Chapter 149...Finishing The Walls On The Store And How To Use A Tape Measure

Mike and I just keep moving forward in between the rain.  I feel like we are turtles but we will win the race:)

Time to get more of the walls up.  After two solid days of rain we have a shot.  Mike and I load up the trailer with the lumber and load the Jeep with tools and go to the store site.  Time to work:)

We only have enough lumber to finish one more 12 foot section of wall.  Might as well get it done.   This time we decide to build the wall on site.  Mike starts off by measuring the top plate and the bottom plate so we can add the wall studs:

One 12 foot wall section is ready to stand:

I help Mike stand the wall and we put it over the anchors that are in the concrete foundation.  While I hold the wall, Mike bolts it down.


Next up.  Mike takes a measurement to cut a header for the door:

Time for the siding.  Mike and I get the T 1-11 sheet and lean it on the wall.  Mike gets ready with the nail gun and ladder:

Back to our routine....I lift the board from the bottom and hold it in place while Mike secures it with nails along the top and the edge.



We get 3 more sheets of T 1-11 up and another 12 foot section is done:

Unfortunately we are now out of wood and need to get more before we can do more work but this is what we did on this very short day:

It rains for the next two days so we decide to take the van to pick up lumber rather than the trailer.  We go in a different direction than normal so we can't swap out the damaged sheets if T 1-11 yet.  We do load up with 2x4's and our two doors.  Thankfully we can take our sofa/bed out of the motorhome:)

Still raining so we leave the lumber in the van.

Next day...ooh finally somewhat clear skies.  We load up 15 damaged sheets of T 1-11:

And take it to town to swap it for good sheets.  Looks the same right, lol?

We go back home to load up the 2x4's and the tools to get to work.  While we are up top the Bull decides to see what we are doing.  He is getting big:

We are loaded up, at the store site and ready to work.  Finally!!!  Mike and I hate this up and down and work for us is fun...yes even when it hurts, lol.

This time we decide to stand all the walls before putting up the T 1-11.  Another one is up:

We have all the top plates and bottom plates ready for the studs.  Each of our studs have to be cut down to 91 inches for them to make our wall.  I measure the 2x4's while Mike gets the top plate to match the bottom plate.

 Have I told you all about the ditty story?  It really helps make measuring full proof when others are helping you.  You know that a ruler has 16 small lines that make up sixteenths, then there are 8 lines which are a little bigger for eights, and quarters, than halves.  Anyway an easy way to have someone measure for you is this:  When Mike wants 5/8 he will say give me a half an inch plus two ditties.  That is a half an inch plus two of the smallest lines.  No one can mess up that measuring system:):)  I'm good at that but I will not tell you how much Mike laughs at me when I use a T(speed) square.  Sadly I am not mechanically inclined but I do eventually figure it out:)

All the long walls are up:

Next we start on the siding, the T1-11.  We have nine sheets to get nailed on.  Almost done:

Oops...that one board that is off the side gave us trouble and we damaged it a little.  We tried to forcefully shift it to line up with the others and that didn't work so well.  Lucky for us we can still use it around the doors since we don't need whole sheets there.  But that leaves us one board short for today.

Not too bad for today.  It was a good work day.  We like days where we can get some things done:)


The next morning we load up the siding for the door areas, the doors, and also the last sheet of T1-11 that we need.

We get the last sheet of T1-11 up and Mike starts nailing the header for the "back" door:

Right after that it starts to rain so the rush is on.

We take measurements around the door way and cut the T1-11 to fit.  It gets nailed to the 2x4 studs:

Time for the door.  After I get all the staples put of the door, Mike and I set it in the frame.  Yay...it fits. Nail that baby in:)

We tried we really did but the we had to stop because of the rain.  We really hate having to go back home with material that should have been installed.  We will have to install the second door when it stops raining.  At least we got one in:

We pack it up and get back home to get the tools and door put away.


Well we made the best of it.  We did pretty good for 2 1/2 days of work.  Just think what Mike and I could do if we had a solid week of good weather.  (((sigh))) I wish.  Oh well...we do what we can.  We are still on track for getting the building completely closed in for May.


