housenoodling

Progress progress

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:44:19 GMT

Last week saw a flurry of excitement including inspections, insulation, inspections, drywall and drywall-finishing. They're supposed to be finished with the drywall-finishing this week. Tile and cabinets and appliances should be happening sometime soon....

More pictures

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:09:42 GMT

I believe more pictures have been uploaded to Flickr - check it out.

The change to the house is amazing. Things are really moving along.

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:59:36 GMT

We have gas, and while we're not "cookin'" with it yet, we're at least bathing in gas-heated hot water.

They did tree work today and the yard looks much different. Now to do some replacement plantings, clear crap out of the back and get it all done.

The bathtub arrived today.

The fireplace tried to arrive yesterday but there was a snafu in the size of the hole left, so that will have to be sommat redone. Bleah. That's our first big "oops" in a while.

Ozone this weekend. Inspections next week. Drywall and insulation towards the end of next week.

Whee!!

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:28:32 GMT

Things have been moving along!!

On Monday we had the propane tank delivered - it's now buried in the back garden and we're close to having gas to the house.
I found a better picture of our sofa only it's not red, it's sort of distressed bomber-jacket brown.

On Saturday, the babe & I picked out a fine fireplace. I need to order that tomorrow.

Next week we have major tree work done, then they can grade the yard, put in the real steps and hopefully have time for a bit of grass to take root before winter. (Given that it was 91F yesterday, I'm cautiously optimistic....)

At the beginning of next week, the bathtub will be delivered. Once that's in place, we can get all our inspections done (framing, plumbing, wiring, HVAC), then they can insulate, get that inspected, and hang drywall. It's starting to feel "real".

There are still things to buy and decisions to make. Paint colors in some rooms. Furnishings in others. Window treatments everywhere. Floors in some rooms. Bleah.

But soon it will be done. And I'll try to post new pictures tonight since it now really looks like a different house.

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:52:24 GMT

Here's the link to the flickr site.

Shopping links!

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:48:55 GMT

Okay, okay. Mea culpa! Linkies!

The front door, in white
The storm door
The tile around the fireplace Probably in 6x6 tiles
The ornamental edging for the fireplace border - along the outsides of the fireplace tiles and along the inside around the fireplace insert. (It's the "Slant" border)
The tile on the kitchen & family room floor
The granite for tub deck, bathroom vanity & seat/trim in shower
A better picture of the kitchen countertop granite
The bathroom tile - floor and shower and sides of tub, with accents from the granite above
This in jade is sorta the slate tile for the kitchen backsplash, although in real life it is a much more slatey green, with much less brown in it. We haven't figured out what pattern or combination of patterns - if you click through there are various mosaic-y patterns with octagons, bricks, etc.

We still need to finalize the bathroom cabinet, shower heads and some other bits, but we're getting there.

This week/end, they will be replacing the existing windows, installing the new windows and installing the siding. And doing the ozone treatment for the black mold spores in the crawl space.

Today they're finishing putting in duct work in the new master bedroom and doing other duct-work and sheet-metal things. They roughed in the master bath plumbing yesterday, and the laundry chute was put in, as was the new furnace unit for the bedroom. They also poured the footers for the deck. In theory today or tomorrow we'll get the front porch sorted out - right now it's about half-done.

The new bedroom is... big. Heck, the master bathroom is enormous. It's all very posh and utterly surprising. I think we may end up having the housewarming party in the master suite.

Shopping

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:08:08 GMT

Well, we got some of our shopping done today.

We sorta-picked a front door, and conceptually picked a fireplace.

We picked tile for the kitchen & family room, and for the backsplash in the kitchen. We also picked tile & granite for the master bath & shower, and tile for around the fireplace.

We looked at tubs, to no avail. We still need to go to the granite places and actually pick our piece of granite - that apparently happens at a different store. (sigh)

Amazing accomplishments

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:27:48 GMT

It 's amazing what the team can do. A-freakin-mazing. It's cool to be working at home through it, although it would also be cool to not have pounding constantly, and to be able to come home and see wonderous changes.

The lumber arrived a week and a few hours ago. They didn't work Sunday. We are now almost-entirely under the new roof....

They have framed and built the entire new garage and new family room, torn out the drywall in the kitchen & living room, pulled the floor back to the subfloor in those rooms, replaced the floor in one section of the kitchen, sistered the joists under the kitchen near the back wall, and built most of the porch. They've removed the siding from the front of the house, torn out the crappy old front steps, and they're currently shingling the roof as we speak.

