Remodeling

Tearing out the old appliances and old built-in range island and built-in cabinet stove unit, as we prepare to update the kitchen of the gallery. With the removal of the cabinets we finally can tear out the last of the 1970s elevated flooring that was made from poor quality chipboard, which was breaking apart and was a haven for bugs due to the micro-crawl space that was created.

Once the false floor is ripped out, we plan on leveling the original flooring and placing floor tiles over the original wood flooring. The cabinets to the right, in the above photo are staying in place. They are the only cabinets we're keeping in the kitchen. We plan on organizing a U shaped kitchen once the current bathroom is shifted over to the new space on the other side of the building. This will eliminate numerous winter pipe freezing issues and also make accessing the laundry area much easier. Currently the laundry space was put out on the unheated porch, which then had to be heated with expensive electric heaters. By relocating all the plumbing for the bathroom and the laundry to the downstairs room across from the current bathroom, we will be able to properly insulate the pipes and also get all the water-based appliances into the main portion of the house. Hopefully eliminating all the cold showers! We've made temporary repairs on the old bathroom flooring, so as to eliminate the threat of the toilet (and who ever might be sitting on it) from falling through the rotting floor boards. This crisis evolved due to the fact that the toilet was placed directly onto the old wood porch flooring boards. No moister protection was put in place. The result was a slow deterioration of the floor boards. Finally we simply had to shut down the building and shut off the plumbing until we had time to make the necessary alterations to the bathroom flooring. While its current repair may not look pretty, it now permits us once again to be working on the remodeling, without having to walk half a block back to the family house to use the facilities. So progress is taking place.

What do you do with Rain - Ice and Gray Skies?

Well today wasn't a day to work outside or to work on exterior walls in the inside (due to their temperatures making it unsuited for painting). So we focused on painting interior walls and doing some brain storming and planning.

We think we finally figured out a plausible layout for a force air furnace system's duct work for the Gallery house.

We won't be using the typical force air furnace, but rather a bio-mass/corn furnace that can burn various products including wood pellets, corn, cherry pits, almond shells and more.

Our problem had been the location of the furnace since the dirt floor root cellar under the Gallery building is (1) dirt floor (2) already called for by me for food storage!

So we needed to find another location for the furnace. The logical choice was the room we call the "white room". Yes, I've named my rooms based on colors! The White room is a large angle ceiling'd room with a sloping roof suited for placement of the stove pipe and is directly against the Blue Gallery, which is one of two rooms that will house the art gallery. So the next issue was how to bring in the furnace duct work without making an ugly eye sore. The solution of course is place the duct work into the ceiling so that its not visible. That won't be a problem for the kitchen ceiling as its ceiling is already removed. However, we still have to remove the wanescotting in the blue gallery that is on the ceiling and the original ceiling material, that is likely behind it.

Once that is done we hope we will have few major construction or destruction requirements to mount the duct work.

Its been ages since I posted

Its been ages since I posted. So I will try to get back into the habit of posting. The remodeling is somewhat at a stagnation. Life just keeps getting in the way of our plans.

The weather this winter has been ideal for remodeling projects outside & inside, but I have watched the days roll by with little in progress. My health has done a number on me several times this winter and as I blog I still am fighting breathing problems due to infections.

I did enjoy some time yesterday and today working in the yard, moving things about and cleaning up. Felt I couldn't waste these 50+ degree temps as nature will surely return to her full winter coat soon!

I've been spending my downtime researching



solar dehyrdators and



solar ovens. Quite plausible it seems even for our area.

I plan on working on creating one of each, as well as an interesting frugal version for a solar heating panel that uses reclaimed aluminum cans.



The cans are painted flat black and are encased in a wooden frame which is vented at the top left and bottom right corner. A sheet of plexi is placed over the front and the solar panel is connected to one's home or building, allowing passive solar to work to channel the air through the unit. I think this would work great, especially for the poultry house, not just the home. Perhaps even a dog house could be designed that utilizes this unit. We shall see!