Winders n walls

Pretty sure I bought these windows over a year ago. Not sure why we didn't install them sooner, but they needed to get done before we framed that section of the basement. We only put in a half day of work today, but two windows completely installed and some more framing ain't too shabby! The big opening in the framing is where we are going to put our giant tv when it's finished. We wanted to squeeze a little more room out of the finished space but didn't want to do a full bulkhead down the length of the wall.

New vents

Before picture with vents in the center of the basement

After picture with vents moved to the far wall

Start of framing in basement

We're back to the non-photogenic part of construction as we move the mechanical around and continue with framing.  Having done a fair bit of HVAC in the early stages of this project, we decided to call in two guys we've worked with before to relocate and install new runs and vents for the basement and first floor.  Although it's a bit hard to see in the photos, the old main vent used to run right down the center of the basement.  The height of the room with the vent was around 6'4" - by moving the run to the wall, the ceiling height throughout the basement will be closer to 7'2" even once we put in the ceiling and carpet.  While it's still a basement, the extra height makes a big difference in how it feels so we figured it was worth the extra work.  The timing worked out well too, as I came down with a winter cold this weekend so my "contribution" consisted mainly of staying out the way the past two days while Brian took down old electric and planned for new and helped the guys out with the installation.  They finished everything up today and we started with the first wall framing in the basement.  Still a good bit of framing to do but we'll get back to it next weekend!

Framing Day

Old living room with no walls

Another angle of the first floor, pre-framing

Hello, new walls

Mudroom to the right, den/bedroom to the left

Interior of the mudroom with two closets framed out

We've been working away on framing up the first floor and are nearly finished now.  We've built the new mudroom and den/bedroom and framed up the closets in the mudroom as well.  So we've gone from too many walls and very small rooms to no walls and no rooms to just the right mix (we hope) of functional and right-sized rooms.  Next up, rerouting the HVAC vents, running electric, and some more demo of the old bathroom and plumbing for the new one.  It might not be much to look at now, but we're making progress.

Another Day, Another Wall Down

We continued our holiday celebration today by taking down another wall!  Today's project was the wall between the living room and kitchen and it turned out to take much longer than we expected.  Perhaps we got spoiled yesterday when everything went so smoothly.  We had to demo the existing wall, build the temporary walls, demo the old wall, and then install the beam.  The first three steps went smoothly but then we realized that a couple of vents ran under where we intended to put the supporting 2 x 4s so we had to move the vents and install solid blocking in order to have sufficient structural support.  That took longer than expected but we got it done.  This was the third and final beam so it's another item to check off our list! 

Merry Christmas, Part II

Merry Christmas from the construction zone!  We celebrated in our favorite way - by building and tearing down walls!  We've been putting our wood pile to good use, building a number of temporary walls so we could install the beams and, ultimately, take down the temporary and formerly permanent walls.  We've made a huge amount of progress and have two of the three beams installed so we're very close to having the first floor completely opened up.  We're installing Parallam beams and will leave them exposed to provide architectural interest.  We'll probably stain them a slightly darker color than they currently are but we'll wait until the new walls are up to make that decision.  Right now, it's just nice to see all the open space and say goodbye to the tiny old rooms.  We also owe a big thanks to my friend Jessica, who agreed to come visit us and help out despite the very long disclaimer email I sent in advance warning her about the state of our house and our "festive" plans for hard labor.  We're looking forward to more work, and more progress, over the next few days!

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas present arrived early this year. This giant pile of lumber will become our new walls soon. I don't think it will fit under the Christmas tree... If we had one that is. Tomorrow we will clean out the basement and hopefully start framing. Should be a nice project over the holiday break.

One Wall Down

As expected, we spent most of the weekend cleaning up after the demo and I have a feeling the "clean up" will continue every day for the next few months as we attempt to control the dust level in the house.  It's just the price of living in a construction zone! We also pulled all the old electrical wire, removed most of the nails from the old beams, and took down one of the old walls to start opening up the living room.  We're knocking out the nails and saving the old 2 x 4s as they're really nice old wood.  At some point in the future (namely, after we have a functioning first floor again), we'll use the old wood to build furniture or for other projects.

We also spent a good bit of the day planning the layout and making sure that we are happy with the floor plans.  If there's one thing we've learned throughout this renovation, it's that we have a tendency to make small but noticeable changes once we start laying things out in real life as opposed to just looking at the plans on paper.  The old part of the first floor will change from housing a living room, dining room, galley kitchen, two small bedrooms and a full bathroom to a living room, mud room, den/guest bedroom/office with full bath, half bath, and pantry.  In short, nothing will be left untouched and we'll be opening up a good bit of the existing support walls as well.  The load bearing walls run horizontally across the width of the house so we'll leave those walls up until the beams arrive. As it is, we'll have to build a couple of temporary walls before we can install the beams but there's no need to build extras when we can use the old walls instead.  The next few weekends will probably be a fair amount of work as we get the first floor and basement ready for framing.  We're back in the prep phase but making progress!