after shots :)

Hey hey! Everything is mostly sealed up now and all I need to do is finish putting on the primer and then it's on to painting (and other projects).

It doesn't look like too much work, does it?

Here are some shots of all the damage caused by water and a few termites (that I hope are all dead). Of course, what you're seeing is the damaged wood removed. There should be pieces of wood running along the house, connecting the floor beams you see that are perpendicular to the wall. The wood I removed had water damage on the top and termite damage on the bottom.

I don't know why, but termites with their puffy white squirming bodies *really* give me the willies. But other things, like maggots, worms, and most bugs don't bother me at all, and I have no idea why!

The good news is that after a marathon repair day, this damage was repaired ('after' photos coming soon!). It was 8 hours of using scary power tools and crawling around under the house. I really can't decide which is worse.

The power tools are cool and all, but they really freak me out. When I'm using them, I'm all business and I try to be as careful as possible. I always have in the back of my mind that I'm a blink of an eye from a gruesome fate of some sort. I guess you get used to what they can do like any other tool, and I think have both a healthy respect and healthy fear of my table saw, circular saw, and reciprocating saw. After each use, I always feel grateful that I'm still in one piece.

Crawling around under the house I think could qualify as torture. It's dark and cramped, has areas filled with creepy spider egg sacks slung upon equally creepy dusty, thick spider webs, lifting yourself up higher than a crawling stance results in bumping painfully into beams or nails protruding from the floor boards above, and the dirt you're crawling upon consists of fine, powdery dirt for penetrating clothing and breathing protection, mixed with medium to large hunks of concrete or hardened dirt for you to lay on. There's also the fact that the 6 inches from every wall and pillar has been treated with chemicals to kill termites.

Have I painted a sucky enough picture? Read on!

Of course, you just know that at one point I had to do both at the same time, right? I had to drag the reciprocating saw with me under the house to cut off some rusty nails so I would have a clean space to put in new pieces of wood. The saw weighs about 10 pounds and when it fires up in that small space, let me tell you, it's LOUD and kicks up a huge cloud of dust that doesn't have anywhere to dissipate. You know what's even better? I had to do it twice :)

alwayz into somethin'

Today started like any other day. I have all these chores that I can do, but not really the willingness to do any of them. It's kind of like the gym though, once I actually get started, lots can happen! So I decided to check out the main electrical panel in the garage to see why the dryer keeps tripping the main switch.

After removing the metal door and checking out the wiring (no burns, hooray!), I noticed that the patched walls were still in need of painting. So I started sanding everything down and then thought, "Oh yeah! There's that door sill that's rotted out that I've been meaning to check out for about 4 or 5 years." About 4 hours later, I had ripped out about 3 feet of rotted and termite infested wood. I then had to crawl under the house (always a pleasant trip) to look for more termite damage.

The good news is that the colony seems to have been local to just that area, and also consisted of only 2 termites (caught one, crushed the other). While my 'expert' assessment of the situation seems rather optimistic, I think I'll look for some boric acid ASAP. Photos to come!

the never ending house remodel

Check out the giant header Amit and I installed on Monday! It only took 10 hours and still needs to be properly secured to the rest of the framing, but now there's a bit more open space :) Hmmm... it would have been great to have a 'before' photo, wouldn't it have? Oh well - just use your imaginations to think of seeing a wall instead of seeing windows at the back of the garage.

Next up: cabinets! So all the crap you see lying around will actually have a home.