Ah yes, I got soo excited about all the great changes going on at Locksley that I forgot to post the demo pictures…

So without further ado…

here are some shots of the massive destruction!

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Alright, the first installment of the great DIY pics we’ve been getting. One of the big problems with the living room/kitchen was the double small door arrangement they had going on. There were two 32″ doors on each side of the room. Which A) is silly and B) made both rooms seem closed off.

Our solution was to close one door off while widening the other to double its orginal size — essentially moving the other doo next to the first. The difference was dramatic. The rooms are now more open while at the same time having more usable wall space. And the cool fluted door trim is pretty sweet as well.

Some of our widening frenzy spilled over to the adjacent door which was also made 4″ wider. That was the most we could change it without it becoming a huge project. I think the change it made is still significant. Well enough talk here are the pics:

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Here’s a teaser video from our new DIY project: Locksley Ln.

Ain’t demo fun?

• locksley-demo-movie

UPDATE: The movie is in DIVX, so you’ll need that codec or a Divx playa to watch it.

Taking a page from the Karate Kid… "Paint the fence Daniel-son."

Well not exactly paint. I set out to seal the wood reverse scalloped fence that contains my dogs into a half-acre, third-wooded, canine wonderland. Yesterday, I walked both sides of the fence spraying off all of the dirt and spiders with an extremely long hose (actually 3 long hoses). Today I painted it.

Notes on painting a fence - any fence but especially a not contiguous fence…

• Buy a paint sprayer. You can get a good one for around $300. If you can’t afford the sprayer you can’t afford the fence. Go chain link. Besides the sealant itself will cost you more than that. I personally went through 18 gallons of sealant and one fairly young back covering my fence.
• Get the longest lasting sealant you can find. Trust me. After the first time you won’t want to do it again any time soon. You’ll be kicking yourself for not paying $20 more for the 5 year sealant instead of the 2 year.
• Schedule a massage.

Oh yeah, I finished in one day, but shortly afterwards I collapsed for about an hour on my back before I could get up and walk again. The cause? Well apparrently far to times stooping to reach the bottom of the fence. Some quick calculations revealed that I covered around 950 feet of fence (you have to do both sides) with about a 6" spayer. Add in cross braces and such and that’s 2000+ reps with a 2 lb barbell - oh I mean spray nozzle.

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Some early paint pics of the basement… 

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 Basement primer photos:

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Well the bathroom is now in, working, and christened.  :D  The hardwood stairs have been installed though the stairs had to be rebuilt to accomplish this.  The new "lower deck" or "smoking deck" framing has begun.

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The plumbing is done… well almost.  The mascerating pump (behind the toliet) had a nice big crack in it from shipping.  So while all the plumbing is connected, the bath can't be used until the pump is replaced.  In the meantime, some of the drywall was hung in the bathroom.

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Well, there has been a lot of progress in the basement.  We'll pics of it all up soon. Here are the before pics for the half bath going into the corner of the basement.  A special back flush toliet is being used to remove the need to either raise the floor or bust out concrete - a requirement for a conventional toliet.

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The drywall is up in the main room and the rooms seem much more "real" then they do in the framing stage. Though the pink insulation look will be sorely missed.

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