The tent was on for about 24 hours, and the house off-limits for an extra 48 hours - time to let the last vapors of Vikane to leave the premises.

I had been warned that it was best to leave repairs to someone else than the pest control company. This was good advice, and I had declined most of the proposed repairs. But I wanted to have one eave, affected by some dry-rot, repaired before the start of the roof work. And since I had no carpenter yet, I decided to just let the pest control handle it. Well, that was really not a great idea. Work was sub-par, and expensive too. In addition, this would have been much easier to repair while the roof was off - not before! Oh well. I guess that means some extra work for me down the road (I will have to apply some putty in one place, caulk in others and sand before painting).

The house has been tented and now looks more like a wigwam than some mid-century modern house!

It’s about to go through a whole-structure fumigation with Vikane®. I am glad this can happen before we have any personal belongings in the house. Whatever people might say, I wouldn’t feel too confident living surrounded with objects that were exposed to the gas.

What you see on the right hand side of the photo is the garage. The rest of the house is on the left, hidden behind our own private jungle (growing dangerously close to the house - another thing we’ll have to take care of I’m afraid…).

You’re visiting an Eichler during an open-house and the agent is bragging about the
“wall-to-wall brand new carpet”? I hope you will give her/him a piece of your mind.

New carpet in an Eichler is bad mojo. At best, the agent and seller are clueless and are genuinely unaware of the non-sense of having carpet in an Eichler (note that this makes the agent an incompetent one). More likely, they’re trying to hide something…

Why are carpet and Eichler a non-sense combination? Because carpeting your slab means that your living space will be better insulated from your heating source (your radiant heat, either the original one or the electrical alternative) than it is from the outside (through your single-pane glass wall)! Think about the overhead costs in your winter heating bill. And I am not even talking about aesthetic considerations or inherent qualities of other types of flooring.

In the house we bought, the carpet was there to hide the ugly truth. And I missed it. I had pulled the carpet in one spot during the visit, and exposed bare concrete (oh joy!). Well, that was just bad luck: this spot was an exception. The rest of the house was covered with badly brittle vynil tiles…

It’s official now: I hate carpets. And especially the standard-issue brown one. I wish to never put my eyes on one of these ever again.

More details on the flooring effort in a subsequent post.

If anyone’s reading: please let me know if this is useful and if I should keep on writing. What is it that you’d like to hear about? Enough details? Too much? Not enough pictures? Plain sucks?

Leave a comment! (click on the “leave a comment” link under each post)

Note that for the moment, most of the content I have is around tools and basic remodeling tips. As things progress, I should have more opportunities to go into higher-level topics, and some design considerations.

I finally got my hands dirty for the first time on this house (and not the last time I’m afraid)!

I tore down the kitchen during the long 4th of July. There’s no arguing that demolition is the most dangerous phase of remodeling. So I strongly recommend you pick up that book and follow their safety recommendations. My brand new safety glasses are already chipped - glad it’s them and not my eyes!

The kitchen cabinets were all nailed to the walls - impossible to remove them without messing up everything. Fortunately I had no intention to save the walls as I needed to expose the studs for the electrical upgrade. My technique was to chop everything in small parts and disassemble using the crowbar. The reciprocating saw is great for that. With a demolition blade it cuts through everything: wood and embedded nails, concrete and chicken wire (holding the tiles around the sink).

I almost killed myself when bringing down the cabinets that were hanging over the stovetop: they came down in one piece. And it was heavy - we’re not talking MDF here, it was thick plywood.

As for the tiles, it wasn’t that bad. Whoever laid them did a very sloppy job and didn’t bother removing the underlying linoleum. Don’t ever do this - mould was growing in between those multiple layers. Not pretty - you wouldn’t want to know that something like this exists in your kitchen…

Removing the AC unit from the wall was very painful. There again, everything was nailed (ever heard of screws?!), with rusted metal flanges inserted between the studs and the drywall sidings. No good grip to remove this in one go. Had to chop using the reciprocating saw - and a metal blade this time.

Isn’t this bare kitchen a beautiful sight? I must say that I was quite proud of myself when I eventually got the last bucket of dust out of this kitchen!

Count at least two full days to reach the studs and the concrete slab (OK, I might be slow - remember, I’m not a professional!).

… time to get into some action! I will start by tearing off the kitchen this week.

Just went to Home Depot to pick up the tools I’ll need:

• crowbar
• hammer
• reciprocating saw
• cold chisel
• protection gear: glasses and gloves

I picked up a Ryobi 18V cordless kit (reciprocating saw, circular saw, driver/drill, flashlight). Will probably not last too long, but what do you expect at this price (less than $200)?

I would strongly recommend you pick up that book if you do not have much experience with tools. I know. You’re dubious about trusting Home Depot when it comes to writing books. Believe me, they got it right there. I particularly like the fact that they have a dictionary with pictures of all the tools. Now I can finally go to the store and ask for tools by name. What a relief! (have you ever tried to describe to a vendor “that tool that kinda of look like this and you use for this and that”?). Some people dismiss it as not detailed enough. They’re not entirely wrong - it is quite high-level: general steps, tools etc. But the photos are quite informative and you get a good feeling of the work involved in such or such task - very helpful for planning and deciding whether or not you’re ready to take up the work on your own. When you need actual details, you can always ask your favorite contractor, a friend, or the Internet. I wouldn’t recommend the book on bathrooms from the same collection though - it adds little value over this one. Oh, and the price is right too (I suppose it’s main intent is to fuel the purchase of tools and material from HD; not to generate revenues).