Renovation Milestone: Starting With the Attic
We've reached an important milestone in our renovation plans for the house.
We finally started.
Technically, lots of work has been done since we moved in, starting with the garage and eventually moving on to the basement (still a work-in-progress as far as mortar and wall repair are concerned). Rob finally has a proper (and heated!) shop so we took a month or so to regroup, reevaluate, and decide on a renovation strategy. As far as we were concerned we had two feasible options:
1. Buy a trailer, put it on the property to live in, gut the house, and go for it.
2. Renovate this bad boy, one room at a time.
Since we still haven't found what we're looking for (a money tree), we went with door #2.
The attic has been on Rob's mind for a long time because in order to insulate the ceilings above all the bedrooms, the attic floor will need to be taken up so insulation can be put down. Before any of that can happen, the attic needed cleaned out. When his mom lived here, she did it several times so it wasn't terrible as far as clutter was concerned. As far as the disgust left behind by rodents?
Nasty, y'all.
I'm gonna go ahead and assume we were seeing the waste of the furry little friend we routinely hear scurrying up and down our walls dropping his nuts (what she said) down the lathe like he's playing a squirrel version of Plinko.
Sunday we put on our attic-cleaning clothes, donned muck boots, work gloves, and breathing masks and made our way upstairs to get to work.
If the video below plays for you like I hope, you can see what needed to be taken out. There were several wooden and metal bed frames as well as an old mirror and window frames that were taken out after the openings were closed in years ago. Several totes filled with junk and the remains of Rob's treasured-and-much-reminisced-about childhood water bed also needed thrown away. We discovered a literal squirrel's nest in one of the water bed drawers. Thank you, Jesus the squirrel wasn't also in it because I would have been d-o-n-e DONE and my pants would have needed changing.
Despite all the grossness, I love seeing the rough-sawn original wood beams used to frame the roof. There's nothing that compares to the durability and timelessness of 1800s lumber. We could also see the remnants of the old coal chimney that's no longer in use. The original brick chimney runs from the basement, up through the kitchen and an upstairs bedroom into the attic. At the far end of the attic is the current chimney. I didn't get a picture but years ago, someone drew a stick figure and the word "moron" on one of the attic beams. Classic.
Fun fact: This one time I had a brilliant idea of converting the attic into a master suite. I envisioned a cozy, relaxing retreat, and maybe even a walk-in closet. I can verify after making approximately 476 trips from the attic to the outside trash that there are 32 stairs separating the first floor and the attic. All this to say: I changed my mind 'bout that whole master-suite-on-the-top-floor thing.
We worked for a couple hours and managed to get all the junk hauled outside except for the old bed frames and window frame inserts, which won't take long to do when we get back up there.
Next up in the attic: using the shop vac to get all the yuck off the floors, prying up the wood planks, putting down insulation over the bedrooms, and maybe saving the floor planks to clean, refinish, and reuse elsewhere in the house once we see what the hardwoods look like under the downstairs carpet. Don't hold your breath for that project though. Neither of us is convinced salvaging the attic wood floor would be worth it because of its current condition.
We finally started.
Technically, lots of work has been done since we moved in, starting with the garage and eventually moving on to the basement (still a work-in-progress as far as mortar and wall repair are concerned). Rob finally has a proper (and heated!) shop so we took a month or so to regroup, reevaluate, and decide on a renovation strategy. As far as we were concerned we had two feasible options:
1. Buy a trailer, put it on the property to live in, gut the house, and go for it.
2. Renovate this bad boy, one room at a time.
Since we still haven't found what we're looking for (a money tree), we went with door #2.
The attic has been on Rob's mind for a long time because in order to insulate the ceilings above all the bedrooms, the attic floor will need to be taken up so insulation can be put down. Before any of that can happen, the attic needed cleaned out. When his mom lived here, she did it several times so it wasn't terrible as far as clutter was concerned. As far as the disgust left behind by rodents?
Nasty, y'all.
I'm gonna go ahead and assume we were seeing the waste of the furry little friend we routinely hear scurrying up and down our walls dropping his nuts (what she said) down the lathe like he's playing a squirrel version of Plinko.
Sunday we put on our attic-cleaning clothes, donned muck boots, work gloves, and breathing masks and made our way upstairs to get to work.
If the video below plays for you like I hope, you can see what needed to be taken out. There were several wooden and metal bed frames as well as an old mirror and window frames that were taken out after the openings were closed in years ago. Several totes filled with junk and the remains of Rob's treasured-and-much-reminisced-about childhood water bed also needed thrown away. We discovered a literal squirrel's nest in one of the water bed drawers. Thank you, Jesus the squirrel wasn't also in it because I would have been d-o-n-e DONE and my pants would have needed changing.
Despite all the grossness, I love seeing the rough-sawn original wood beams used to frame the roof. There's nothing that compares to the durability and timelessness of 1800s lumber. We could also see the remnants of the old coal chimney that's no longer in use. The original brick chimney runs from the basement, up through the kitchen and an upstairs bedroom into the attic. At the far end of the attic is the current chimney. I didn't get a picture but years ago, someone drew a stick figure and the word "moron" on one of the attic beams. Classic.
Fun fact: This one time I had a brilliant idea of converting the attic into a master suite. I envisioned a cozy, relaxing retreat, and maybe even a walk-in closet. I can verify after making approximately 476 trips from the attic to the outside trash that there are 32 stairs separating the first floor and the attic. All this to say: I changed my mind 'bout that whole master-suite-on-the-top-floor thing.
We worked for a couple hours and managed to get all the junk hauled outside except for the old bed frames and window frame inserts, which won't take long to do when we get back up there.
Next up in the attic: using the shop vac to get all the yuck off the floors, prying up the wood planks, putting down insulation over the bedrooms, and maybe saving the floor planks to clean, refinish, and reuse elsewhere in the house once we see what the hardwoods look like under the downstairs carpet. Don't hold your breath for that project though. Neither of us is convinced salvaging the attic wood floor would be worth it because of its current condition.
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