but I digress.

Needless to say 90 days isn't that long when you have a list of 40 things to accomplish. Well, yesterday, just a few days earlier then my deadline the inspector came and I passed. Now besides the obvious news that I can move in, there is the craziness that should finally go away now. You do not know how hard it has been for me not to rip off the crappy wallpaper, paint over a neon green ceiling (Yes, it is neon green) and thoroughly clean every inch of the place.

Now my life can get back on track and I can move into my house once and for all and let the fun of remodeling and decorating finally start.

Garage-Part 3

Ah yes, the Garage again. For those of you who remember, this is what the garage looked like in the beginning. It was an overgrown, neglected and unusable space.

We were required to tear it down or else get it up to speed (new roof, new concrete floor, new exterior paint, etc). While tearing it down probably sounded like the easiest solution considering the massive amount of work we had ahead of us, we just couldn't destroy this sizeable garage. It was built the same time as the house, therefore it is over 100 years old. This clapboard sided, wood timber sill, real-sized 2x4 framed structure deserved the same respect as the home. So, we dove right in. Below is the garage minus roof and floor.

And here my friends is the garage now. It has a new shingle roof, brand new concrete floor and we are painting the clapboard siding this coming weekend. Isn't she a beauty?

You will notice two things. First, how bright the surrounding area is now. We had some tree removal done in the backyard and therefore it lightened up the area considerably. Second, the large sliding doors were the one casuality of the project. The garage will essentially remain a large carport until I can figure out exactly what I want to do to replace the doors.

Getting There

So the roof is 97% finished, we still have to put the metal cap at the peak and do some cleanup/trim work. We had planned on using the shingles for the peak as one would expect; but their size didn't work out, so we went to Home Depot and bought some white metal casing (it was on sale-YEAH!).

Of course, I needed to spray paint it because something about a white peak on a brown roof didn't say complete. I was just going to match one of the colors in the shingles; but then I found this awesome textured paint from Rustoleum that had like 3 shades of brown in it-PERFECT!

I also bought 4 gallons of white paint for the sides of the garage, this will probably only do 1 good coat; but it will at least be one solid color instead of new wood, old wood, stripped wood, etc. Later on I can paint the garage to match my house.

Once the garage roof, flooring and painting is done-I'll post some photos and let you decide how the transformation went.

Down To The Wire

We have the entire garage roof sheathed now, it took some muscle; but that part is done. This past weekend, we were able to lay the felt-paper and shingles on 1/2 of the roof. The other half will get done this upcoming weekend and I'll be able to show you some photos. The roof color is called Autumn Brown; but it's really saddletan and midbrown colors. It compliments the house roof nicely and looks great!!

Next job is the garage floor, if you remember I had to tear out the broken concrete and replace it. I called around for several estimates from local contractors; but only 2 gave me offers. The others either never contacted be back or hee-hawd around, probably because they couldn't make anything off the deal. Which leaves me with a dirt floor and the laborous job of pouring my own floor.

Step 1: Convince Dad, Mom and Brother to help. My Dad has experience with concrete and I've done a little myself along the way.

Step 2: Buy Cement Mixer.

Step 3: 14tons of 1" clean gravel were dumped the other day...I know, can you imagine 14tons? Let me just say it is an enormous pile; but not entirely for the garage. 70% of it will be redistributed on my gravel driveway; which presently is mostly dust with small specs of gravel here and there.

So, as you can see my next few weeks are jam-packed.