Adding On

I apologize in advance . . . this is going to be a long post with lots of photos.  I take photos of the progress almost every time I visit our house, but clearly I don't get around to blogging them often enough.  So today I'm going to pile it on here.  Ready?

Our house had five bedrooms when we purchased it in November.  But like you've seen in past blog posts, those bedrooms were teeny tiny, oddly shaped, and most importantly, they were all upstairs.  The last of those qualities was almost a deal-breaker for me.  My kids can surely deal with small bedrooms.  At this point they would be thrilled with just about any room as long as it was their own since the big girls have shared a room since they were 2 and 4 and Tessa has been in our room her entire life.  Dixon is the only one who has always enjoyed a space to himself.  The perks of being the only boy I suppose.

The problem with the bedrooms being upstairs is really MY issue.  I have developed terribly swollen and arthritic knees since Tessa was born.  Before I found out what was wrong (bipolar patella femeral syndrome with arthritis, if you're interested), my knees were swollen to the size of cantaloupes and the simple act of swinging my legs up onto our bed at night was painful.  Going up and down stairs and sitting  / standing up were agonizing movements.  And forget getting on the floor to play with the kids.  I felt like a 90 year-old woman.  Thankfully, I've figured out how to manage the swelling and pain a bit.  I still don't have normal knee function and sometimes I find myself in horrific pain when I do something I shouldn't (like drop to the ground playing Duck, Duck, Goose with the kids).  But because of my knee problems I knew one thing for certain.  I needed my master bedroom to be on the ground floor of our new home.

This is our forever home.  If my knees are this bad now, I imagine they aren't going to improve with time.

It was actually quite fun designing our master addition.  In some ways we felt like we could do whatever we wanted since we were starting from scratch.  At the same time, we were limited to the confines of the property.  There was only one direction we could go because of the stream and the laws defining how close you can build to the water.  So we ended up making a really, really long house.   My only concern is how far away from the kids we will be at night, but we found a solution that makes me feel a bit better about that.

To begin, the excavators had to bring in the heavy equipment and, well, dig.

The original plan was to have a full basement under the addition.  We even considered insulating it and possibly connecting it to the current basement, but that expense wasn't in the budget.  Plus, the excavators ran into so much rock that it would have been difficult to get the height necessary.  So they stopped digging and we ended up with a great space that just doesn't have much head room.  Cory can just barely walk in the space without hitting his head on the ceiling.

It's totally okay with us that this won't be living space.  We really only plan to use it to store the lawn mowers and possibly seasonal kids' toys.

The footers were poured and we could almost / sort of see how the addition was going to take shape.

Once the concrete had set the framers arrived and went. to. town. Seriously, the walls seemed to FLY up on the addition!  You can see a bit of the basement space under the sub floor and you can also see how parts of our master suite cantilever out towards the stream.

Remember that old sun porch?  This is where it once stood.  The door on the left goes to the garage.  It will be moved to the left to allow for something new (that "something" will be seen soon).  The door to the right will no longer exist as it will be the entryway into the family room.

Oh, and that roof?  It's about to disappear as well.

Our bedroom walls soon appeared.  I have to say that the views we have of the stream are breathtaking. I may never want to leave this space!

The interior walls were next.  At the far end is our closet.  The linen closet, toilet closet, and shower are in the middle.  The soaker tub will sit in front of the big picture window on the left.  And the wall separating the bathroom from the bedroom goes on the near side of that window.

Finally, the day Cory and I were waiting for finally came.  The trusses arrived!  We chose to have a cathedral ceiling in our bedroom to really give it a spacious feel.  We are SO happy with that decision!  The rest of the house has average ceiling heights, so this is the one room that will have a more grand feel.

At the other end of the addition, the space for the laundry and mud room was coming along as well.  There is another big picture window opposite the laundry room doors and a set of french doors will lead to a big deck.

And the roof is GONE!  That space above the garage that was once zoned only for light storage has been beefed up and expanded.  It is now Sasha's bedroom.  We raised the back roof line so she gains space and has enough room for a closet.  Plus, raising the roof line allowed us to include that "something" I mentioned earlier to help me get over being so far away from the kids at night.

That "something" is a set of back stairs!  Instead of having to walk all the way through the house to get to the front foyer and stairs to get to my kids at night, I will now only have to walk through the mud room area and go up the back stairs.  It gives me tremendous peace of mind knowing that I have quicker access to my babies.

