This is the ground floor of the house, being that it is outside. 

The construction for the outside has been minimal in cost but quite a bit of sweat was spent in the process of moving and removing the overgrown landscape. 

There were two lamp posts that were removed and their function has been replaced with 6 motion lights around the house. 

Under the leaves there were concrete pathways edged with bricks. Those needed to go to create a proper patio. 

The miniature deck coming off the great room was removed. The bottom step of the staircase was an enormous block of concrete that I needed to break into manageable chunks to be able to move. This has caused an unexpected issue with too much rain coming into the basement staircase so an awning will need to be installed.

The power lines had to be removed because the service was only 100A and the wires were too close to the house. I decided to bury the power, cable, and telephone lines. I also moved the meter to the west wall of the addition. 

Since I had the miniature backhoe for digging the trench for the power lines I also decided to bury the downspouts. I buried corrugated lines from each downspout and ran them into 10 tones of crushed stone buried on the south edge of the property. This is where the water can seep into the soil and prevent erosion and keep a dry basement. 

I found an abandoned cloths drying foundation so I decided to remove it. I was not expecting it to be 4 feet long and encased in 200 lbs of concrete. 

Moving the mature bushes and trees was such a job that we had to ask for help from a neighbor.  

I have been pruning large limbs from the  Tree every spring. The aim is to remove duplicate branches, increase airflow to discourage moss growth. I also needed to take some branches that were too close to the roof.

We had a sewage blockage at the street which was caused by an incorrectly sloped pipe causing a backup. A county worker used a breaker bar to break my cast iron sanitary Y from the clean out nearest the street because they could not get the snake past the blockage. This meant that I needed to dig a four foot deep hole to replace the fitting. Once done the blockage was found to be the PVC pipe under the street had sunk and pinched. It had sunk because the fill was not properly tamped. I am glad that this only took some sweat, a cast iron pipe cutter, a few fittings, and a few calls to the county.

The first floor has had most of the rebuilding completed. An outline of the changes are presented below.

There was a wall between the mud room and the dining room that was removed. The carpeting / tiles in the mud room were removed exposing a great distressed pine tong and groove floor. The oak floor was weaved in to extend the floor about 3 feet into the mud room. The headers were installed under the floor and into the ceiling to carry the loads. The closets were built for a coat / shoe landing area and a place to move the cloths washer and dryer into.

The wall enclosing the staircase going up to the second floor was removed to allow for a more spacious ding room. A pair of tail joists were added to carry the load from the wall. 

The wood paneling was removed and the glue was scraped off the plaster walls and a fresh coat of paint was applied.

Mitsubishi Mr. Slim air conditioner units were installed in the kitchen great room and two bedrooms.  The units handle the cooling in the summer and any supplementary heat in the spring and fall when the hole house does not need to be heated. The permanent window air conditioners were removed and the windows will need to be replaced.

The ceilings in the dining room and great room were covered in drywall and pot lights were added. 

The fireplace surround was changed from brass to a modern grey. 

Above the fireplace two wall sconces were added. 

In the kitchen the refrigerator was replaced with a modern energy efficient model. 

The second floor was split into two small bedrooms and an unfinished attic space.

One weekend I invited some friends over and we brought the space down to the studs and sheathing. 

Over a couple of months and numerous trips to the landfill the plaster and insulation was removed.

The floor was white pine so I removed it uncovering rockwool insulation between the joists. The insulation and floor went to the landfill. 

Now that I had a clean slate I decided to install styrofoam between the roof joists and use 2 part expanding foam to fill the gaps between the styrofoam and joists. I installed fiberglass insulation batts in the eves. On top of the joists and styrofoam I installed 2 inch styrofoam so the wood would not allow the heat to flow through the roof joists. On the second layer of styrofoam are 1x3 strapping for the drywall. The knee walls were moved back to make a clean wall from the bottom of the windows.