I hope you all enjoyed this story and I will write another update soon:)

Florida Flip 2...Tearing Out Walls And Ripping Up Tile

Tearing Out Walls and Ripping Up Tile Back to the open area of the house. We still have to clean up the soffit area and add insulation before it can be covered with sheetrock. Mike cutting nails from the wood. Making sure it is all clear of any nails and wires. Mike goes up into the attic for the first time to pull up wires. It is a very tight area. Onto another wall. We know where we are going to put the kitchen. Now it's time to get rid of the old walls and the old wiring. Mike taking out the first wall where the old door was for the old den. He is getting the sheetrock off the studs. While he works on that I get to work on one of my favorite jobs. Yeah...I'm a little odd, lol. Here I am putting in the insulation in the ceiling. And the open soffit area is almost filled. And back to Mike. He is on the last wall to be redone for the new kitchen. Next he starts to work on the old header of the old pocket door. It needs to come down. Pulling the old header down. Mike pulling out the last wall. New day...new job Onto the backyard. There were a couple of poles sticking out of the ground with rope when we bought the house. I guess at one time the previous owner used it to tie down a boat. Now we have to take it out. The rope was buried. Here is Mike trying to pull it out...and it was endless I am working on the second pipe. We are trying to get it out of the ground. We can't get it out so Mike cuts it down below the surface of the ground. That job is done Back inside and it is night time. That is one of the benefits of living in a house while you remodel. You can work anytime you feel like it We have to remove the black tile that is in the entrance way. The only tool we have right now is the ax...so Mike starts to bang away. Hmm!!! Looks like we will need a better tool for this job. What a mess this old tile is. I clean up the mess we made and we call it a day. We will have to go shopping for a new tool and it's time to get some new doors

