I took this week off of work to make some headway on the mudroom conversion. Mostly, I discovered I had an extra week of vacay, and need to use it before it expires, so I thought this would be as good a week as any to get to work.

The main goal for the week is to remove the two old windows on the north side of the house, add the exterior door, get everything sealed back up, and maybe begin on some of the electrical and plumbing.

We’re at a place now where all of the interior walls have been stripped to the studs, so after picking up the windows today, I really just needed to start taking off the siding. I started at the corner, taking off the aluminum edge caps.

These will be replaced with trim when all is said and done, so I wasn’t too careful when I was taking them off.

Then I went inside and wherever I could, I tapped the siding nails back out by hitting them from the inside.

With those nails popped on the outside, I removed them and then started carefully prying at the top lap. The old cedar lap siding has been baked by the sun, wind and rain for the last 50 years and was a little brittle, but I think I’m going to be able to salvage about 70% of it, which is great because it costs a pretty penny to replace.

As I took off each board, I numbered the back of the board and the underlayment, so I know how to put everything back together. There will likely be a lot of additional cuts once we add the door, but the numbers give a general idea of what goes where.

Progress today was pretty good. We’ve discovered now that the house didn’t have insulation, but when I took off the siding, I also noticed that they only used a moisture barrier to cover where two pieces of underlayment butted against each other. Yikes. Also, I can’t really capture it with a photo, but with the siding off, and the interior walls torn out, it’s shocking how much light comes through… in case you had any question, they definitely seal homes up better now than they used to.

Tomorrow I’m going to be taking out the interior casing around the vinyl windows and staining the interior of the new windows. I can’t wait until everything starts coming back together. It’s going to look so amazing.

Woah. That’s all I have to say. Life got busy all of a sudden. That combined with the project basically being stalled until I could make it to the county during business hours to get a permit, I didn’t have a ton I could work on before I started altering the structure of the house, which I didn’t want to do until the plans were approved in case something needed to change.

Thankfully, the county approved the plans as they were, and we’re all set to move forward with the laundry room reno.

I’m really happy with the final design. We gain access to the back yard, and the room becomes a more functional “mud room” than it previously was.

While I was waiting to have time to get the plans approved, I’ve been doing a little demo. I’ve only done as much each week as the curbside garbage can will hold, which amounts to about a half a wall per week.

I have everything torn out except for the drywall around the electrical panel torn out at this point. I also ordered our windows – went with Marvin for the quality and look/feel I was hoping for. And I ordered the last two doors – the exterior door that was never in the original budget (eek) and the last interior door – the big one.

While the garbage can was full of drywall, I’ve been keeping busy with yardwork during the very few sunny days we’ve had – tilled the garden beds with my new Ryobi Expand-It tiller, edged the yard for the first time since we lived here with the edging attachment.

Planted some Japanese anemones, phlox, snap dragons and pansies in the front bed and re-mulched, and planted some impatiens in the front porch planter.

I also got the garden started indoors – tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapeños, bell peppers, zucchini, crook-neck squash. And then I put them outside to get some real sun, and the wind broke the necks of all of my tomatoes but one and one of my cucumbers rotted because of the massive amount of rain. Awesome.

I’m feeling a little behind with the remodel, but I just discovered at work that I’ve had an extra week of vacation all year that I didn’t know about, and that I have to take before June or it expires, so I’m taking next week off to really dive in. I’m going to be taking the siding off the north end of the house, installing the new windows and the exterior door, and re-siding everything. Also hope to run the plumbing that week, and maybe get started on the electrical.

Only problem is, we’re at the point in the project where I’m realizing that I severely underestimated budget… to my credit, we’ve added a door and made significant changes to the overall plan, but the permits, windows and interior doors were more expensive than I originally thought, and cabinets… well, that’s another story.

Moral of the story: DrunkenDIY, now accepting donations. And more posts, more often coming here shortly, I promise.

I drove to Hillsboro about a week ago to chat with the lovely people at Washington County Building Services. Even though we have a “Portland” address, technically we live in unincorporated Washington County, so I have to drive and brave the farm-folk every time I need a permit. Or get summoned for jury duty (another story).

I put together these elaborate plans – a photo copy of the original blueprints, with a version of the remodeled floor plan I designed using Sweet Home 3D on top. I was worried I was going to have to have an architect draw plans because I’m not skilled enough, but apparently I got too fancy.

The fix: photocopy the original plans, use a red pen to draw the new walls, and use white-out to remove the old.

So I got home, drew up the plans, and then with a permanent marker and a tape measure, plotted out the lines on the floor of the laundry room, just to make sure everything would work well when arranged. And… well, I didn’t like it.

Not enough space in the laundry room, SO SO much space in the pantry.

So I went back to the drawing board.

Helen had mentioned a few months back that it would be nice to have a door to the outside in the room. And the more I thought about it, I agreed. When the remodel is complete, the only door to the inside of the house from the back yard will be into the dining room. Not the best if you’re covered in dirt. So why not add an exterior door to the laundry room, and make it an official mud room.

So here are the new plans:

The drywall and doors are waiting in the garage, and I’m planning to order the exterior door and windows this week.

Now just to make it back to Hillsboro to get the permit…