The addition of the small roof over the deck and kitchen left a void between the old flat roof and new roof. I filled that void with 19 inches of blown in fiberglass insulation. We used 10 bags of the Owens Corning AttiCat Fiberglass Expanding Blown-in Insulation System. The blower and the bags of insulation fit into the bed of my truck. I pulled the truck on the east side of the house, plugged the machine into the outlet and started blowing. The plastic bags needed to be split and shoved into the blower where an integral blade cut the bag off and the flippers in the machine fluffed up the fiberglass and blew it up the hose. I ran the 100 foot hose through the east window and through the old north window opening into the dead space. 

The whole process from rent to return took about 5 hours, and was very clean not much blowby.

A bathroom will be installed in the south east end of the second floor. The center piece will be a large shower.

The space will be split into a bed room and a home office. There will be two air conditioning units. One on the partition wall facing north into the home office and one on the west wall above the bed.

I apologize for the blurry before pictures. The basement was dark and the pictures were taken from a video.

This is a great space, tall ceilings and natural stone foundation.  

I did not like the boiler so that went to scrap. I did not like the doors and walls so I brought it down to bare walls. I was not happy with the walls because they had been painted. I had to rent a sand blaster to take off the paint from the walls. 

The floor had cracks and looked terrible. I rented a floor grinder to take off the top layer of concrete. After a good washing I applied epoxy paint. 

Next I will install shelves making it into a workshop. 

The addition basement will be finished into a game room with a full bathroom and large shower.

A long weekend and help from some professionals the patio looks amazing. 

I installed a natural gas grill and electrical outlet. 

The original electrical panel had double taps and was only 100 amp service. I needed to upgrade to a 200 amp panel so I could add air conditioners.

The north chimney bricks need to be replaced due to spalling and cracking. Both need caps.

This past week I decided to renovate the north chimney. 

First I built an eight foot by eight foot platform in order to give myself a good working area.

I removed the old bricks and took them to the landfill.

The next step was to build it back up.

I needed to add two feet to the chimney, so I bought a clay liner and installed the liner with some stove cement.

I used the same clay pavers that were used for the patio for the bricks to cover the liner.

The next layer I added to the chimney was flashing with a two inch overhang bent down to 45 degrees.

After the flashing was a concrete cap that was four inches thick at the liner and down to two inches to the edge so there is a positive slope to the edge. I added rebar to the concrete cap so that cracking is less likely. I cast in a drip edge one inch from the lip of the cap so that the rain releases before it gets to the brick.

I cast the concrete cap with a 1/8th inch gap around the flue liner so the liner can expand without binding on the cap. I bought some high temperature caulk and sealed the gap around the liner and cap.

The last piece I added was a stainless steel flue liner cover to keep out any critters from the chimney.

I kept the mould I used to cast the concrete cap so that I can cast one more cap for the west chimney.

The original boiler was an old oil / coal boiler which was large, loud and inefficient. It was replaced with a small condensing natural gas condensing boiler. A 55 gallon domestic hot water tank was also added. A natural gas line had to be run to the house. There was a main line at the street so that was not a problem, just money.

I mounted the boiler on the wall of the utility room.

Apart from the deer and squirrels there is a large ground hog living under the shed, fox, turtles, rabbits, praying mantises, snakes, wasps, bats, toads, tree frogs, and turkey vultures. The ground hog had little ground hogs which climb trees, I guess that is called a tree hog.

The air conditioning consists of an outdoor unit and four indoor units. Two of the indoor units are rated at 12,000 BTU. Those two units are located in the dining room and great room. The other two units are rated at 9,000 BTU and those are located in bed rooms. The piping was insulated and the insulation was protected with electrical tape. The condensate is piped into one of the sumps in the basement.

The system was ordered from eConfort.com on Wednesday 25 July, 2012. It was delivered on 2 August, 2012 and installation was completed on 24 August, 2012. The air conditioning and heating worked flawlessley until I tried to turn on the cooling on 13 May, 2014. I will check and see if the install documentation has been turned in then I will ensure I can get a replacement outdoor control board from mitsubishi or ecomfort.