Remodeling Hell: Prologue, Part II

Here are the photos I promised.

The trim is done on the exterior vent.  The blue paint is some kind of special waterproofing.

Corbels done on the garage.

Corbels for the bedroom exterior.

My Uncle came out to start the electrical work on the new construction area.

The ceiling is demo'd in the bedroom.

Bedroom gone.  Here will be the new laundry room.

This will be the powder room.

New hallway leading into the boy's bedrooms.

Can you tell what's different in this picture?  The front door was moved into it's new location.

This shows the wall between the dining room and the family room gone.

While the contractor was demo'ing the wall around the corner (and I was trying to get everything out of the kitchen cabinets), CET found himself a quiet(?) spot to doing some drawings.

Both walls are gone now!

The fireplace got a "face lift" by getting backer board installed right over the old brick. Nice!

This will be the right side of the new kitchen, standing from the dining room.

This will be the left side of the kitchen.  Beyond was a widow that was taken out to be replaced with a wider window later.  Plumbing is being worked on as I type!

This is the new entry as you go through the front door.

And lastly, here is our new kitchen. Tada!  Well, the temporary one in the garage.  I guess I should stop working on the blog so that I can start putting things back into the cabinets.

This weekend we have to clear out the rest of our stuff on the left side of the garage so that the contractor can work on a portion of the wall in the garage.  We will also need to paint the trim and any other areas that will not be covered by the shingles.  It will be another fun, working weekend.

Remodeling Hell: Prologue, Part I

I apologize its been almost 2 weeks since the last blog.  We ended up having to rent a storage unit to store all of our belongings so that it won't get dusty from the interior demolition.  We have been doing nothing but packing our stuff and going to the storage unit in the evenings when CT and my brother Eddie are home from work.  After the corbels were installed on the exterior, CAT and CET had to move out of their room to start the demolition and framing of the laundry and power room.  So KWT and CAT are sharing a room and CET is in with us.  We are now crammed into two bedrooms and a partial family room.  This past Monday, they starting demo'ing the kitchen and the interior walls of the family room.  Wow!  The space is really opened up.  The contractor set up a kitchen for us in the garage (took some of the old kitchen cabinets and put them up). Today a guy came to cover the brick on the fireplace.  Only 4 more days until the fire insert gets installed (although my kids are thinking, only 4 more days until Halloween)!  The plumber came today and will come tomorrow to finish the gas and water lines.  The other day our contractor got a call letting him know that the shingles are now in, so once he finishes framing the area between the entry and kitchen, he will start installing the shingles.

So, what do I think of the first week of Hell?  Well, it's really hard to find anything because I can't remember where or which box I put stuff in.  There is hardly any room to walk in my bedroom, there is drywall dust everywhere (I mean everywhere!).  But so far, I guess it's not that bad.  I know there will be an end and the result is what I'm looking forward to.

The kids are doing well considering.  They adjust well, but I try to given them a heads up before anything happens.  We are usually late for all their after school activities because I seem to always have a conversation with the contractor before we have to leave.  Oh, well.  I think CET is a little tired of being ignored.  Tomorrow I will have to not think about organizing the kitchen in the garage or the piles of stuff in the two bedroom, or go through all the papers that I need to go through....no, tomorrow will have to be a fun, stress free day for CET, because he has had to put up with a lot the past couple of weeks.  He seems fine, and puts up with what is going on.  But CT and I know that he is a little confused about what is happening to our house and he feels the stress of moving all our stuff out and losing all his "things".  So tomorrow will be a play day...at least in the morning. 

Sorry, no pictures tonight.  I have more pictures to take when it's daylight, so I will post tomorrow after our fun play day!

Worth the wait....

Okay, I know it's been 10 days since the last post.  I've taken pictures in those 10 days, but could not find time to post them.  And every day got better and better too.  Wait until you see the pictures (really it has only been 5 days if you don't count the contractors vacation and the weekend).  In the meantime, we've been very busy finalizing the appliances and fixtures.  The appliances have now been ordered as well as the fixtures for the kitchen and the bathrooms!  Now I'm working on the lighting...

So, in the week and a half that has gone by, the porch and garage was covered with plywood, the arch cut, the vents cut and installed, the windows came in and were installed, siding for the North side of the house installed and the trim work around the windows installed.  I think it looks great...I hope you agree.

Front porch with the arch cut out.

The white vents are in above the garage and front porch.

Here you can see the plywood at the porch and around the columns.

Window and the bottom portion of the siding is installed.

Windows to the new bedrooms!

The contractor is waiting for the shingles to come in.  Once that happens, he can finish up the exterior.  Hopefully it will come in this week!

All is quite...

There will be no work for the next several days.  Our contractor is on his way down to Disneyland with his grandkids.  I hope it doesn't rain on them, but if it does, I'm sure they will still have a great time.  It's the happiest place on Earth....right?!?  I wish I was going...

So in the two days that he worked, the roof was completed (and two hours before it started pouring rain!) and work was started on the entry.

The siding has been ordered as well as the windows and the trim pieces.  We should start the see the exterior of the house come together in the next couple weeks.

Roof is done.  You can see a one of the solar tubes between the addition and the entry roof.

Here is the beginning of the entry.

This is a view from "inside" the house looking out onto the front porch.  On the left you can see the beginning of a column.

This is the ceiling of the porch.

Standing in KWT's room, you can see the solar tube light fixtures.  The left one is in the new hallway and the right one is in the laundry room.

From the laundry room you can see how nicely lit the hallway is...and that's without the reflective lens!

The roof is almost done and the fireplace gets a slight make over

No rain this weekend...thank goodness!  But it is coming...starting on Monday - hopefully in the late afternoon.  The roofers started on Friday and also worked on Saturday.  He could have finished on Saturday, but he ran out of long nails.  That's okay.  If the rain doesn't come until later in the day on Monday, he will have time to finish.  But if it happens to rain before then, we are still in good shape as most of the roof is complete.

Here you can see the vents and a solar tube are installed on the roof.

Here is one of the solar tubes looking down into the new hallway.

Getting ready for the felt to be installed.

Felt is on...ready for rain if it happens.

One side roofed.

Just the ridge to go.

Just about there...to bad he ran out of nails!

The other thing that happened on Saturday was our hearth was taken out (the stove fireplace was taken out about 3 weeks ago).  The guy also rotohammered the back portion of the fireplace so that we can accommodate the larger sized gas insert.  So exciting!  It will have  clear glass pebbles inside....so pretty!  In fact, I have to call Buck Stove to let them know we can purchase the larger model and set up the installation date.  They are out about a month....that just might be perfect timing - when the air will turn cold. = )  In the mean time, I have to clean up all that dust and soot from the rotohammering.  We feel like we are walking on sand, except the bottom of our feet are black!  Yuck!

The top of the hearth was taken off...inside was sand.

Just about to rotohammer.

These feet aren't too bad....

This is what we will be looking for the month.