So in this photo you can see the stairs are where the door to the garage used to be.  The new entrance is by the green ladder.  We will have six cubbies, three on each side of the door, in our mud room area so we can drop our shoes and coats there instead of dragging them into the house.  The entrance into the family room is also now visible.

Here is a view of the back stairs looking up towards Sasha's room.  At the top of the stairs is a landing, then straight ahead is a storage room.  Sasha's bedroom and closet are to the left.  To the right is an entrance into the kids' study area that leads to the other bedrooms.

And a view looking down the stairs.  I love the window at the top and the light it brings into the space.

Can you tell I'm excited about those stairs?

So standing at the entrance to the family room, this is the view.  Back stairs are to the right, mud room area is next, and then the framed-in space is the downstairs laundry room.  Our master bedroom follows.

The outside of the addition is now covered and the roof has been added.  It's a good thing too, since we had a couple weeks of heavy rain.

One of the more difficult decisions we had to make was regarding the siding and trim colors.  All of the current siding and trim is being replaced to match the addition so we had to choose colors that would work with the existing stone and brick.  I REALLY wanted a bold, dark color, but we couldn't find it in the vertical board and batton style of siding we like.  So eventually we settled on a light gray siding with white trim.

Progress!  Our deadline for moving is very quickly approaching, so hopefully the work inside will go super fast from now on.  Now that all the rooms have defined shapes we are itching to get in there and start our lives in our new home.

Progress!

I'm dreadfully behind on my blog posts.  So much has been happening at the house over the past few months and it's taken me longer than I anticipated to document each stage of destruction.  But there has been LOTS of progress "reconstructing" the house so I thought I'd start to share the really good stuff!

Let's start with Dixon's bedroom.

Originally this was the master bedroom and bathroom.

The doorway on the right led out to the hallway.  The door by the windows had that strange toilet.  Off to the left was the bizarre bathroom / closet area.

After we gutted the bathroom area including the infamous Green Monster, we tore out the flooring.  There was hardwood around the perimeter of the room under the carpet, so that was fun to tear out.  Heh.

Then we started to sling our sledgehammers into the plaster wall that separated the right side of the bathroom from the bedroom.  We followed the angle of the shed roof carefully while opening the space as much as we could.

As it turned out, our contrator had us remove the plaster on the entire wall since they needed to blow in new insulation and fiddle with the electric a bit.  Plus it's easier to just hang new drywall than try to work around old plaster.

The framers studded the new bedroom walls and things started to feel real in there quickly.  The wall above splits the former master in two.  On the right of the photo above is the new doorway into Dixon's room.  The rest of what was the master is now a hallway to the bathroom and an upstairs laundry area for the kids.

The area above used to be bathroom.  The shower, a.k.a. the Green Monster, was at the left of the photo.  There was a vanity and mirror at the back wall and closet space along the right wall.  Now this area is going to be a play area for Dixon.  I plan to put his train table against the wall and other toys and books he loves will go there as well.  At the very back of the space is his new closet.  I think this space is going to work quite well for him!

Ta-da!  We have drywall!  Now the shape of the room is REALLY clear.  Sleeping space up front, play area in the middle, closet at the back.

A different angle of his room: you can see he still has the windows for light and a view of the stream.  But the toilet closet is gone, thank goodness.

Progress is definitely being made!

RIP, Sun Porch

I think it's safe to say that most people would love to have a sun porch, especially one that faces large evergreens and a gorgeous stream.  On warm, sunny mornings you could sip your coffee while reading the paper on the porch with the sounds of the water and birds in the background.  Sounds peaceful and lovely, no?

Our new house had such a sun porch.  Had being the operative word.

The porch can be seen in the photo above, behind the horrible snow mound.

And here is a better look at it.  (Overlook the ladder.)  It had floor to ceiling screens all the way around and could be accessed from the garage, the family room, and the outside.  Under the porch was an air conditioning unit and a place to tuck away a lawn mower or whatever else you would want to store there. 

 There was also a metal railing along the top of the porch on the roof.  When we first looked at the house we though the railing meant we could use the rooftop as outdoor living space as well, but it turned out that the railing was purely decorative.

Anyway, while the idea of a nice, big sun porch was indeed lovely, Cory and I knew this one had to go.  It was quite old and when standing inside you could feel the floor sloping towards the stream.  It just didn't feel sturdy and safe.

I never got a photo of the inside as it was before, but here is what it looked like full of wood flooring that we tore out of the house.

And this is the view of the stream.  This view almost makes me sad the porch is gone. Then I remember that we'll still have that view but in a much more useful space.

