Drying it in

When I last checked in on Day:1 (three days ago), they had ripped off the roof, framed in the new exterior walls, and added one truss. By the end of Day:2, they had turned their attention to how they were going to connect the new space with the old space. Some of these pics probably won't make a whole lot of sense but I'll try to explain the best that I can. Some I made notes on, some I didn't so just bear with me. I've included the "plans" so that you can orient yourself.
So this first photo is taken from the doorway of the original master (which will become a hallway opening and Jonas's room). You can see that they have removed the small closet that was there so that they can frame in the other end of the hall opening.

By the end of Day:2, the outside of the house looked something like this. The roof trusses were up and the sheathing was on it, and they had started adding the sheathing to the the walls. They were also beginning to frame in the new porch extension. I guess that seems like not a whole lot for an entire day's work, but there were many many things that had to be figured out and measured and planned for so that things could go on.

Day: 3 arrived and they started really framing the porch. Now I was out running errands so I missed this part. If I had been home I would have caught a little error that's showing here. I'll explain more about that later.
Some of you have asked how things are going living in the house while all of this is going on, and the answer to that is well, it's interesting. For example, they removed the ceiling and all of that jazz from the downstairs portion of the addition area which meant
that my dryer vent was removed. We have a lot of laundry here,
so after just a few days of construction things were getting pretty tight on the whole clothing thing so being as creative as we are, we engineered a solution to the problem of venting all that hot wet air into the construction area. With just a little well placed duct tape and a partially opened window, we vented the dryer. YAY, now we can have clean clothes again. The lack of laundry did leave me wearing a dress until all of my jeans were washed, but Joy said that I looked festive so I guess it wasn't all bad. :-p

Speaking of Joy, I was out running craft fair errands while they were framing the porch so when I came home and they were almost finished I noticed this glaring error. I guess you can't see it very well in this picture but I noticed it right away and immediately hated it. The porch did not go all the way to the corner of the house. They did it that way on purpose to allow for trim and gutters, but I wasn't having it and when the contractor saw it he was right there with me in the no, no, no, this can't happen, let's do this instead. I felt kinda bad but the guys were really good sports about it and quickly adjusted things
so that it did go all the way to the edge. 

Earlier that morning they had cut open the master and started framing. I had a little bit of a "Money Pit" moment when I was grabbing a few forgotten things from the master bath and I walked out of the door to see that the wall had been removed and I was staring at construction workers first thing in the morning. Hi guys! (Yes, I had clothes on.) So anyway this pic is obviously from later in the day and you can see the framing starting to take shape. The pic on the left is from the hallway in, and the pic on the right is from the new master out. I did think to label that one so that you can see what you're looking at. The door for the bathroom looks really small but it's only the angle, it's the same size as it was before. It's also going to be a pocket door so that changes things as well.

Speaking of the new master, here are some shots from within that area. The first one here is the front of the house which will be the bedroom part. It does look really narrow, but it's the same size as the one that we had before so we're used to it. We only go there to sleep and hide from the kids anyway so we don't need a ton of room. We do gain a little additional room due to the face that we now also get a hallway to the bathroom so I guess there's that. On the other end of this is the area that will be the closet and Henry's new office. If you look really closely you can see the stud that looks thicker than the others, that's where the wall will divide the two spaces. It also looks tiny but it is what it is. Our goal with the addition wasn't to have huge sprawling rooms, it was just to give everyone their own dedicated space. I know that some would say oh you have five bedrooms but they are all small, and that is correct. The master and Kinsley's room are the biggest (I'm sure we'll hear about that later) but even they aren't huge. The simple facts of the matter are that the footprint of the house is only so big and that expanding that footprint (which is an option that we previously considered) would have taken way more money than we wanted to

spend. Other facts about this are that we totally love our location and our neighborhood and even our crazy neighbors, so we didn't want to move. We actually did check into moving and let me tell you that a decent five bedroom house in any kind of decent location in Franklin is waaay more than we wanted to spend or than we will have invested in our house after all of this. Even a really crappy outdated house (like this one was when we bought it) was more to start than we have invested in ours so far so for all those who wondered, that's why we did what we did. Anyway, back to the addition.
By the end of Day: 3, here's where we are. The photo above shows that the hall closet (that little part jutting into the room) and all of the other interior walls up there have been framed. This closet will take the place of the one that we ripped down on the other side. No we couldn't leave it because it was in the way of where the bathroom door needed to be. (Refer back to the "plans" above if you're not sure.) They also added plywood over the hall opening to keep the cold air from rushing in.

There was a little additional framing done downstairs. It's kinda dark, but you can see that they have framed in a new closet for Colin's room as well as new walls on top of the lip left from the cement blocks that formed the garage. Previously there were walls on that lip, but they framed them in such an odd way that you couldn't hand shelves or anything on the wall so we ripped out the old ones and had them add these new ones. This will also allow us to have some hella thick insulation in there so no more temperature fluctuations when the sun goes down. We're also getting a tankless water heater so this closet area will make more sense.
So here we are on Day:4 and the outside of the house looks a little like this. They have boarded up the windows and wrapped the house in plastic to keep it dry. I've also posted a pic of the back of the house but it's not really very exciting. The roofers are due to be here this morning. The dumpster is full and I'm sure the contractor will make a call to have it swapped out because they still have to remove the siding and replace it with vinyl.  I'm not really sure when that's scheduled but I presume that it will not be until after the holidays. Aside from the roofers, I have no idea what's going to go on in the house today. We really liked our framers and were sad to see them go. They did great work, they were very polite, and they were fast. They didn't even mind our random questions and changes and gawking. Henry will be taking the kids to our parents's houses while he and I attend a craft fair this weekend. (That'll be another blog post all to itself I'm sure.) I'm a little nervous about it as I don't want to bring everything back home but I also don't want to sell out on the first day. Given those choices, I'd rather have the latter but in any case I hope that I do well enough to be invited back next year. So if you guys need something awesome to do this weekend, hit us up at the Centennial Craft Fair in Franklin. ~Kellie~

Raise Da Roof! (after you tear it off first)

 Well here it is, the last photo of our house looking structurally the way that it was built. I have to admit that I've been a little nervous about the construction but I've been preoccupied with other things so that's helped. Our construction crew showed up yesterday morning and got to work. I was sort of surprised at the number of work vans and people who filled my driveway, yard and street. The more the merrier I always say. I guess it takes a big crew to raise da roof!!

