Home Remodeling

On April 20, 2016 we completely changed a top of our brick chimney at our rural country house. It was not planned actually to change all top of chimney, just to add two rows of bricks. Thus after a quick inspection it was clear - it's time to replace it all. Read how we lost a chimney in past: Replacing Roof - Part 3: Removing the old roofing (Losing Chimney) Workers inspecting chimney It was clear - there are no other option, but to remove brick by brick from atop of the chimney, and…

Few days ago I announced start for Season 2 of our home remodeling adventures. We have some really big plans to achieve this year - like getting a water supply and constructing from scratch few walls. Also a bathroom is planned to be finished until end of this Summer. But our home renovation tasks starts with outdoor territory. More precise with the big Spring cleanup. We had to clean area not only from old leaves and branches, but also from plastic bottles, cans and even TV picture tubes.…

Loyal readers of this blog are already familiar with the home renovation and remodeling process which we started a year ago, if not, make sure you check out article - How it all starts. On April 14, 2016 we made a long and tired journey with our cats to get where we left this process at the end of Summer 2015. I was really glad that I had spent whole winter improving my photographer skills (see digital photography school), so it was just a matter of installing a tripod in meadow and setting my…

Yesterday we told Goodbye's to our old roof by setting up a large bonfire. Today we are saying hi to the new roof. Although officially major roof works were done a few days before - today is the day when final images of new roofing appear. We still have some unfinished roof related works to do, but the final roof construction is here. To make a better understanding what's going out - see before and after. What we got (before) Moss covering the roof Not only moss is covering roof, the…

It was time to make a bonfire and burn wood shingle (what use to be a roof cover). At the end of Summer (2015) our bonfire place ready to be set on fire, also it was very large. I still decided to wait for a rainy day, to minimize fire risks. I negotiated with our construction worker, who turned out to be a semiprofessional industrial burner (10 years in forestry), called to the local fire station and asked for permission, informing about precise location. They have local watch towers, and…

That August, 2015 day was a huge day - we finished roof covering works in our rural country house. It took us about a month as we launched roofing works, and it will take us few more days to complete roofing completely. I didn't photographed today much, or day before (when most covering were done), in fact I didn't photographed at all, my better part did. Here is what we got: Almost done here Just three more roof plates (int total for both sides its 26 plates) and the large roof works are…

Today we continued covering roof with metal plates, in a short break I took my DSRL camera a top on the roof and made some aerial photos. You won't get here views as nice as you could get from Tbilisi or Batumi aerial trams, but taking into consideration that we are speaking of an old rural house - these views are as much great. Roof masters a top on the roof (Edgars and Guntars) Aerial view to our veggie garden Few months ago we planted some goodies in the wooden boxes - and look what…

Today was a big day, we managed not only to finish lathing works, covered roof with cross wind sheet but actually installed two plates of metal roof. Today was a very long working day also, by now I feel excelled a lot if roof works and home renovation. We started early in the morning (around 7:30 AM) as I knew this will be a very long day, and I really wanted to start cover roof with metal plates. Construction workers stretching cross wind sheet I hired two local craftsmen to help me out…

For a minute it seemed that all major removal, junk unloading and demolishing works are over, but then I realized we still have that soil coving floor in loft. And I'm speaking of some 25 cm thick layer of soil, for some reason covered there. Few weeks ago I was still naive I hoped to remove that soil/sand from the loft without any help but myself. Yup, that was quite a naive. Now, when finally last shingles were removed it was time for another pushup - get rid of that soil. I had a two…

One of my biggest challenges last summer was unstoppable fight with grass (see: Lawn Mowing), not to mention larger scale works on roof replacement. But there was another major issue we faced - overgrown bushes and totally deprived landscape.  When dealing with trees and shrubs it's not only about landscape, but also about their health. You want healthy landscape right? Now, we had a really deprival and unhealthy landscape in our backyard territory. Overgrown bushes In the middle somewhere…