Riverview Redo

This week has been a week of discovery.  First, once the foyer sheet rock was taken down and the front room walls were removed, termites had made their mark all over.  There is no active infestation but they had more than a picnic at some point!  The front door header, dining room header and many of the 2×4’s served as breakfast, lunch and dinner at some point.

So, Breda Pest Management to the rescue- Dad went out and took a look and said no biggie.  Just a couple of bad 2×4’s and the headers are already going anyways so no loss there(we are already paying for it in other words!).

One of the previous owners decided not to use pressure treated wood in the basement so that will not work either.  More to replace.  This is the good and the bad of exposing everything.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss but I am glad we know everything about the yellow house now- all her secrets and all of her faults.  We can build her back stronger and better than new.

The landscaper was there today too.  Confirmed that the tree in front that has been there longer than the house needs to come down.  It’s something we already knew but just another confirmation of something old that needs to go.  It’s sad because it is one of those trees that is perfect for a wooden swing hanging from it.  It frames the house.  But the swarming termites that came out of it a year ago underscored the decay and rot that must be on the inside.  Once it is gone, it will shed more light on the new home so I will choose to see it as a positive for now.

More decisions regarding landscaping.  We are going to fill in the old pool.  It is a liner pool, you cannot redo a liner pool and it is just ugly.  More than that, it doesn’t have a built-in cleaner and it is not attractive.  It just won’t match the new house and while we can still get heavy machinery into the backyard, it will be less expensive to remove it now before the new garage goes up.  More out with the old.  It gives us a chance to wipe the slate clean with the backyard and see what we can do with it.

The new pool project will begin next spring!  David promised:)

And the roof.  We are raising the ceilings in the entire upstairs from 8′ to 9′. I think it will make a huge difference and obviously something we cannot do later.  So, the entire inside of the roof is exposed with all the old ceiling removed.  There are stains.  The left side and the front of the roof are stained.  All over.  The roof is the one thing that made me okay with remodeling instead of leveling the house.  It is a cedar shake roof.  I love it.  We do not have it in the budget to put a new roof on.  So, the builder said he would have his roofer look at it and see what he thinks.  We lived there for over a year and never saw evidence of a leak.  So, it just has to be old.  Perhaps the original builder put the felt on and took too long to put up the shake and it got wet.

The builder said we would have to wait for a really hard rain and see if it is leaking.  We all left and not 5 minutes after we left the house, the bottom fell out of the sky.  it rained for an hour.  Hard.  After dinner, we headed back over to yellow house and no leaking.  If it didn’t leak with that amount of rain, I am good with it as is.  No new roof.