The one bad discovery was that the furnace condensate line was leaking, and had been for some time. The floor under/around it was rotten, and covered in black mold. Bleah. No wonder my allergies have been giving me grief. That's the piece of the floor that had to be replaced. We'll also have to replace the duct work, but we'd somewhat expected that.

Only one day have I had to call in sick 'cause I was too overwrought to work. One day I had to have them help me out of the house and one day I had to climb a ladder back into the house. Not too shabby. :-)

This weekend we have to go to the tile place, the granite place and pick a front door, and maybe a fireplace.

Lumber

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:20:53 GMT

The lumber was not delivered as early as the carpenters would have liked, but it was delivered.

Have you ever watched lumber delivered? It comes on the equivalent of a flatbed tow-truck and to deliver it, they unstrap it and then tilt the bed up til all the lumber slides off the back.... Scary to watch but they only seem to have lost one piece of plywood as a result.

So since it was late, I don't have *all* the framing done, but there is decking in the laundry room, foyer and family room, and the back walls of both have been framed. We decided to put a fireplace in the back wall of the family room (propane one) which necessitated changing the windows slightly, but I think it will still look nice. It's starting to "take shape" - I walked in the family room tonight and could vaguely picture furniture and things....

Thanks to Chris, the TV stand is out of the living room, and now it's just the dregs of stuff....

Mistake #1 and a reprieve

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:27:34 GMT

Well, they didn't give the revised foundation plans to the masons so they had to go into the foundation of the garage and rearrange a wall a little bit. No major harm done, but we probably lost a day, between that and the rain. The Construction Manager was a little embarrassed that I caught it so quickly....

But the net result is we get one more weekend to pack up the kitchen, do the last runs of laundry and stuff. Does anyone know of a place to donate old appliances (washer, dryer, stove & dishwasher)?

Lumber is delivered tomorrow and the carpenters will be swarming like busy bees. And then they'll break into the kitchen on Monday.

Week 2 and a smidge

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:43:06 GMT

I was out of town this weekend, so PS faithfully moved stuff out to the new storage unit. As of last night the kitchen is *nearly* empty. There's a bit of general detritus or stuff that didn't go in any particular box, and we need to move some countertop appliances to the other room, but all the cabinets are empty, as is the pantry and the closet where the furnace is.

Friday they delivered the gravel into the crawl-space foundations and yesterday they poured the concrete for those. The tree guys also came and took out two trees that we'd been wanting to remove for some time.

Today they may start the initial framing, if the weather doesn't stop them. I hear thumping noises so...:-)

Week 1.5 - UPDATED WITH LINKS

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:42:42 GMT

A lot can happen in a week and a half. Lemme just say that.

Footings were inspected on Wednesday (only one day later than planned), and the foundations poured. They also put in the big gravel for the "construction entrance". The points were set on Sunday or Monday, and they started laying block Tuesday (yesterday). They were working quickly, and had the family room done, and the garage well on its way by the end of the day. Today they'll finish that up, and sometime soon they'll waterproof and pour the concrete for the crawl spaces.

Saturday we shopped for appliances, without actually buying anything except lunch & ice cream. We also looked at some furniture for the living room and the family room, and some possible flooring. And paint.

Sunday, thanks to some kind assistance, we got the living room the rest of the way boxed up, and got a start on the kitchen. I'm still plugging away at the kitchen - it's slow going - but I'm making good progress.

After much hemming and hawing over the expense, we went ahead and bought the gorgeous living room & family room furniture. They look a little like this but a little more clubby (a little less formal), and in a very yummy 'vintage'/distressed brown leather. As a result, we now know pretty well what the family room is going to look like - bamboo flooring, light green walls, brown furniture with bright accents. The living room will be dark green with the same flooring and furnishings. The colors are here - Sage Sweater for the family room (and probably kitchen as well), and Water Lilies for the living room. Neither of the colors shows perfectly on this site - Water Lilies is really very green.

We also decided on appliances, and will be ordering those today. We went with the GE Profile line - a French-door fridge with bottom freezer, a gas range, dishwasher, and an electric wall oven/microwave combo, all in stainless. And a new washer & gas dryer. Ow, my aching wallet, but it's what we came up with.