But the biggest reason we had to say goodbye to the porch is because our master suite addition needed to be accessed via that space.

Try to follow me for a moment.  The area that WAS the sun porch is about to become a mudroom / laundry room and hallway to our master bedroom, which will be added beside that section of the house.  Does that make sense?  We really need to have a downstairs master and this was the only place we could put it because of where the stream runs on the property.

If we had paid professionals to demo this porch we would have forked over about $3,000.  Yep.  Three. Thousand.  Dollars.  Seems pricey, right?  Since we did ALL the demo in the house ourselves, we couldn't bring ourselves to spend that kind of cash on something we knew we could tackle.  The problem was, we needed more manpower.  Cory couldn't do this himself, and my 5'2" self can only handle so much "manly" labor.

Once again, our family was awesome and totally stepped in to get this job done.  I popped into the house one afternoon and saw this:

That's Cory's dad and another guy from the farm on the roof of the porch.  They had already removed the metal railing and layer upon layer of roofing material and tar.

I have to insert a tidbit about Cory's dad here.  He is a dairy farmer and perhaps works more hours than any human I've ever met.  "Free time" is hard to come by for him.  So for him to take the time away from his own work and come to our house and do all of this for us was amazing.  It was totally selfless and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it - how much I appreciate him.

Anyway, it took these two guys three or four trips to the house to get the entire porch down.  They did it step by step, top to bottom.  Cory and I didn't have to do a thing.  And it turned out that the areas where the porch were attached to the house were rotten.  There was a lot of wood damage and even big spaces where mice and squirrels were able to get inside.  I think it was a darn good thing we took the porch down before it fell down.

Before we knew it, the porch was gone.  Well, it was no longer intact.  All the materials were piled on our driveway and grass so we could sort out the metal to take to a scrapyard.

The house has officially undergone a porch amputation!

The doors were boarded so no one would try to walk through them and then we had to work on getting rid of the last bit of "stuff" on the ground.  The kids actually took apart the brick tower that supported the middle of the porch.  Cory showed them how to break apart the bricks, then they put them in their red wagon and took them to the front of the house and built a little "house" of their own.  It was pretty cute.

RIP, sun porch.  I'm sure many celebrations took place within your walls and many peaceful moments were enjoyed there as well.  We're excited to give the space a new purpose, a new life, and a totally new style.  It's going to be pretty awesome.

We Changed Our Minds

When I worked with Tastefully Simple I heard tons and tons of inspirational quotes - and I loved them.  One of the many that has stuck with me came from the CEO of Tastefully Simple, Jill Strayhan:

I reserve the right to get smarter.

It's a good one, right?  We don't always make the right or best decisions but we can always learn from our mistakes and do better the next time.

So when Cory and I started this house renovation we decided to leave a couple areas of the house untouched for now and update them in the future.  The basement, large "master" bath and closet, and upstairs kids' bathroom were on that list.

However, as we got further into demolition and tweaked our plans we realized that it would be far less of a headache and FAR less messy to just do the bathrooms now instead of later.  Plus, doing the girls' bathroom now would allow us to reconfigure another weird space.

Remember this?

That is the lovely toilet that was IN the master bedroom.  Yes, IN the bedroom, not in the master bathroom.  

Yuck.

But on the other side of that wall is the girls' bathroom.  So if we took that toilet out, removed the walls of that little nook, and then closed the wall of the bedroom we could add that nook space to the girls' bathroom and make it a bit more spacious.

Here is the girls' bathroom before:

You can just see the current toilet on the bottom left.  Behind it is the toilet in the bedroom.

And beside the current toilet is the other vanity.

This bathroom really isn't terrible.  It is a bit outdated, but it's functional, has two vanities, and the shower is fairly new and clean.  But by taking that bedroom toilet nook space we will be able to push the bathroom toilet back and gain some open floor space.  Plus, the toilet will no longer be the first thing you see when you climb the front stairs.

My super hard-working stud of a husband spent a few days with a sledgehammer and a crowbar in here and this is what happened.

 First, the vanities and toilet came out.

The toilet nook walls were removed as well as the bedroom toilet.  And once the walls were removed we found that a huge cast iron vent ran right up the space between the toilets.  Oh joy.  This meant a hit to the budget as all that cast iron would have to be redirected somewhere else.

I took the above photo while standing in what is now Dixon's bedroom.  The bedroom toilet was where the front hole in the floor is, then there is the cast iron vent, and then there is the bathroom toilet hole.  The new bathroom toilet will move back to where the bedroom toilet once was, but of course it will face INTO the bathroom. *smile*

And this is a view from the doorway of the bathroom looking towards the bedroom.  The vent has been rerouted in the floor and new plumbing has been placed for both of the vanities.

