Outside Work

Not too much new to report this week - the contractors have continued to work on cleaning up/demoing the first floor and have been digging the foundation for the addition and front porch.  Our lot continues to look worse and worse but it really is a step in the right direction - or at least, that's what I tell myself when I look at it!  We'll keep an eye on the weather this week too - the next steps are to pour the foundation for the addition, finish interior demo, and then take the roof off so we can build up a level.  Roof removal could happen this week but more likely next week, especially with unusual cold and possible rain threatening.  At this point, there's probably not going to be a perfect stretch of weather for this project but we'll move on ahead anyway at some point!

House front with new porch foundation outline - the front door will move to where the new porch will be

Backyard with even more debris

Someday, there will be an addition here - but right now it's just a mess!

 

Piece by piece

More demo - over the weekend, we dismantled the sunroom and packed it up.  As with so many items, we sold it on Craigslist and the new owner will reassemble it.  I'm always glad to sell materials and keep them out of the landfill but it did mean being careful about taking it down so it can be reused and we had to build a makeshift wall so we wouldn't have a big hole in the back of the house, but it's all set now.  Another piece of demo finished!

Pre-demo, sunroom and awning

And post-demo!

No more sunroom!

No turning back

More demolition - goodbye first floor!

Ceiling and nearly all walls gone

Waiting for another dumpster to arrive

Fireplace will stay standing - everything else will go!

Hard to believe but last week, we had two bedrooms and two bathrooms here

Demo Days

And...the project is officially moving from the planning stage into the construction stage!  Which also means we're at the point where the "after" pictures start looking decidedly worse than the "before" ones.  We did some demo ourselves to take down our kitchen and move it into the basement and then open up some walls in order to get all of our furniture downstairs as well.  We've officially relocated to the lower level while the first floor gets completely gutted and rebuilt and a second story is added on.  The construction guys are now in, a giant dumpster is in our driveway, and the project is moving along!  Stay tuned for more pictures as the house comes down!

Before - old kitchen

Not too bad, before

But getting worse...

Still worse yet...

Before - when walls were in place

Goodbye walls

Before living room (we were harvesting carpet for the basement, hence the missing strip)

More before

Big change!  Walls coming down everywhere

Good thing we aren't trying to live on this floor anymore

Open plan house...

The Weekend Grind

This post is a weekend and a couple of days late but here it is - we decided to try something new a weekend ago and rented a piece of heavy mechanical equipment instead of buying it and, happily, it worked out quite well!  We picked up a tree stump grinder on Saturday morning and returned it on Monday morning and during the interim, ground down close to two dozen tree stumps of varying sizes (everything from giant to relatively small) all over the yard.  One of the stumps is still partially standing even after all our work - it turned out to be just too big to conquer all at once but we managed to reduce it quite a bit in size and will continue to work it down the old-fashioned way (fire, chemicals, ax, and chain saw...not all at the same time, of course) over the next few weeks.

We also started taking the old chain link fence down and discovered that the former owners used anchors on the fence poles, making a hard job even harder.  Having already done this once at the last house and being committed to doing it again now, I'm starting to feel like we may pay a premium just to buy a house without a chain link fence next time!

New machine, hitching a ride with the new(ish) truck

Chomp chomp chomp - note all the wood chips in the back corner already!

Still working...

Corner before, with giant ivy covered stump on the right side and many small stumps hiding under the foliage

And corner after, goodbye fence and many stumps

Ze Plans, Ze Plans!

We are getting closer to starting construction. We have a contractor narrowed down and should have our permits in hand in the next week or two. Hopefully demo will start this month! The plans look a lot like our last house, but on a larger scale. Adding a new second story and doing a two story bump out in the back. That seems to be the biggest bang for your buck construction wise. We're shooting for some nicer finishes on this house as the end price will be higher. If all goes well we will have the first and second floors done by the summer... Maybe Fall... next Winter at the latest.

Current first floor layout

Current basement layout - aka where we'll be living the next 6-8 months!

New basement layout.

New first floor layout. The deck will walk out onto a patio with grill and firepit. 

New second floor layout.

New front elevation. We're going with hardie siding and trim most likely in a dark blue with white trim. 

Right side view.

New back view.

Left side view. 

Laying the Groundwork

It's been pretty slow around here on the tangible house progress front but we are moving along.  We've been working with our house designer and have plans drawn up and submitted to the county for permits.  The house is slated to be even bigger than we originally planned - a whopping 6 bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths, 4800 finished sq ft behemoth.  By suburban standards, this might not be too big but it's a significant increase from our last house, which clocked in around 2800 sq. ft.  But while the scope is bigger, then plan is much the same as before - pull off the roof, add a floor, and put a two story addition on the back.  So it's good to remind ourselves that this isn't a new process, just a bigger project!

In the meantime, we've been working on the yard to clean up the foliage and clear a path around the house in anticipation of construction starting and getting organized inside and out.  One small project with a satisfyingly large impact was cleaning out and organizing the garage.   The prior owner had some nice shelving and work benches in the garage but when we moved in, we just piled stuff in and around the garage without much planning or sorting.  So, we finally took a day to go through our tools and other items and get them organized and put on shelves.  We also demo'd a bunch of the shelving and workbenches to make more space and used a favorite trick of taking the doors off existing storage cabinets to create more visible storage space.  This wasn't a big project but it's a good one to check off the list.

This is kind of a mess

More mess...

Much better

We may even be able to find our tools now!