Holding Pattern

We're in another holding pattern this week. We're waiting on approval of our wall check plat from the zoning office before Oscar can call for a framing inspection. Hopefully we'll get that in the next day or two and then Oscar can finish up the porch and the siding.

Not sure what the weekend will hold for us yet, but most likely replacing the large front window and knocking out some more of the exterior painting.

Framing finished

The crew finished up all the framing inside. We now have a half bath and pantry framed out where the old kitchen was. We're still waiting on our wall check survey before we can get the framing inspection. Once that's cleared Oscar can finish up the porch and he's done. We'll take over the project and start all our rough ins.

Kitchen demo complete

The crew finished the old kitchen demo today. We're going to put a half bath here along with a small pantry. You can see how the area leading in from the living room opens up nicely to the dining room (to the right) and kitchen (to the left). Both french doors open up to the outside so they don't impede on either space.

Check out the wiring that was buried in the wall... yikes!

Kitchen shuffle

We removed the remaining half of the kitchen to a temporary spot. The old kitchen gets totally demo'd tomorrow and a half bath gets framed in its place. We'll leave the gas hookup for our stove so we don't have go without one for a few months. The next few weekends of work for us will be painting the exterior of the house and finishing up the remaining replacement windows.

We have most of the material for the electrical and plumbing rough in. For plumbing we're using a home run pex manifold system. It's very efficient and relatively easy to install. Pex is flexible tubing that has special crimp connections. More on that in a few weeks when we start rough in.

Tear down this wall

Not quite the same effect as in 1987, but dramatic none the less. No more temporary wall separating the construction zone and the living zone. It's now all construction zone. Yay? You can see our teeny tiny half kitchen we've been dealing with the last few months. We're going to move it out of the way so the crew can finish framing this area.

We now have that open kitchen and dining room we always wanted. Well, minus a sink, floors, walls, electricity, a/c.... but it is open and quite airy.

Beam finished

The crew finished the beam that holds up our master bedroom over the new kitchen. Other than that we're in a bit of a holding pattern. We needed to order a few more pieces to finish the siding so that should finish up by the end of the week. At some point soon we'll have to take our the old kitchen so they can finish framing the downstairs. We're going to try to finish the painting and then move onto the patio so the outside will be pretty much complete in a month or two.

Exterior painting

We painted the front of the house since it was raining and that's the only part covered. So far so good. The paint is covering well and it matches exactly. Now the house is really looking different!