Progress

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:23:50 GMT

Okay, so it's been a week, and we've lost a garage and a deck, had footings dug, had them inspected and had them filled with concrete.

Our second (!!) storage pod has arrived, to be filled this weekend.

We've had discussions on paint and stuff.

I'm frustrated. The office furniture I want doesn't have matching bookcases or anything. Grrr.

Otherwise, things continue apace!

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:20:04 GMT

Well, they're not actually taking out the remainder of the garage slab - they just moved what was in the way of the new footings - the rest will be buried under the garage.

They successfully moved the AC today, and began to dig the crawl space and foundation holes for the new garage & addition, and took out a couple of in-the-way trees. (And my favorite rosebush, which I'm hoping will survive the experience!)

I uploaded pictures to flickr - the username there is Housenoodling, same as here. If you look at the Week 1 set, they'll make more sense (they're in order there....)

Garage slab

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:52:49 GMT

Well, the garage took a bit longer to come down than they'd figured. Not the structure, but the enormous slab on which it was built. (It looks more than 15" deep in places) About 2/3 of the slab was removed yesterday (Monday) via jackhammer, but there's still a piece left. (And they worked Saturday, so this thing is being a real bear.)

So far this morning, the air conditioning guy has come to see what's up with the current AC unit. They will need to move it in order to do construction, which may mean PS goes to live somewhere else for a while (if they can't move it and get it running again successfully). We're replacing the unit but not til we're ready to run the new conduit, etc.

We stopped through the Design Expo twice this weekend - once to look at appliances and once for bathroom stuff. (The appliances trip was an accident - we got sucked in....) Depending on the budget, we may have selected our new fridge, and have some ideas about our new stove and dishwasher.

And so it begins...

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 04:41:28 GMT

As of sometime mid-afternoon, we no longer have a garage. The slab is still there, but the rest of it is gone, hauled away in a big skip. (At $65 a ton or whatever it is we're paying...)

There's a small skip on the driveway, which will receive the concrete and brick, to be broken up and recycled. There's a trailer on the drive containing siding and what-not. Tomorrow the big skip comes back and gets filled (or partially filled) with the deck, some of the small scrubby trees from next door, and the remaining detritus from the garage.

One of the neighbors has already complained (not to us, of course - no such courtesy; he called City Code Compliance) because of the porta-john (which was delivered *yesterday*) and the storage pod (which, admittedly, has been there for a month, but you try to empty a two-car garage quickly and in an orderly fashion into a 16' storage pod - it takes time.) The code compliance guy is a doll - came out, checked our permit, was perfectly reasonable and friendly. Why our neighbor doesn't realize that the short-term dirt will lead to a better looking house at the end, I don't understand. The code guy also said it was okay to part the Volvo in the grass for the nonce, since there's not exactly a lot of parking on the street.

So, by the time we are back on Sunday, we'll have no more concrete, and the garage will be ready to have the footings dug on Monday. Woohoo! This means that I get to spend some of next week and next weekend packing up the kitchen and the living room, but that's not terribly arduous. I hope.

On an only semi-related note, we went through this afternoon and picked office furniture for the new offices. I'm very excited.

Demolition scheduled to begin

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:48:56 GMT

Demolition is starting Friday - our City permits were issued yesterday. I will post pictures as we go along - I created a Flickr account (housenoodling) and I'll link to it as new pictures go up.

In *theory* the garage is mostly empty, and in the process, PS found a cabinet that had been drywalled into the wall... Weird. I think there may still be an engine on a hoist in the garage, and the spare fridge (which I'm trying to freecycle). We also have a loaner freezer to return. Then we get into serious house-packing.

The temporary kitchen is pretty much set to go - we just need to move the small appliances when the time comes. And the fridge - that may involve bribing either construction guys or co-workers of PS's.

More soon.

Permits

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:31:44 GMT

I got the call yesterday that our county permits have been issued, and the paperwork is now at the city, waiting for their approval. They anticipate this will take 3-5 business days. So we're planning on being able to begin demolition next Friday (8/24).

This means that we need to have the garage empty by then.

They will start framing on about 9/10, which is when we need to have the kitchen, etc. done and ready to be evacuated.

I only wish I had a weekend home between now and then.

