Days 131-133: Kitchen Cabinets

The kitchen cabinets are going in and looking great. We've found a couple issues with the Cabico cabinets (one spot with a rough finish, a splinter in a door, a door that needed to be shorter) but nothing major, and the issues are apparently all going to get resolved. The builders are happy with the cabinets in general.

The ceiling in the kitchen is a little problematic apparently, so Bryan needs to figure out how to make the crown moulding fit and look right.

Cheryl spoke with a design person from Enclave in West Concord this morning to help us decide on colors and now we finally have a decision on the master bathroom vanity surface - the tub deck and vanity top will be Giallo Ornamental granite.

Day 131 pictures
Day 132 pictures

Days 129-130: Painting

Spending a lot of time prepping, priming, and painting this weekend. The kitchen cabinets go in monday, so getting the kitchen painted was necessary. The walls and ceilings upstairs still need some attention so I could only do the kitchen. one primer coat and two coats of paint on the walls and ceiling and we are ready for cabinets tomorrow.

Next week need to decide on more paint colors for the downstairs rooms and for the master suite.

Day 130 pictures

Days 123-128: Floors, Walls, and Granite

Finally uploaded more pictures, and have yet to take some today.

We've stayed away while the floors were refinished. Back in today and everything looks great. I found some irregularities on the floor but Bryan spoke to the finisher and we'll get those addressed.

The house was abuzz with activity this morning as the plasterers came back to address the myriad spots marked with blue tape on the walls and ceiling, the floor got covered by pink paper, and the granite guys came to measure and template for the tub deck/shower seat/shower curb.

The house is far from done but I'm looking forward to seeing it coming together quickly. I'm painting this weekend.

Day 123 pictures
Day 124 pictures
Day 126 pictures
Day 128 pictures

I'm a lame blogger / Floors being sanded and finished today

OK, so the blogging fell apart when Cheryl's graduation/kids out of school/vacation came crashing down. I'll going to retroactively post updates with the pictures from the missing weeks soon.

The project has progressed well - we're getting close to having a kitchen back. The floor refinishers are sanding right now and will apply the first coat today, second coat tomorrow. For the next few days we're staying at a friend's house while they are at their vacation home, until the polyurethane cures.

Pictures coming soon...

Correction: Don't blame the roofer

I blamed the roofer for breaking our window but upon further investigation it was already broken, apparently between days 9 and 22 according to my Flickr archive.

Day 40: Breaking through into the main house

Today was a big day. Last night we emptied the remaining junk from the boy's room and the builder went about removing the window and wall. Before and after shots are below.

We had visits from the geothermal heating guy that a friend used for his system, the plasterer, and a propane salesman, too.

Mike told me that the 6 foot tub won't fit in the space we thought - I misread the plans since the 6'4" space is from the outside of the wall to the far end of the tub, which means that the tub can only be 5'10". So we think that we're going to cut down the shower size a bit to accommodate. I got into a 5' tub at Home Depot last night and I just don't fit, so we really want a 6' tub.

We also made a quick switch to change the laundry room door from a swing-in door to a pocket door, and discussed adding windows to the wall between the study and the master bedroom to let in more light.

We also finally decided on the front door (Thermatru Fiber-Classic, able to be stained to look like wood, nickel hardware) and the kitchen window (6' wide). Decisions about tile, cabinets, countertops, appliances, fixtures, and more are bearing down on us.

More day 40 pictures.

Day 38: Part 2, a new roof

At 7am Cheryl and I wake up and realize that we need to lay the plastic down in the attic. We didn't do it last night because it was too dark and we didn't find a functioning flashlight until 4am. We got it laid down pretty quickly and a good thing because the roofers arrived at 7:30 and had most of the roof off by 8:30.

Before:

During:

After:

Oops:

I came home from bringing our daughter to an activity and at 12:30 the roof was done. I did some magnet work to make sure that the nails from the roofing were all picked up, and not surprisingly I found some, so the roofer with the big magnet bar ran over the ground again. We found a bunch.

