Fireplace Install

I've been working on installing the new fireplace pretty much non-stop lately. Worked on it all weekend from when I woke up until I went to bed at night. It started with alot of demolition, I had to cut out a 4-1/2 foot wide opening that was 8 feet tall in the living room wall. This is the wall that the old chimney ran up through.

Here's standing inside the boys bedroom looking out into the living room through the giant hole that I'm creating. Its pretty amazing how much work was actually involved in "making a hole in a wall".


Making an opening that big required cutting out some wall studs. After I supported the wall properly, I cut the studs out and then framed in a double 2x8 header that you see at the top of the photo. This header is supported on each side by 2 - 2x4 studs and carries the weight from the studs above that were cut off. You can also see a gas line and electric wire in the wall there that I had to relocate.


Here is a side view after the wall was completely removed, I also had to remove 2' off the side wall in the bedroom to maintain my proper clearance from the fireplace. On the floor I'm starting to frame out the platform the fireplace will be sitting on. You can also see the floor where I patched it up. Where the hammer is laying used to be the opening the brick chimney ran through down into the basement.


My dad and brother helped move the fireplace into position and I began installing the chimney pipe from there, the pieces just twist-lock together and about every 5 feet I install a wall clamp. I still need to build a hearth out in front of the fireplace and also frame in the walls around the fireplace with metal studs.

Up in the attic, the new chimney pipe runs up through the old masonry section I left above the roof line. Eventually I will frame this all out so the pipe is enclosed. Also you can see one of the wall straps in this pic.

XL Delivery - Fireplace 3

The wood burning fireplace for the living room showed up the other day. Between the fireplace and the chimney sections the shipping weight was 1000 pounds! Here's the delivery truck, it was too big to back up into my driveway because he would have to maneuver between the trees alongside the drive.


After unloading, we were able to wheel the lighter pallet (300lbs) up to the porch. The heavier pallet (700lbs) had to be left down in the driveway as the truckdriver and myself couldn't pull it any farther. After he left I hooked a tow strap on it and dragged it up closer to the house with my truck.


Here's the fireplace setting in the house after 4 of us managed to get it up the stairs. It definately wasn't easy. The fireplace is a high effeciency EPA approved unit, it was just made available in the U.S. last month (Jan. 09). It was a pretty expensive unit, but the plan is that it will heat most of the house. I will run ductwork from the fireplace to the upstairs of the house and the fireplace has a large blower to distribute heat. There are glass doors not on it yet in the pic, that seal the fireplace and allow it to burn for a long time (overnight) once loaded with wood. Another reason I went with this fireplace is the cool wrought iron detail on it, the doors also are trimmed in wrought iron and it should go really good with the style of our house.

Gas Fire 2

We had a nice warm spell the last couple days here, yesterday it was 60 degrees out! Definately got the spring fever started. However, it will be dipping back into the 20's soon. In the meantime I ran some more gas line and fireplace #2 is up and running in the dining room. Now its nice and warm in there! Its pretty cool because the gas fireplaces are thermostaticaly controlled, so they turn on and off automatically to keep the room the right temperature.


A closer view.


Also was working on tearing out the fake brick that was on the floor surrounding the wood burning stove.

Chimney - BIG project

After a chimney fire in December, the chimney had suffered some major cracking and damage from all the intense heat. It was unusable until either it was cored out and relined, or completely removed and rebuilt. I went with the latter. It took 4 men working non-stop to get all the brick torn out and removed. We went from the attic to the basement and removed about 40 feet of brick, estimated to weigh about 5000 pounds or so. The new chimney will go back in the same location, only now it will be a 9" insulated metal pipe, weighing about 250 pounds.

Here is how it started, up in the attic. Bracing was installed to support the 3' section of brick up on the roof. I wanted to maintain the original appearance from outside the house. A shiny round metal pipe sticking out of the roof just wasn't gonna cut it. I estimate the brick on the roof to be around 300lbs, so not a whole lot of weight really. It is braced with 2x8's and there will also be 2x4 bracing running down to the joists below. I calculated wind loads up to 100mph and they were relatively insignificant because there isn't much surface area sticking up above the roof. I will install some angle iron in each corner as an extra precaution, (we had a tornado in the area last year that severely damaged several houses a couple miles away).

Glen throwing down the grunt labor, ready to tackle some more buckets of brick.

Matt working near the ceiling on the 2nd floor.

Looking down from the second floor. Remus is starting to pull bricks going through the floor into the basement.

Here's what was installed to help control the dust on the 1st floor. It seemed to work pretty good. Kinda reminded me in the movie ET when they quarantined of their house...