Updates on two fronts

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:56:51 GMT

Our construction manager Kevin called this evening, they're past what they anticipated would be the worst potential-holdups at the county. This could mean the county issues our permit this week, if everything else goes well. They had to do a framing diagram for the second floor but they're hoping to take that to the county on Monday. Then it goes to the city, and if they approve it, we can start construction. (This is good, because our construction loan has a completion date in the paperwork!)

We also got the "deposit" check from the (new) mortgage company. This is 10% of the money we borrowed, to be used to fund the beginning of construction. (This was part of the plan, because normally they'll disburse funds upon completion of certain milestones and we didn't have enough cash to fund the beginning of the process...) In theory this means our existing mortgage has been paid off and we're now paying interest-only on what's been disbursed, until the mortgage converts post-construction.

This means that we must spend some quality time getting ready for construction. In practical terms this means several things:
1) Emptying the garage the rest of the way (it's about 1/3-ish done, but the parts that are left are going to be annoying - lots of tools to pack up and stuff)
2) Moving the non-functional vehicles out of the way of construction equipment (into the back yard)
3) Packing up the front room so it can become a construction-prep zone
4) Packing up the kitchen into storage/the back room, and preparing to live out of packages and paper goods for a while.
5) Determining whether we'll be able to move the current fridge down the hall to the spare room - this may involve removing doors and stuff.

We need to sit down and make some more detailed lists, and timetables of what needs to happen when, but I expect my life is about to become a little busy. Ugh.

Houston, we have money....

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:32:08 GMT

Yesterday early-evening, a nice young man came to our house and we're now officially in debt up to our eyeballs. We've signed all the paperwork and gotten our copies and we now have a new mortgage on the house. Our existing notes are (or will be) paid off (mortgage and HELOC), and we have a large chunk of change waiting to be drawn down during the construction process. As soon as the permits are issued, the "deposit" can be paid to the construction management company and we'll be ordering materials and on our way! One thing this *does* accomplish is it puts a nominal end-date on the construction, which is a little scary but also good. Now if the county would only hurry up....

What we're doing

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 02:05:41 GMT

It occurs to me that not everyone reading this has already been bored to tears by our discussions of our home remodeling projects, so perhaps a brief overview is in order.

Our house (pictured in the icon) is (currently) a 3BR, 1.5BA rambler with a two car garage that is attached but not connected (that is, there's no way from the house to the garage that doesn't involve the outdoors....) The house is laid out so that when you come in the front door, you're in a small living room. Towards the back of the house from there is a combination kitchen/dining area, with a round table in it and a sliding glass door to the "deck" (about 5'x5'...) Along the house to the right is a central hallway with the bedrooms, a linen closet, a hall closet and the full bathroom. The house is situated on approximately 10,000 sq. feet of land. Behind the house to the left you can see the magnificent magnolia tree in our back garden (behind the mulberry trees). Unfortunately, this picture was taken after the delivery of the trash trailer (on the driveway) and the storage unit (on the lawn to the right) but you get the vague idea. The house was built in 1983. For those of you into the details, it's built on a crawl space, not a basement or slab.

Our initial goal in renovating was to add a family room off the back, because the living/dining/kitchen area is cramped if we have more than, say, two people over for dinner. We wanted lots of windows in this new space, because it has a really gorgeous southern exposure and a view of the garden. We envision this as a transition space into the garden.

Then we thought we'd like to add an additional bedroom and bath (or at least expand the half to a full). Right now we share a 10x10 office-cum-computer-workroom and it's, um, cozy. So we thought that would help.

What we've come up with, after much to-ing and fro-ing is something rather more grand. We're still adding a family room off the back, which may also include the main eating and socializing space (dining table and sofas/TV), and lots of windows.

In addition, we're tearing out and rebuilding the garage (to a higher standard). On top of the garage we're putting a "master suite" including a large bedroom with a small sitting area, a very large (and relatively posh) bathroom with shower and separate tub, etc. and a *huge* walk in closet. This is reached by stairs from a foyer off the back of the garage which also leads into the kitchen (thereby actually connecting the garage & the house!). Off the foyer there is also a laundry room, which allows us to move the washer & dryer out of their current location in the kitchen.

This whole process entails re-doing the kitchen entirely, because we have to hack away one wall (to lead into the family room) and part of one wall (to lead into the new foyer).  Oh darn. (grin) The overall net result is doubling the finished living space of the house and going to a 4BR 2.5BA house with a family room.