The roofers installed GAF Timberline shingles, Pewter Gray (Natural Shadow), an architectural shingle, and while I will be most happy if I never have to get up at 4am to deal with leaks, the new roof looks great. The only problem was that Cheryl noticed that we have a broken window now. I suspect that it got hit by a ladder or something, but this should be easy to fix.

More Day 38 pictures.

Day 38: Part 1, We do more before 5am than some people do all day

At 4am Cheryl hears the shower upstairs dripping and gets up to shut the valve. But it isn't the shower, it is our son's ceiling that is dripping. So now she gets me up. We mop up the floor, place buckets and then decide that I should go into the attic to see if the source of the leak is apparent and put a bucket there instead. This is hard because we can't find a flashlight that works.

Red flashlight? Missing. BOGO solar flashlight? Dead from overuse by the kids who didn't put it back in view of the sun. Princess flashlight? Dead with corroded batteries since the girls no longer love Disney princesses, thank goodness.

Finally, Cheryl finds our head lamp flashlight, which is the best option anyway. The roof sheathing is stained in two easily-found locations, so I first tried the old "string to direct the leak into a bucket" trick, but I can hear that the rain is letting up, so there probably won't be much more coming in anyway. I pull up the wet insulation and find the pooled water near the light fixture. I ask Cheryl for a towel that she doesn't mind getting disgustingly dirty - she hands me a Disney princess towel (see above for why this is OK) - and I am able to mop up the water.

I take almost all of the pictures for this project, and this is probably a good thing, since Cheryl later observed that she considered going to get the camera to take a picture of me pulling up insulation wearing only underwear and a headlamp. At 4:30am that might have not been so well-received...

I went downstairs and noticed that there was still dripping coming from the light fixture. The light fixture, which is a dome shape, was full of water, so I was happy that the light's power was off (and I know that there is nothing hot in the fixture since I ...um... watched the guy install it). I untwisted the bolt holding the dome on and the rest poured out. I wiped the floor and went back to bed.

Day 35, 36, & 37: Rain and Roof

Wednesday it was raining so the builders didn't come to the house.

Thursday I was traveling, so I don't know what they did but Cheryl says that they were upstairs working.

Friday the framers switched the rake board trim from the straight 3" Azek that they installed to a similarly-sized but nicer-looking finishing piece.

Mike asked me if it was OK for the roofers to come on Saturday. I said sure. The roof shingles arrived in the afternoon and I went to Home Depot to pick up some plastic to cover everything in the attic.

More Day 37 pictures

Day 34: Starting to wrap the house

The framers came yesterday, despite it being Memorial Day, and finished framing the gable end of the addition closest to the main house. They added the trim boards to the gables and started to wrap the structure in tyvek.

The front windows for the mudroom finally got cut out -- they were framed but the plywood was solid so it was difficult to get a sense of the look. We changed this from being a door with solid and unopenable sidelights, to being a door with two windows so it lets in the same amount of light almost, but can be used to ventilate the room without opening the door to let the air (and bugs) in. The view of the room looking out is below:

More Day 34 pictures

Day 30 & 31: Front roof added, appliance and garage door search continues

The front roof was framed and it really starts to show the shape of the front of the house. Very exciting.

Shopping for a garage door is an absolute pain in the ass. Our door will be 9' wide and 8' tall (see Day 23 for more on that...) and for some reason all of the garage door manufacturers have decided that the same size windows at the top of the door will work for any size door, so the windows look great and proportionate for an 8' door, but look like the clothes on a kid in the middle of a growth spurt for the 9' door - just a little too small.

