Narrow focus on some objects and specific views around the house…

coat hanger in the entrance… door handle…

kitchen exhaust fan… skylight above laundry area (I’m missing the great light this was giving)…

track lights along the beam in the living room.

Never got a chance to finish this blog and we’ve already moved out of the house… it was hard to leave all this work and ideas behind and we really got to love the place, but we needed something bigger and closer to work and school. Anyway, let me wrap up the story with a few before/during/after pictures. Thanks for reading!

Larry recently started a Squidoo lens on Eichler… what does that mean? Well, check it out for yourself!

We completed the first major milestone today. The first phase of the electrical upgrade: addition of circuits and service panel upgrade is done! We doubled (or quadrupled? I don’t remember…) the electrical capacity. We added dedicated circuits to the bathrooms (left the existing one; added one for the new space heater and one for the outlets), 3 or 4 in the kitchen (see left picture) and spread a few others throughout the house. All rooms have ceiling lights (original Eichlers had very few of these). And all outlets throughout the house are now grounded!

The roofers have already started installing the insulation – you can see it on the right picture. Some rigid insulation, on top of which they will lay the Duro-Last, a single-ply membrane, also called “pool liner” (because that was the first usage for that material).

If you open your walls, try to think about what you will be hanging on them later on. I know – you already have a lot on your mind and decoration is the least of your worries. But an open wall is an opportunity not to be missed. You could save yourself quite some grief down the road, and even open new possibilities.

Think:

• shelves: where do you want them? do you have enough studs?
• flat-screen TV: while LCD screens are quite light, plasma screens are very heavy (around 65lbs for a 42″). Having double studs for hanging one on the wall might be a good insurance.

At a minimum:

• take pictures of the open walls for later reference (easy and cheap with digital cameras!)
• add metal plates wherever needed to protect wires

Don’t assume a stud finder is enough. They can get really confused at times depending on wall materials and wires inside the walls. You’ll feel much more comfortable drilling through a wall close to your service panel if you have one of these pictures in your hand…

Finally completed the re-design of this blog. The new cleaner and simpler style should be more inline with the Eichler design principles – at least this was the intent.

Now I just need to go back to work and blog about this remodeling story!

… I could beat myself up for not having done so earlier. Considering the amount of money that flew out of my bank account during this remodeling, I would probably have qualified for some decent rewards by now! Yet another obvious thing that I contemplated but was eventually too busy (or lazy?) to do.

Quick status of where we stand now:

• the house was fumigated
• kitchen demolition is complete
• bathroom 1 demolition is complete

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.