The remainder of the "original" house is being left largely alone structurally. Externally, the entire house will get new siding and a new roof (so the old and new match), and new windows in the existing structure to match the ones in the new part. Internally, the existing parts are getting new flooring (either hardwood or laminate), fresh paint and new interior doors.    The existing entrance steps will go away (they're on their last legs anyway), and will be replaced with a small front porch and new steps. The existing rear entrance will become the family room archway, but there will be new doors from the family room to a new deck (which may or may not be built immediately). The driveway will be entirely redone (so it will no longer have a giant hole in the middle of it). At some point, we'll have to do something with the lawns/garden, but that can come later.

So that's the grand plan. There are fiddly bits in there too. We're going to spend a fortune at the Container Store or IKEA or someplace on pantry organizers, because the current wall of the kitchen that houses the washer/dryer will have huge pantries. The hall closet will be de-shelved and will become a coat closet (there isn't one in the house!) The living room flooring may need to be shored up, either with plywood on top or sistered joists underneath. Etc.

So that's the "grand plan". Considering they're building McMansions on the next street up from the half-a-million-dollar range, we don't think this is a terrible investment. Our construction manager thinks the bulk of the work will be done in three months from the time we break ground.

So now, we wait for permits....

Kitchen Stuff

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 01:31:56 GMT

Here are some of our choices from today:
Kitchen cabinets - maple in the "toffee" stain, Silhouette pattern (you may have to click on the stain color);
Kitchen countertops, in Verde Ubatuba;
Stainless two-bowl sink with disposal.

We're getting stainless appliances currently (that is, that's the current plan), so we're looking at some kind of simple brushed stainless hardware for the cabinets. The floor will be tile of some sort, to be determined. Right now we're looking at a color from Benjamin Moore called Feather Down for the walls - it's a sort of a faintly-green neutral; slightly darker than off-white, in the direction of celadon or something like that. I'll see if I can scan a paint chip or something. The other option is something similar and headed towards a golden color.

One decision still to be made is how many/what sort of cooking surfaces? Options include
*a normal range with oven and smaller oven/broiler, and separate microwave
*a normal range with oven and a separate wall oven (which may or may not also be convection/microwave)
*a cooktop with dual wall ovens (one of which could be convection/microwave)

An additional option which we hadn't considered til we got to the shop today is the wall-mounted steamer. We are definitely on track to be eating more-healthily for the rest of our lives, so this might be a really good option for us, if it's not too expensive.

Warming drawers are also an option - not sure if we want to go that route.

Right now we don't have gas, so we're having to get an LP tank - at least the cook top will run on that.

Here's the style of range hood we're favoring.

For fridges, we're looking at the french-door top/freezer on the bottom options and trying to decide about water/ice dispensers. Anyone have advice pro/con?

We were thinking one of the drawer-style dishwashers but I think they're prohibitively expensive at this stage, so we'll just get a good one that's quiet, holds stuff, works well.

We're strenuously resisting the wall-mounted coffee/cappuccino/espresso machine (at least I am....)

Some lower-cabinet units will be cupboards with pull out shelves. Some will be deep drawers for pots, etc. One will have the trash/recycling bins. We'll have a bunch of drawers for stuff like cutlery, etc. as well as one lazy susan corner cupboard.

Under-counter lighting is already arranged, as are lots of electrical outlets. We'd like one of the swing-out platforms that holds the big mixer, we'll see if that flies with the rest of the plan or not.

Still need to pick taps and stuff.

Exterior Color, Kitchen stuff, other busy stuff

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 00:07:41 GMT

Well, this week has been busy on the House Noodling front.

Monday we met with the contractor regarding budgets & crap, which was useful. He's sending us over the final (well, final-ish) budget spreadsheet this week, in theory. They had to make some changes to the plans because of zoning & permit issues (the existing garage was built without permits and is a bit too close to the road....) but I think I actually like the results better in most cases.

We picked out an exterior color scheme that we like, and that will go with the rest of the houses on our street. It can be seen here in the first picture - the medium grey with white & dark trim, and dark shingles. What color the dark trim will end up is the last decision we need on that front.

Today we spent a couple of hours at the kitchen designer's shop and as soon as I can find links to everything, I'll post them. We picked cabinets & countertops and made a stab at some appliance ideas.

Welcome to housenoodling!

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:52:57 GMT

This is going to be where we blog the process of renovating our house. It's scary.