Mike send us the "have this thing by this time" list today. Cheryl and I will be discussing and debating the merits of gas vs. electric, 30" range vs. 36", 5' window vs. 6' window, over-the-range microwave vs. drawer microwave vs. over the counter microwave, and fiberglass faux-wood front door ($750) vs. wood front door ($1300) vs. Marvin® Wood front door ($3700). It looks like getting gas into the house is a $1300 expense, so electric is looking better all the time. If we could find a 5-burner electric range with 5 real burners in a 30" size that'd be perfect, but they don't seem to make that, only with a "warming zone", which means you can melt butter on it. We'll figure it all out sooner or later...

More Day 30 pictures
More Day 31 pictures

Day 29: Framing the Roof

The roof rafters were added today. A few shots...

More Day 29 pictures

Bryan indicated that we'll break into the upstairs bedroom and downstairs bathroom in the next two weeks.

Day 28: 2nd Floor Walls

The walls went up today.

More day 28 pictures

Day 27: We've got a second floor

The deck for the second floor was installed today and the 4 25-foot LVL's were raised into place. The LVLs are the same ones that were going to be installed in the way of the garage door opening, but are raised up now to be out of the way of the door. Bryan says that the big challenge is that the gable-end wall now needs to be built in place rather than being built on the desk and raised. Nonetheless, he says that walls should be going up on the second floor tomorrow.

Here's an action shot of Robert, doing, um, something on the new deck.

And here's a shot of the 4 LVL's that will be the base of the front wall of the upstairs

Cheryl and I are still grappling with kitchen design questions (e.g. 36" range or 30" range? 6' window or 5' window?). We also had questions on whether we wanted a 2x2 or 3x2 grid for a couple of windows, and what we wanted to do about the roof overhang for the addition. Both helpful questions since the plans specify things but Mike and Bryan correctly questioned the wisdom of these so we're reconsidering.

More Day 27 pictures.

Day 24: Framing continues

It is starting to get a sense of the spaces now that the framing of the second floor floors is underway. Very cool. Cheryl and the kids are enjoying looking around, as am I.

The garage door issue seems to be resolving itself. A way to allow us to have 8-foot garage doors was found, unfortunately the framers had already done some of the work to make the doors 7'6", so there is a bit of rework. Bryan and Mike have been great with this issue, I'm glad we've got them working on this project - I'm sure some of the builders we've spoken to over the months and years would have handled the situation less competently.

Tonight, Cheryl and I are working to finalize out kitchen layout and plans.

More Day 24 pictures.

Day 23: Who designed this thing?

More lumber arrived today, but that wasn't the most significant event of the day.

Cheryl and I poured over a new version of the plans that our architect delivered Tuesday. There are some odd changes and inaccuracies, but nothing that can't be corrected. The builders have been frustrated by the lack of information in our plans, or, as in the case of today, problems.

Problem #1

Mike called this morning and said that there was a problem with the plans in that they call for an 8' tall garage door in each bay, but they also call for 4 25-foot LVL beams to support the second floor and for these beams to hang down into the garage space far enough so that the 8' garage door wouldn't be able to open. Brilliant.

So we've gone back and forth with the structural engineer and architect multiple times today, trying to resolve a problem that should have been handled in the plans correctly the first time.

No, I don't want to put a post in the garage so we can have a smaller beam, thus giving up what we asked for in our design to compensate for incorrect design.

No, I don't want to pay my builder more to do more complicated work that he figured on based on our incorrect plans.

No, I don't want my builder to shoulder the cost.

I want plans that are correct, without dumb mistakes. Too late for that... at least they were expensive.

Problem #2

Another issue that I inquired about today relates to our second floor, where there is a reflected ceiling for the master bedroom and study, but they only way you'd know that is to look at the page titled "Electrical plan - Reflected ceiling plan". Yep, the reflected ceiling information is in there, but not in the structural plans to specify what the framing for the non-reflected ceiling is, not in the second floor plan, just in the "electrical and reflected ceiling plan". Have I asked who eats the up charge for lousy plans?