Nice little pile of bricks. This isn't all of them either.

On a side note, I recieved an awesome package from my Aunt Carol (mismike), she sent some cool things to hang on our walls, including 2 very large ornate wooden keys. Thanks Aunt C! I'll get some pictures when I figure out where I'm gonna hang them.

Gas Fire

Last weekend we got a new gas fireplace for the parlor to help warm things up a little, and maybe help cut down the heating bill a little. The fireplace is a 99.9% effecient vent-free unit. It seems to be working pretty good throwing out alot of heat.

Elsewhere in my blog I've shown water lines and drain lines, now its time for some gas lines! So before we could use our new fireplace I needed to run the new lines. The line coming in from the right side in the pic is the existing supply line that runs up to the 2nd floor gas heater, it connected to the line in the picture that goes up through the floor and into the wall. I cut the pipes apart, took out the 90 degree elbow, replaced it with a tee, then added in a new shut off valve, then I connected my new line (to the left of the picture) to the other leg of the tee.

Here's the new fireplace in action (ignore the brown paneling on the walls, thats another project for another day)

Blown in Insulation, aka, Indoor Snow

Got started on blowing insulation into the walls today. First had to make a trip down to Lansing to rent a blower and buy 15 bales of cellulose. The roads were a mess from the snow last night, somehow it had formed a layer of ice on the freeways. I saw about 6 cars in the ditch, saw one go in, and saw one truck upside down, where unfortunately they were hauling a woman on a stretcher to an ambulance. Hopefully she wasn't too badly injured.... Once I got safely back home with all the equipment, my dad and Nick showed up to help. We carried the blower upstairs into the master bathroom, from there Nick fed bales of insulation into the hopper while I operated the hose and worked on filling up the walls from up in the attic. Meanwhile my dad was drilling holes in walls that weren't accesible from the attic. It turned out 15 bales wasn't nearly enough, I didn't figure it would be, but I didn't really have an estimate of how much I needed. It took us about 4 hours to use them up, and after that we called it a day and I returned the blower. Its going to take a few more days of work and probably 30+ more bales to finish up the job. I'll try to work on it some more next weekend.

Messy pretty much sums it up. I was quickly covered in what looked like ashes.

Filling the walls in the master bathroom.

Nick stirring the hopper to break up the clumps.

Wallpaper & Lights *update*

I never posted the finished pics of the lights and fan I put in the downstairs bedroom. One reason was it took me awhile to finish it because I was somewhat undecided as to what I wanted in there. What I ended up with was more work or course... I ended up puttin in a ceiling fan in the center of the room, then I put recessed lights in each corner of the room. It's a pretty cool effect!

Looking towards the doorway.


Standing in the doorway looking into the room.


And here is the finished wallpaper.

Michigan Weather

Michigan always seems to have some interesting weather changes. This week was a good example. Last weekend we got hit with some really heavy snow storms that dumped more than 10 inches of snow on us. This was followed by sustained 30 mph winds that lasted over 24 hours, with gusts up to 45 mph. I tried my best to stay indoors that day as the windchill was in the negative teens, but it just didn't happen. Christine was on her way home from work around 2pm and when she turned onto our road, she was met with a 3' tall snowdrift. Even in her 4 wheel drive vehicle, it was no match, she was stuck. I got the phone call and I was on my way to rescue her. When I went outside, this is what I found, our driveway was drifted over, higher than the hood of my car.

I got in my truck, but even with 11 inches of lift and 37" tires, I still couldn't get out of the driveway without shoveling some of the snow away. When I got down the road to Christine (after busting through some drifts up to my front bumper), I was able to shovel her out with the help of a neighbor. I then busted a trail back through the already reforming drifts with my truck. Finally I had to just hook up a tow strap and pull her the rest of the way into the driveway.

Here's a little better perspective with some of the drive shoveled out, you can see how deep the drift is.

Flash forward 5 days... It went from negative teens to 60 degrees outside... a nice 70+ degree temperature swing. Also it rained all day, so now most of the snow is gone, in its place we have several new small lakes. Its hard to see in this pic (taken looking out from the back deck), but visible just above the deck railing is the remnants of a snow drift, but farther out, out in the field, is a new lake. I'd estimate it at about 800' wide by 500' across, and probably 2-3 feet deep.

P.S. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Snowflakes & The Living Room Wallpaper

No, the wallpaper doesn't have snowflakes on it, but there are plenty of them outside. We got a blanket of 4-5 inches last night.