Looking at this mess, I sure am glad we chose to be smart and redo this bathroom now.

And I sure am glad my hubby likes to vacuum.

At least with a shop vac, that is.

Kitchen Destruction

At first glance, the kitchen of our house wasn't all that terrible.  In fact, when we looked at it from a bit of a distance or even in photos it didn't seem all that bad.  A bit outdated, but not horrible.

The quirky island with opposing sinks and the refrigerator that was actually in the family room were certainly odd, as was the high counter under the windows.

But overall, it looked fairly clean, the appliances were mostly new, and if you didn't open any of the cabinets it really didn't look too bad.

However, upon closer examination . . .

things were certainly amiss.  Most of the cabinets were almost unusable, and several of them weren't even finished on the inside.  Check out the ancient mini-fridge hiding under the tall counters.  There were all kinds of strange configurations of makeshift shelving and weird spaces.  Plus, because some of the cabinets were unfinished inside, there was tons of mouse poop in them.  G.R.O.S.S.

So we knew the kitchen was going to be a total gut job right away.

Gutting this kitchen took many days, a number of people, and lots and lots of sweat.  It was a big job.  Thankfully, Cory's dad helped us remove all the cabinets, counters, and most of the appliances and flooring.

It was tricky getting the dishwasher out because it was literally built into the cabinetry.  Once it was gone the rest of the island came out with relative ease.  That is until it came time to remove the plywood around the sink plumbing.

Cory had to use a Sawzall to carefully cut around the pipes.  Let's just say he "missed" on one cut and we ended up with a literal waterfall in our kitchen.  Oops!  He hightailed it to the basement to shut off all the water to the house but not before the kitchen and family room and even the ceiling were quite wet.  We had to keep a Tupperware container under the pipe for over a week before the pipe was properly sealed off.

Slowly but surely we got all the stuff out of the kitchen.

In the photo above you can see the wall at the front of the house - it has the three windows.  That wall will be bumped out four feet so we gain a good amount of square footage in the kitchen.  It will be a huge help because I have big plans for this space!

In the next photo you can see the four - yes, FOUR - doors that were on the side wall of the kitchen.  The first one on the left goes to the garage.  It will be closed up and cabinetry / refrigeration will be in its place.  The second door in the middle was a closet.  It too will be gone.  The third door is actually behind the open front door.  It concealed the back staircase.  It will also be gone.  The open kitchen door will remain in that place but since that wall will be bumped out it will also be four feet further up.  That will also allow the door from the garage to the outside (it's just to the right of this photo) to become the new door from the garage into the kitchen.  So. Many. Doors.

Back to the destruction.

Once all the stuff was out of the kitchen, the guys started working on the floors.  And of course, it was layers of linoleum.  The top layer came off easily.  Then there was glue, a thin layer of sub-floor, and then the dreaded "asbestos suspect" material.  They tried to get that bottom layer off but it stuck so tightly in the center of the room that they had to just admit defeat and let it stay put.  It shouldn't matter since there will be new wood there eventually.

Next, the plaster had to removed from all of the walls.  Yep, more plaster.  My mom and sister helped us with this one afternoon and Cory and I did more plaster removal later.  It took quite some time to get it all off and cleaned up.  If you ever decide to do something like this, be prepared for a house that looks like this:

Pretty, isn't it?  Clean-up was made even MORE fun because of course there was heavy blown insulation in the outside walls.  I think I spent an entire day doing nothing but shovel insulation and plaster into buckets and dump it into the dumpster.  My arms and back were screaming in agony.

This is the view of the kitchen from the family room.  Wow.

And this is what it currently looks like from inside the kitchen looking into the family room.  It's all cleaned up and the carpenters have installed a new header to make the kitchen totally open to the family room.  It's taking shape!

The closet and back stairs are already torn out (thanks to my brother-in-law Barry for doing that task for us) and most of that wall of doors is open to the garage until the new wall is built.

The next step is excavating the porch in front of the kitchen and building the new outside wall.  Then the current wall with the windows will be removed and we will have the final defined space for the new kitchen.

I've always wanted a "Dream Kitchen" and it feels like it is actually within reach!  It's SO exciting!  I can hardly wait to cook meals for my family here, do activities around the new island, and entertain friends and family in the finished space.  It makes me a bit giddy just thinking about it.

I like feeling giddy.