Our Heatilator fireplace vents were damaged during the horrific tile demo, and they needed to be replaced. They were cast aluminum, and no ready made replacements could be located. These also had tiny blower fans to help aid the convection process. You can see the intake vents on the bottom, and exhaust on the top.… Continue reading Day 445: Heatilator Fireplace Registers
Category: Our Remodel
Day 13, 572, 773: Surveillance System
Our last foray into this topic was in 2014, and since then technology has increased exponentially while costs have dropped in unison. We will walk you through our current surveillance system that was used as a security feature while our home was vacant and under construction, to the final form that can keep an eye… Continue reading Day 13, 572, 773: Surveillance System
Day 984: Gas Furnace Retrofit/New HVAC
Come join us for a round about look at the final piece of our all electric to propane conversion: replacing our aging and ineffective heat pump with a gas furnace. Just like our roof, we were well aware that this HVAC system was at end of life expectancy. Similar to the roof, an episode in… Continue reading Day 984: Gas Furnace Retrofit/New HVAC
Day 738: Front Yard Fence and Gate
Project Contain Phillip started five months before we broke ground. We worked with our friend and fence contractor Mike Smith, owner of Fence Smith to plan and install front yard fencing and a gate for our driveway. Linear footage and measurements were taken December 2019. This is one marker to visualize our new gate. We… Continue reading Day 738: Front Yard Fence and Gate
Day 667: Fireplace Tune Up
Our home inspector noted some cracking in the mortor in our fireplace. Eric ordered a two pack of this product to fix the issues. Fireplace vacuumed and cleaned up, then new mortor liberally applied to any areas that looked like they could use it. The next step was to cure it with a fire per… Continue reading Day 667: Fireplace Tune Up
Day 628: Septic Tank Backup
December 26, 2019: a good back to back rain storm inundated our septic field, pic above related. How did we know there was an issue? Water was coming out from under our kitchen cabinets! The culprit was a floor drain under our washing machine, and yes this is black water with scum from the septic… Continue reading Day 628: Septic Tank Backup
Day 900: Floating Desk
This project had been fomenting for years, and we finally pulled the trigger on ordering another butcher block slab. Which was tough during the Covid-19 pandemic as nearly all construction materials have been in short supply and up to 300% price increases. This type of slab was $329 when we bought our kitchen counters, and… Continue reading Day 900: Floating Desk
Day 559: Tankless Water Heater 2.0
If you are just catching up, a few posts to gain some additional context: Day 48- Hot Water 1.0 Tankless Electric Water Heater for pre-planning our water line expansion; and Day 563- Gas Line Extension and Propane Tank for our fuel supply and rational. It should be noted that this project was put off from… Continue reading Day 559: Tankless Water Heater 2.0
Day 928- Bypass Barn Door
You might recall our last barn door project House Hacking: Barn Door. That project was built from scratch, and we didn’t really have the energy to do that again. As chance would have it, our regional family owned hardware store was having a 50% off clearance event on barn door slabs. Eric typically throws these… Continue reading Day 928- Bypass Barn Door
Day 167- Kitchen Island
Some of the progress can be seen on Day 182- Trouble in Paradise. Eric will cover the rest of the story in this post. During the time we were dealing with the appliance fiasco, we purchased a used electric stove top to formally move our cooking off of the camp stove. Here it is after… Continue reading Day 167- Kitchen Island