The demo/reno has begun!

[Fred Voorhees]

Back during the summer of 2000, I undertook a major facelift of our home here in Ringoes,NJ. Included was residing with vinyl, wrapping all trim with aluminum, a chimney facelift with wire mesh and stucco, closing in the old attached garage, replacing windows and doors, replacing old attic vents with new shop fabricated units, replacing crawl space vents and installing new gutters and light fixtures. It was quite a bit of work, but I managed to complete it over the course of the summer with work being done after the normal daytime job and on weekends. Well worth the effort and a ton of money was saved by doing all of the work myself. Attached are a few before and after photos.

Picture 1 shows the earliest part of the renovation as I am finishing up the stucco job on the chimney to the far left. Obviously, the house needed painting, but I had already painted it once and I was not going to paint it again – hence the siding job.

Picture 2 shows the back of the house with the old cedar siding still on, but with the back door to the old attached garage already replaced with a new door in place.

Picture 3 displays the front of the house after I had worked my way past this point with the new vinyl siding. Naturally, I had used the same vinyl siding that I had applied years earlier to the new detached garage/wood shop to the left of the photo.

Picture 4 shows work as it progressed past the back of the garage and the family room and on to the rest of the back of the home.

Please excuse the order of the photos - can't seem to get them to post in the order I want them to.

[Fred Voorhees]

It has now come time to getting around to renovating the inside of the old attached garage since the new detached garage is serving us so well. The area of the garage is roughly 27’ X 27’ and will be a nice size for what we want from it. The plan is to first level out the floor by bevel ripping floor joists of varying widths to match the depth needed (to match the pitch of the floor) and applying them over top of a moisture barrier and installing hard foam insulation board in between the joists for warmth. A hardwood floor will eventually be installed and I will enjoy building a nice big bar for entertaining friends and relatives as well as some build-in book cases and window seats. I have always known that I would want a pool table when the room is complete and that will find its way into the plan as well as a dart board and a nice sized television for watching the weekly NASCAR racing.

Picture 1 shows an old North facing window that was eliminated due to its lack of light from its orientation. The bar will be going against this wall anyway so windows would have been in the way. The back door to the room will need to be raised to accommodate the raising/leveling of the floor. You can see that the outside renovation work necessitated window and door opening resizing. And you can also see one of my recent shop projects – a trio of what I call arbor style clothes line supports. Constructed out of cedar and having vinyl lattice panels in between for supporting flowery vines in the summer months. I’ve got 2X4’s nailed temporarily to their bottoms to keep them from racking. I hope to install them out in the yard within the next month or so.

Picture 2 is just another shot of the pre-demo work.

Picture 3 still another shot of pre-demo work (North wall)

Picture 4 Demolition has begun! This is the door leading into the family room and the main portion of the house. Ripping down the drywall was easy enough and hopefully will be the messiest.

Picture 5 is the front of the room where the old garage door openings were. Sorry for the darkness. I installed two pair of side by side Anderson double hung units in the center of the old openings. I plan on installing a built in bookshelf unit between the two pair of windows.

Again, I'm not sure of the order of pic posting.

[Fred Voorhees]

And finishing out the pics postings

Picture 6 is another shot of the front of the room

Picture 7 is part of the South wall where the house breaker box is located. The pvc conduit running to the box (which is covered by brown paper to protect it from the drywall dust) is the line running underground out to the new garage’s subpanel. This corner of the room will get a big closet that will enclose the panel and contain a stereo system and allow room for storing the pool cues and accessory items as well as additional storage for various things.

So the demolition (and the project) is underway. I will post the occasional pictures to update as the project moves along this summer.

[Jim Becker]

'Nothing like a little drywall dust to open up the sinuses in the spring! Congrats on the start of this great project. And don't forget your SMC buddies when the bar is done!

[Tyler Howell]

Ahhh! the Smell of Demo dust in the morning. Another work of art in progress. Keep us informed.

[Fred Voorhees]

Keeping you guys posted about the progress will be easier now! Went out today and - per Terry Hatfield's suggestion - picked me up a spankin new Nikon digital camera. YeeHAW!

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Fred
What a tremendous amount of work?
Good grief!
But now you can do everything the way you wanted it in the first place.
Well, keep us informed.
Are you having fun yet?

By the way - went dirt track racing from 1958 to 1968 - didn't drive - was crew person (politically correct).
Daniel
Tyler - you're too much - although right on. What a chuckle.