Problem #3

I also found out that the structural plans say that the large window in our room can have a box header, but Bryan, not trusting that asked the structural guy who agreed that this is a problem, but we can just replace the box header with LVL's. LVL's are expensive and weren't budgeted for so based on not being called for in the plans and will cost more. Again, if there is an error in the plans, do we eat it?

Pissed.

Day 22: More Framing

More framing today. We needed to decide on the garage door from the mudroom since it is not consistently sized in the plans, so that was a small problem. We also decided to change the front door from being a front door with two sidelights to a front door with a narrow window on each side of it so that we can more easily provide ventilation to the room without opening the door wide and allowing bugs in.

More Day 22 pictures

Day 21: Framing the mudroom deck and garage walls

The framers were back to continue the framing. They completed the mudroom and entry deck and got two walls up.

The builders are using 2x6 construction and OVE (Optimum Value Engineering) framing techniques, which generally results in less wood and more insulation. Mike has been happy to do OVE framing, but is skeptical of the benefits, which is fair enough, but we are hoping that it makes our house greener. You can see how a window in the garage is framed above - a lot less wood than in conventional framing.

More Day 21 pictures

Day 20: The framing starts

The framers arrived at 7:15 and there really wasn't much doubt that they had. The Sawzall made quick work of removing the ant-chewed sill and before the kids got on the bus at 8:15 the sill was replaced with wood that stood a chance of holding a nail.

The framers put down a foam layer to seal between the treated lumber sill and the foundation, and then a second untreated layer on top of the treated layer. Bolts were fastened and ground flush. The mudroom floor is now framed and tomorrow there's lots more framing to do.

More day 20 pictures

Days 16, 17, 18: Lumber arrives

Day 16: Cheryl and I discussed details about windows and doors with Mike and the window/door guy. We'd like to have a big window in the kitchen, but in order to do so we need to finalize our cabinet design and appliance locations.

Day 17: I managed to match the roof shingle from 2 years ago that we had installed over the mudroom. Timberline, Pewter Grey, as it turns out. I didn't think that there were blue colored stones in our shingles, but there are.

Day 18: Lumber was delivered bright and early Saturday morning (8am-ish), waking our neighbor with the beep...beep..beep... that trucks backing up make. Sorry! I'm sure that the incessant hammering that will start Monday with the start of framing will be better.

Pictures from days 16-19

Day 15: Backfilling the foundation

The foundation was filled in, although not before Cheryl and I were able to drop several cinder blocks and old bricks into the pit, which saves me from bringing those to Concord's drop-off/swap-off day and paying to have them thrown away. The previous owners of the house had a lot of concrete and concrete block around, we're gradually getting rid of it.

Cheryl and I are in the midst of making key decisions about windows and doors, which is harder than expected but will get done.

More day 15 pictures

Day 14: Foundation complete

The foundation forms were stripped off and the foundation surface tuned so the framers will be happy with it. The building inspector came and signed off on the foundation, and tomorrow the backfilling will be done.

More Day 14 pictures

Day 13: Foundation walls poured

The foundation walls were poured today. The footings took 10 yards of concrete and the foundation walls required 16. That meant two cement trucks and one happy four-year-old. I'm amazed at how interesting I think the concrete work is, how the concrete guy blocks off sections where concrete shouldn't be in order to get doorways, the placement of the anchor bolts, the delivery process...

The forms get stripped tomorrow and (hopefully) the inspection of the footings and walls passes tomorrow afternoon.

More Day 13 pictures

Day 11: Foundation forms

The footings received the top part of the foundation forms today. I thought it was interesting how the crawl space vents are made - inserting the vent blocks between the form walls. See the picture in my Flickr pictures with the link below.

Day 11 pictures

Day 10: Footings are in

Today was a big day - the concrete for the foundation footing was poured about noon and by 5pm the forms were stripped and the foundation forms were started to be put in place.

Mike also pointed out to me that we've got carpenter ant damage under the old mudroom door. He explored a little bit and didn't see it too far from that location, but it sure looks extensive and we will need to find out more about this in the coming days.