A couple hours work this evening and I have the top part of one wall done. The lower part will be a goldish colored paper, with a border between the top & bottom. Its nice to get some color started in this room, the white walls were bothering me.

Artwork - Oil Painting

Work on the house has been slow lately, its been a very busy few weeks for other things however. My older brother was in visiting from Minnesota and my younger brother moved back from AZ. So lots of family stuff has been going on. In the meanwhile I figured I'd post a few pics of the artwork we've been awaiting for a few months now that finally arrived. What happened was me and Christine came across a painting we really liked by a famous old painter, Edmund Leighton, entitled "The Accolade", that was painted in 1901. Seeing how we could never afford the original, we did the next best thing and had a reproduction hand painted by an artist. It took just short of 4 months to get the painting, but they did a pretty good job on it. We wanted the painting to be rather large as our ceilings are 10'-3" tall, so there is plenty of wall space above the couch for it. The framed painting is almost 5' tall.

Ceiling Light - 1st Floor Bedroom

Adding a light to a room on the first floor is bit more involved than the rooms on the second floor. The walls and ceilings are finished already, so I didn't want to damage them. Also, unlike the 2nd floor, the room doesn't have attic space above it for access.

First I marked the center of the ceiling and cut my opening for the ceiling box.


I then cut in my switch box. It is double box, there will be a switch for a fan and a switch for the light. You can also see the trim around the door, it has been painted white.


Here is what is involved to run the wiring, I had to tear up some of the floorboards in the upstairs bedroom and drill holes through the joists. I then fed the wire down into the wall below to my switch box.


To be continued....

1st Floor Bathroom - facelift

The last 3 weeks have been pretty hectic, spent lots of time visiting family in the hospital, first my dad was in, then Christines mom. Hopefully everybody stays healthy for a long time now. The few hours I've been able to spare I decided to give the main bathroom a little facelift. The previous owners had last updated it in 1988, so it was time for a color change.

Here's a before pic:


Green EVERYWHERE, even the window shades were green.


Now its a light tan "Hazelnut Cream", all new curtains, pictures, shades and chandelier. When I'm able to get more in depth with it (ie: more money), I will get rid of the green vanity top you can see in the corner of the picture, and also the wood floor will be replaced with tile.


another view.

New ceiling medallion and chandelier.

Halloween Party

Last weekend we hosted a Halloween Party, about 25 people showed up and everyone seemed to have a good time. More than half the people were in costume, we had pirates, a fairy, nutcracker, dorothy, disco man, Medusa and some others, even Michael Phelps showed up to party.

Check out all the creepy food, eyeballs, worms, bones, spinal columns, etc.

Apparently we have a spider problem, the house is covered in webs.

Almost every room in the house had some sort of decoration.

The mad scientist in his butcher shop laboratory.

The halloween village.

Christine poses for a picture with gold medalist Phelps (Proud sponsor of Bud Light).

Is pumpkin head man passed out? No, his necks just tired from having a 40lb pumpkin on his head.

Kitchen Floor

We have big plans for the kitchen in the future, a complete remodel, but that will be about 5 years or more away, so in the meantime we wanted to get rid of the horrible fake red brick flooring. Normally when you think of brick, you think dull and rough, but no, this flooring was smooth and shiny.... didn't look anything like brick. Based on our 5 year plan, I didn't want to put anything too fancy or expensive down, so I went with a self adhesive tile. It is a nice heavy duty tile still and it will actually have grout between them like a normal ceramic tile floor. Another thing I did to dress it up a little more was to set the tiles at a 45 degree angle. It costs a little more because you have more waste around the edges, and the labor is more intensive with fitting all the angled cuts in, but in my opinion it dresses the floor up quite a bit even when using a pretty inexpensive tile. The fake brick tiles have been quite the nightmare to take up. I've been working on this floor the past 3 nights. The whole family has actually pitched in at peeling the old tiles up. Even once the tiles came up, they left a really sticky residue on the floor. I wasn't worried about it, as I figured if anything it would help the new tiles stick even better. The funny part is it made the dogs stick to the floor. Sprout actually got stuck in place and couldn't move. The pugs could at least power through it, they just looked really funny because each step they would lift there leg up really high. To cover up the stickyness, I decided to go ahead and lay tile as we did the tear up, so as we got a few rows of tile up, down went the new tile.

Here's the beautiful old fake brick flooring, also the pugs doing what they normally do... eating.


Miles lending a hand. The kids love helping. You can see the new rows of tile he's sitting on.



Here's where I left off tonight, I still have to move appliances out, and finish up alot of the edge pieces. Then I will eventually grout the tiles.