The Masters House

My wife is the luck one that gets to do our taxes this year so all I have to do is compile the lists of information.

One of the lists that I need to compile was how much we spent on home improvement this past year. After making the list it is surprising to see that putting water seal on the fence cost almost exactly the same amount as turning our dining room into a bedroom.

All-in-all we did some pretty cool stuff and did not even break $1000 which is really nice.

Below is the list so you can have an idea how much it costs to do various projects: Read the rest of this entry »

Well it happened about 2 weeks ago but I finally crawled up into the attic to finish the electrical for the new room/hallway. It wasn’t completely uneventful as I sliced my finger pretty good and the lights didn’t work the first time flipped the switch. I learned valuable lesson is both incidents.

In the first incident I was in the attic getting ready to slice together two wires in a junction box and was cutting the sheathing off on of the wires. I was holding the wires with me left hand and cutting with my right hand.

When I was almost at the end of the cut the knife slipped and sliced across my pink on my left hand. It started bleeding right away. I quickly yet calmly made my way out of the attic while sucking on my finger. Read the rest of this entry »

So this weekend we did the final sanding, texture, and painting of the new wall that has turned our former formal dinning room to a 5th bedroom. It is now at a state that my brother and law has moved into it.

Things that still need to be done are:

• Hook up electrical and cable outlets
• Paint shelving area
• Install and paint base boards and trim around the door.
• Texture and paint the wall around the door on the kitchen side

All-in-all the project came out better the I would have hoped. I owe a big thanks to my wife, her dad, and her brother as I would not have been able to get it to this pint without them.

Pictures will be coming shortly!

Technorati: Home Improvement, DIY, Construction

Well on my day off for Columbus Day Elsy took the kids out for the day so I could continue on turning the formal dining room into my youngest sons.

I have to say that it is more scary to rip the walls apart in your BRAND NEW HOME as opposed to one that is 40+ years old. Never the less we rip out the drywall in the arch way and actually cut the carpet to do the framing. I thought about taking the before pictures but I had so much work to do that messing around with the camera was not an option. I should have pictures of the progress sometime soon.

Anyway we got up the full sized wall and the 4 foot wall that will create the shelf (the wall is being built double thick). We even got up 95% of the drywall on one side.

This weekend will see me crawling into the attic to slice into the electrical and the cable to run those to the new wall. Hopefully we will be able to finish the drywall and start mudding also.

Pics to come soon!

Technorati: Home Improvement, DIY, Construction, Building a Wall, Drywall, Electrical

Well construction has begun on converting our unused formal dining room into a bedroom for our youngest son. This project is composed of installing a door in the entry way between the kitchen and the room and sealing off the entrance to the room from the entry way hall way. This wall is about 11 feet wide.

I have already installed the door but still need to do the drywall on the sides and above it. I am planning on doing the wall in the coming weeks and am accumulating the tools and materials that I need for it. This includes my new half price 1/2″ hammer drill. Cool…

Pics to come soon.

Technorati: Home Improvement, Construction, DIY, Home Remodeling