More Day 10 pictures

Day 9: Forms for foundation footings

More progress at last. The footings for the foundation will be poured tomorrow, so the forms went in today.

Day 9 pictures

Day 8

Did I say "the foundation guy will come tomorrow"? Maybe I meant that he'll come tomorrow as in "Thursday or Friday"...

Mike has received clarification from the structural engineer on venting the mudroom crawl space and is figuring out why the architect and structural engineer seem to have designed slightly different houses.

Day 7

Nothing happening at the house today. The architect hadn't specified venting for the crawl space under the new mudroom, so we've been going back and forth over that. We can't put in a standard window since there is only about 8" of clearance from the ground to the top of the foundation. Mike is figuring out options and says that the foundation guy will come tomorrow.

What's that smell? (Days 4-6)

The guys who tore down the garage didn't turn all the breakers back on. Most of them, but not the one that the freezer was also on. Suprisingly, we had a lot of frozen items in the freezer and some ice that was even still frozen, so fortunately even a few days later things actually weren't stinky and were even cold. I'm not sure if they will be edible but there is some hope since not all of the ice was melted. What will REALLY piss me off is if Cheryl's strawberry-rhubarb pies that she made last summer are inedible. We're only down about $40 in food costs, but quite a bit in time that Cheryl or I put into the items that we froze for lazy dinners.

Nothing happened on days 4 or 5, but on day 6 the town building inspector came by to approve the excavation for the footings. The hole shows no sign of any unstable base, so we're signed off.

Day 3

Nothing happened today. I complained to Mike that the dumpster was placed too close to the tree and he said that they'd move it. He probably thinks that I'm some sort of tree-hugger freak, but it is our favorite tree...

Since there was nothing happening today, I've instead made a stitched-together image of the scene. Check it out - I can write checks AND use Photoshop.

Day 2: Garage Demo

The garage came down in less than 10 minutes (in that video about the first 2 minutes and at 7:45 are the best parts). The crowd of neighborhood kids loved it.



More Day 2 pictures

Day 1: Cutting the garage away from the house

Today was the start. The dumpster was delivered, and the guys cut the mudroom and garage away from the house so that when the excavator demo's the garage it doesn't damage the house.

At night, I removed the final pieces from the structure like the lockset and exterior light, both new, and emptied the final stuff from the garage.

Demo is at 8am tomorrow and all the neighborhood kids are ready!

Day 1 photos

Work starts tomorrow

Finally! The garage is empty, the mudroom is empty, the storage pod is bursting at the seams, and the contractor is coming to separate the mudroom from the house tomorrow.

The Plans

Project structural drawings: Download PDF of structural drawings
Project plans: Download PDF of plans

Hell Freezes Over

Finally cleaned out, and with at least 24 hours to go before demo, the garage holds its first car since we bought the house.

Geez, Louise!

Ok, we're really going to start....now. wait. No, ...now. hold on. ....NOW.

We've been waiting on the bank. They appraised our house's future value at a lower amount than we needed them to - a factor of the lower property values. I wound up harrasing the bank to try to get them to get the appraiser to increase the appraisal and then to give us a higher loan-to-value ratio. Telling them that I was going to go with another bank seemed to help a bit, as did pointing out comparable houses nearby that were assessed for higher amounts.

So, we're good to go now. Cheryl goes away to San Diego and may come back to a house with no garage...

Baseline

This is what we've got now. Click on the picture for pictures of our awful, awful house now. Pardon the mess.

So when does it start?

The bank is doing its appriasal and determining if our house will be worth what we're putting into it, but once that is done we will be able to close the load and pay the contractor to start.

Hope to have the garage down in 2-3 weeks.

Ka-Ching!

Met with banker tonight to finalize loan. Yow!

<Gulp>

Well, that's it. I just told the constractor that we are accepting his proposal for our house renovation. I'll post information about the project, including pictures as the job progresses.