I knew when we bought our house nine years ago that the family room would, along with much of the rest of the house, need a remodel. The carpet was old and worn, the walls had heavily sculpted dust catching texture and the hearth was hideous. The lights were just fluorescent shop lights and were poorly placed. We started the remodel last winter and I am now closing in on it.

Here are some pics.

It all started with the harvesting of some Alaskan birch for lumber. Here I'm loading some logs for the mill.

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Here's a load of birch ready to stack and dry. It takes about a year per inch to air dry lumber.

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Here's a stack, tent tarped, stickered and drying.

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The old hearth in all it's hideousness.

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The new hearth. I still need to trim out the sides.

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The built in book case. The face frames, doors, drawer and base boards are from some that birch. I haven't got all the books out yet and haven't settled on the exact arrangement of the shelves. My wife's discerning eye will be helpful with that.

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More of the book case.

[img]http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e103/mart-photo/IMG_1251Small.jpg[/img]

I just finished this today. It's my reloading hutch. Room for most of my supplies and gear and hopefully keep the bench clutter to a minimum.

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I created a cubby for all my reloading and reference manuals.

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We have done a lot of work. The ceiling had old acoustic tile which, when removed showed the drywall had never been taped or mudded and was only 1/2" instead of the required 5/8". Don't get me started on the wiring misadventures we found. We scraped the walls and floated them flat, textured and painted. I corrected the wiring issues, put up a new 5/8" ceiling, installed new lighting and windows, laid a tile floor and wrapped the glue lam beam in birch. I still have to trim the windows and there are a couple of pieces of furniture yet to build but the room is finally coming together. Pretty soon I can get pictures, antlers, skins and all the other man room stuff up. Thanks for looking.

Mart

Chronographs, bore scopes and pattern boards have broke a lot of hearts.