Flip House 1...Part 5

Chapter 5....Time To Move The Dock And Say Goodbye To October Hello everyone. I am happy to say that Mike and I took the whole day off. Our neighbors invited us for dinner and a boat ride. They really want us to keep that house. Well after a back breaking day with the shed and the pool enclosure Mike and I are left to clean up the back area. On one side of the screen room there was an old pot that was about 2 feet by 20 feet and filled with sand. I guess at one time it was a garden. Anyway we have to bring it up front to the dumpster and it's too heavy with all the sand. We also have to clean out the back garden which was a raised garden. Raised gardens next to the pool just don't mix. Since we don't have a wheel barrel I have to use our hand truck and two 5 gallon buckets to get all of the sand out. I must have taken at least 20 buckets of sand out of the planter. Now it's light enough for Mike to help me carry up front to the dumpster. Then I move on to the back garden and take out about 8 buckets of sand. It's not enough but I am done. Mike works on taking more stuff like wiring and broken lights off the back of the house. There seems to be an endless amount of wires, screws, and hooks on this house. 10-11 It's time to get the bathtub out of the second bathroom. It sounds easy right? Well it's a cast iron tub and Mike and I can't budge it. Mike says "I watched them do this on TV." Uh oh now I know this will be interesting. He said in order for us to get it out we have to break it. OK, how do we break it? You guessed it. So Mike gets the sledgehammer and starts pounding away at the tub. Nothing is happening. I said "are you sure about this?" Yeah we just need one crack and it should break. Oh..kay. This tub is really stubborn. I think they must have fast forwarded the episode that Mike watched on TV, lol. Finally, Mike breaks the tub. Now the toilet is in the way and Mike is ready to get it out of the way. And we pull the tub out. Next we have to get the tub through the door. Mike works on breaking it while I get the hand truck. This tub is really really heavy. FYI, if you ever break a tub like tis be very careful of the edges. They are very sharp and will cut you up. The tub is broken. Yay. We finally get the tub out and it was not as easy as TV, lol. At least not the cast iron ones. After more hours than anticipated the tub and the toilet are in the dumpster. For the rest of the day we empty out the garage and load it onto the dumpster. 10-12 Today Mike 2 is going to move our dock from our second house to this house. We will eventually get a new dock for that house. Mike 2 and his friend have to go to the second house by boat. We will help them unbolt everything and then they will tow it to this house. Mike and I drive over to the second house and wait for them. We can see them coming down the channel. At least it's a nice day. Here they are getting the dock ready to move. Once they get the bolts off of the seawall they slide the ramp onto the dock. And away they go and Mike 2 says "thanks for the dock." Mike and I will meet them at the house. It takes them awhile to get over to the house. We actually were worried about them. It was a little choppy on the Gulf and they had to hang on to the dock. But they make it safe and sound. Once they get their, Mike helps them bolt in the ramp to the seawall. And oops we don't have enough anchors so we have to run to the store. Twenty eight dollars later for a bag of bolts and the dock is in place. After they go back and get the boat out of the water we meet Mike 2 at the second house. He is taking our refrigerator and stove. He is also going to come back to take the laminate flooring throughout the house. If we are really lucky we can get the second house stripped before we move into it. The second and last dumpster for this house ready to go. Now that we have taken 2 full dumpsters of stuff out of this house we have to start shopping and re fill the house. 10-13 Mike and I are back in the kitchen. Mike makes a new post so we can have electric at the island. Next Mike hangs boards(furring strips) for the sheet rock to be nailed to. Yay now it's time for one of my favorite jobs. I know, just call me strange, lol. It's time for me to put the insulation back in the ceiling. FYI, is you are touching insulation and it irritates you cold water will help. Here I am putting in the insulation. And The kitchen ceiling is ready for sheet rock. The next day Mike 2 showed up to pressure wash the roof. Now it's time to start the shopping process. Mike and I hate shopping and we need a lot of stuff to put this house back together. First we started to shop for and price Kitchen cabinets. They have gotten so expensive. We ended up buying stock cabinets from Lowe's because they were 25% off and I had an additional 10% off coupon. We just couldn't beat that price anywhere else and we do have a budget to watch. We also picked out the stainless steel appliances and we picked up our new bathtub. We will make multiple trips back and forth to Lowe's to pick everything up. We don't want them to deliver the cabinets because if there is a problem it becomes a hassle. Mike and I pick out our cabinets from the shelves and have them put on skids with our name on it. This will make it easy for us to get some every time we are there. Our new bathtub is in place. We are going to tile the outside walls. Our seawall also got pressure washed. We called a landscape contractor who we have used in the past. We asked him for a quote on tearing out the concrete in the driveway and installing pavers and also putting half pavers around the pool. His quote came back at $16,000. We will not be doing pavers, lol. We also called Norm who is our old drywall contractor. He said he can do our job at the end of the week. Woo hoo. It's so much better to let the professionals do drywall especially when the plaster has to be matched. For the remainder of the week Mike and I pick up all of the Kitchen cabinets and get rid of all the boxes. Thank goodness we brought our small motor home down. We took out the back sofa and use it like a cargo van. We also had the appliances delivered and they are ready to go. We picked up the bathroom vanity and the sink and a ton of small stuff. I think with all of this shopping Mike and I are being very supportive of the economy, lol. We also did a lot of smaller jobs around the house. We bought new doors and changed some of them out. It is amazing ow long it takes to make one door fit. Mike also took down an old antenna off the roof and took out a clothesline. I would love to have that clothesline back in TN. I got stuck with the window tinting removal job. Holy cow. There are over 50 small windows in this house and I have to remove all of the tinting. We would have left it on but it is cracked and peeled in too many places so it looks really bad. I will have to do this job a little at a time. It's the last week of October and Norm, our drywall, man shows up. Woo hoo. Lets get the kitchen going. Mike helps Norm and Kevin hang the drywall on the ceiling. While they do that I paint boards for the back soffit. When they tore off the screen room there were some rotted boards that we have to replace. Me painting the boards. Kevin gets the drywall done in the bathroom. And the Kitchen drywall is up. Woo hoo. Now it has to dry. Norm will be back on Monday to do the plaster. Over the weekend Mike and I work on hanging the soffit boards. Nailing them in. Moving along. Hanging a soffit board and then a trim piece. Now it's finished. And on Monday Norm shows up to do the plaster. Well that is what we did our first month. We have a lot more to go to pull this house together. I hope you all enjoyed the story. Lisa