Normandy Park Restoration

Getting the plumbing water lines done, so pretty much everything is a mess right now.  Getting the exact fitting you need can be a real pain in the ass sometimes.  So I get to leave it like this for a couple of days while I try to find the correct fitting for the icemaker, the correct size hammer arrestors, and more fun stuff.

I ran out of front accent siding when I was installing it, so it ended up taking me a long time to finally get around to doing the last piece.  You can see the top piece missing here:  And here it's finally been installed. Next I need to add a small trim piece to the ends, and some small trim around the window, but I'll do that later.

I'd been putting it off for a while, but finally started tackling the plumbing for the laundry room.  Doing this right necessitates doing the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom and the upstairs 1/2 bath as well.  Here is a shot of all the old plumbing removed.  Here is the new 4" ABS main line.  You can see the new splice that goes up to the laundry room sink.  Here is where it cuts over to the old line, and to the 2" main drain that comes from the kitchen.  Originally this had been cut down to 1.5" for no good reason other than a lazy plumber, which wasn't up to code.  I could have left it alone and grandfathered it in, but better to do the job right.  Now I have 2" abs on all drains, and it only reduces to 1.5" at the trap for each sink, when I get them installed.  To get the plumbing right, I realized I'd have to tear the existing 1/2 bath appart.  This isn't really an issue as the drywall patchwork was pretty bad, and the e...

Had a little inspiration to make the rough concrete wall in the basement office a little more tolerable. The height difference between the two bundles of twigs was more than I expected, so at some point I might get in there and mix them up a little.  But for now that makes that wall livable, as I probably won't do anyting to it for a while. Also started on the plumbing in the laundry room.  Needed to determine exactly how I was going to plumb for the sink, so I went ahead and got 3 cabinets from Ikea. The laminate flooring in the last picture was an experiment, it won't be what I'll be using.  Instead I'll be using a honed travertine.  Here are a few pictures with the remaining base cabinets in place. For now these are just set in place so I can verify fit, and run the wiring and plumbing accurately.  I realized when I put these in place that the location I had chosen for the outlet wouldn't do as it's right above the sink base. I plan to use bu...

Finally finished the rock area in front of the house.  Shored it up with some large rocks, and filled the rest with river rock. You can also see the grey electrical box.  I routed all of the landscape lighting wiring through the house.  It terminates in 2 locations with weather-proof boxes like that one.  I'll paint it later.  This gives me much cleaner wiring for the landscape lights, and allows me to put the WeMo timer and power supply in the HVAC room in the basement.  In this picture I still have the wiring visible above the rocks, but I'll cover it later.  Been meaning fix the landscape wiring for a while.  While I was at it I added some more path lighting and some uplights.

Finished up the framing of the basement bathroom, including installing the sliding door and drywall.  I also finished the final landing platform. While I was at it I finished some framing and drywall on the stairway storage area. I threw on a little joint compound to fill the larger gaps.  Not intended to by any final float quality, just to fill the big gaps.

I had been considering doing some sort of built-in sectional in the sunken part of the living room.  I realized that with the ugly black sectional I now had as surplus, I could us that to experiment with the fit and livability of the idea. So, here is the sunken area before  Here I've removed the carpet, exposing the built out area.  There is a slight dip to it, so I knew I'd need to rebuild that section anyway before doing the hardwood floor, so there really wasn't anything to loose by doing this.  Now the steps are cut out.  You can also see the useless door to the back yard.  I've always planned to remove it and make it look like the remaining glass sections, so loosing that landing area and railing is no loss.  All done.  I like the look.  It does seem a little cluttered, but some furniture selection and removal might take care of that.  Long term, the plan is for the upper area to be hardwood flooring, while the sun...