Water you mean there's still no roof?

Between the rain delays and the holidays this project seems to have slowed down way too much for our liking. The rain was the biggest concern when we took off the roof and after a few storms we've figured out a 3 tiered plastic system that has been doing a decent job. It was definitely a little dicey the first couple storms and we even ended up with a decent basement flooding that ruined some of our stuff and all of our carpets. The roof trusses are going up Friday with a crane so we are in the home stretch for the first major milestone to getting this house dried in. A roof should be on by the weekend or early next week if all goes well.

One of the biggest projects was completed last night with the lifting of the giant steel beam that opens up the new kitchen and supports the 2nd floor load and roof. They ended up building a hoist system to slowly lift it into place. There's still some work to be done before we can remove the temporary walls, but it shouldn't delay our new roof.

Today the 2nd floor exterior walls should be completed and we should have some sheathing on them to support the new trusses. Friday it should look like a complete shell of a house (at least it better).

Huge beam

Chimney is going to need a little extension to be useful.

Front View

Back view

Building Up

Finally building up here!  More progress as this starts to look like a house again.

First floor framing up

New addition

Two steps forward...or maybe two steps back

Construction continues to move along here, if we define construction as demolition as well as rebuilding.  Demo is about done and now the crew is working on putting the house back together, building the new addition, and eventually, building up.  We also, fortunately, survived the rain last weekend and during the week.  It took a lot of tarps and we've learned more than I wanted to know about controlling water flow and direction but the weather looks pretty good for the next week so we'll keep our fingers crossed that it stays clear and we'll push forward for a second floor - and eventually a roof - soon.

Demo is starting to get a little out of hand

Not much old house left!

But we're starting to make progress with new building!

Will stop for rain

The roof is pretty much completely off. No turning back now! Unfortunately we hit some bad weather today and more planned for tomorrow so we are in pause mode. The plan is to have the second floor framed out by next week and then the new roof a couple more weeks after that. Hopefully by Christmas we will be dried in again. This is the point in the project that we knew would be a pain in the ass. I'm taking hourly trips upstairs to check on the plastic fort I built. So far so good for keep our basement ceiling dry. Most of the basement has a drywall ceiling so I think we'll be protected no matter what, but I wouldn't be surprised to spring a few leaks if the rain gets heavy enough. So far it's just been sprinkling on and off. If I was a betting man I'd bet that around 3am is when the rain will be the heaviest. Least it's the weekend!

I think Tom Hanks said it best in The Money Pit - home crap home. 

Here we go!

The house is starting to be deconstructed:

Walls and windows starting to come out!

This does not look good!  And stay tuned for pictures tomorrow with the roof off!

Weekend Wrap-up

Just a couple more pictures as we wrap up our work for the weekend.  We finished up the weekend with 19 sheets of plywood installed, which is a little under half of the floor done.  In our defense, it was also as much as we could do, since the contractors still have a little more interior demo to finish up before we can tackle the rest.  They'll get back to work tomorrow and we'll work on the floor a little more each evening from here on in.

Now that's a solid floor!

Front porch, ready for concrete pour

Step by Step

We're still here!  We've been bad about blogging but not about working and I'll get caught up with an extra long post today.  Lots of work going on around here.  First up, more foundation work on the new front porch and the back addition by the contractors.  They should be just about finished with the foundation work early next week and then will start building up on the addition.  They'll also finish cleaning up the inside of the house and, finally, take the roof off this week (weather permitting).  In the meantime, we spent our holiday doing the decidedly unfestive and downright hard work of tearing up the old hardwood floor and subfloor and replacing it with new 3/4" plywood.  This house, like the last one, has 1x6 diagonal slat subfloor.  In the last house, we added additional screws to tighten everything down before laying the new hardwood but it wound up being a fair bit of work to get the old floor level and secure and then we were still dealing with the old subfloor.  Although it worked out just fine with bamboo hardwood over it, we're likely to use a wide plank white oak on this floor so we'd like a firmer and flatter base instead.  As a result, we're pulling up both the existing oak hardwood and the old subfloor and then installing new plywood in its place.  It's quite a challenge but we're moving along.  Good thing we had a few days off to tackle it - and what better way to spend a holiday weekend than covered in sawdust!  

This doesn't look like much (okay, it looks awful) but someday it'll be a front porch

We have a foundation wall!

Someday, this will be the two-story back addition

Getting started with removing the hardwood and the subfloor

Moving along with the messy work

Looking better

Tearing up the old bathroom floor.  I used to wish this bathroom was bigger when we were using it - but when it was time to take up the shower pan, tile, and subfloor, I was grateful for its small size.

In process - this bathroom was incredibly well-built with two layers of 3/4" plywood subfloor that was glued and screwed and schluter ditra membrane, which was nice to see but a nuisance to remove!

Finally, ready for new ply!

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...