October 5, 2006

Construction Timeline Recap Equation

March 2003
House is purchased and we move in.
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Fall 2003
De-junking Phase I
The house was an "as-is" purchase... "as-in", we inherited a gold mine of STUFF. "One man's junk is another man's treasure..." Um, well, I wouldn't call our inheritance a treasure, but I have to admit, some of it has been of some value. The previous owner, a contractor, used the house as his field office. As a result, the house contained a slew of random office furniture and the basement held a smorgasbord of construction equipment and building materials. We donated all the office furniture (minus 2 drafting tables, a flat file and some filing cabinets) to a Salvation Army type of organization (De-junking Phase I). As for the construction equipment and building materials, 1/2 was donated, the other 1/2 we kept (items such as a generator, lawn mower, 2 sinks, a toilet, a couple of recessed downlight cans, shovels, ladders, a sad but operable shop-vac and few other goodies).
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Fall 2004
Installation of Skylight (framed that out ourselves, no sweat)
New Roof (came home one day to find the bedroom ceiling dripping, lots of sweat)
Target area Tuckpointing (budget constraints, so we just focused on the critical areas)
Rebuilding of Masonry Parapet Walls and Repair of Stone Parapet
De-junking Phase II (Basement - Construction Equipment and Building Materials)
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Summer 2004 - Winter 2005
The Saga of the Sewer
In summer of 2004, we discovered with every heavy rainfall, sewer water would back up into our basement and form this small puddle around the drain. As time went on, we noticed the puddle grew in circumference. THEN we noticed, it no longer took a heavy rainfall to get the puddle. THEN we got a BIG puddle after doing a load of laundry... I'd say that was the final straw. One can only mop-up so many puddles with Clorox, plus the 1/2" thick concrete topping slab was starting to wear thin in the 'puddle zone' and I feared we would end up with a dirt floor soon. After 4 plumber visits, 3 city inspections and 2 big digs, no more stinky puddles. We still have to install a catch valve, but for now, all is quiet in the subterranean realm.
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9pm - 2am December 23, 2004
New Furnace (Merry Christmas!)
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Fall 2005
New Flue Liner Installed
Basement Electrical Panel upgraded to 200 Amp.
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Winter 2006
Gut-rehab of Existing 2nd Floor Bathroom
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Fall - Winter 2006 / 2007
Finish up the work on Existing 2nd Floor Bathroom
TOTAL Gut-Rehab of 2nd Floor
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The Money Pit!

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