 Well, I mean first they had to tear it off but anyway. These guys were fast, and within two hours they had the roof off. They took a little lunch break to defrost and regroup from demolition mode to construction mode. We went out to have a look at things so that we didn't seem like we were micro managing things. It really is hard to just sit inside and try to work on what you need to be doing while they rip part of your house apart. Henry said that it was like when you're at the dentist and all numbed up and they are pulling your tooth. You can hear the commotion, but you can't see it or feel it (though it did get a little chilly in here with no roof on there). We both find construction fascinating and honestly I think that we could have just sat out there and watched them all day. We'd have seemed like creepers if we had so I was glad that it was too cold to do that and we both had work to do. Here are the old roof trusses next to the new ones. This struck me as interesting on a deep level. It's like seeing death and birth at the same time. Or maybe like a retiring worker standing next to his younger and newer replacement so that the job can go on. Either way, I got a picture.

Now the fun began. They came back from lunch and slammed through putting the floor trusses on. Those are the part that look like a pallet under the walls. They were pre-built to speed things along as well as because that's how the rest of the house is framed. All of the operating guts of the house like plumbing, electrical, and HVAC live there between the floors. It keeps things tidy but it does mean that if you ever have to work on those systems you have to either remove part of the ceiling or part of the floor to access them. Not my problem, I'll pay someone else to do that. So anyway, I had no idea that they were this far when I hustled out to put a package in the mail so man was I surprised when I turned around to come back and there were walls! By the end of the day, they had all of the walls up and the end roof truss! It makes me laugh to see the house look like shipping containers stacked together with this weird extra piece filling in the gap. It's almost like when people have a trailer and they build on a room. I suppose I think that because the rest of the house is finished and this part isn't I dunno, but it still makes me laugh. Here's another thing that I found amusing while we're on the subject of me being easily entertained. Here are some pics of what the inside of that room looks like.  I didn't realize that they had all of this bracing in there to help support the existing walls and keep them square while they did all of the other work until later after they had all gone. I kept wondering why there were guys down in that room working since they were only supposed to be framing the outside that day. Remember what I said about not wanting to be nosy though, so I just sat at my little desk and ran my little machine and tried to stay out of it. Today they will get the rest of the roof trusses up, get the interior walls up for the

closet and Henry's office, get everything covered in sheathing and maybe even get the shingles on. They have to tear off part of the existing roof in order to tie it all together so that there aren't any big bumps in it that would point out where the new roof started. Meanwhile, we have Thanksgiving meals to eat with the boys at school and another fireplace guy is coming to talk to us about replacing this beast. I'm afraid to see what that's going to cost as it's not in the amount with the contractor but more of an item that we are taking the opportunity to address since everything is torn apart anyway.
So there you have it, that's where we are as of nearly 7 a.m. on day two. We are just waiting on the crews to roll in and get started for the day. Stay tuned tomorrow for another exciting run down of construction at our house. :-p ~Kellie~

Delays and Decisions

So today was supposed to be the day that they started work on the house but the aren't because the trusses, which were supposed to be delivered yesterday, weren't. They did however arrive this morning a little before 8 a.m. Cue the choir of angels! Our contractor has informed us that work will start on Monday morning (11-17). The crew is finishing up some little projects and want to have as many consecutive days as possible to tear down and rebuild ours so that it can be weather ready.

The only other news that I really have to report is that we have chosen the siding and its colors (siding and trim). Here's a little look at that.

The top color is the siding called "coastal sage" and the bottom one is the trim called "linen". The chunk of siding that you see there is the actual width that the siding will be. It's really close to the width of the current siding which is about the only thing about the current siding that we like. We like that this is nice and chunky and had a slight wood grain to it. I know some of you are wondering why we didn't get hardyboard and they answer to that is that we have two different neighbors that got that and their installs did not go well and they had to have second crews come out and fix it. We also don't want to have to maintenance the siding by repainting and re-caulking the joints and all that so we opted for vinyl.
I suppose that I could throw in a little additional information about some other details which aren't very exciting yet but just the same. I know my avid readers (all 2 or 3 of you) are just clammering for all the information you can get. We have decided to get a tankless water heater which should free up some space in the storage area and save us from constantly heating water that we aren't using. We also had a fireplace cleaning company come out (Ash Busters) and give us a quote on cleaning and repairing our fireplace. We have since called another company to come out and give us an estimate to replace it but we are still waiting on their arrival (11-19) to see what they have to say before we choose an option. I personally don't feel that a fireplace is a fabulous feature that I looooove and desire in a house. In fact, my thoughts about it when we looked at the house were something like dang, look at all that space we can't use. I'm slowly (in my older age and increased stress level) coming around to the idea of a nice little fire in the evenings with a glass of wine. I think that this is more spurred by the insane amount of chaos that goes on in this house on a daily basis. Both of the little kids have been squealing and screaming (not in nice cute little ways but more like shrieking out of frustration) the entire time I've been writing this post. I'm thinking that a little shot of tequila or vodka might be in order so that I can make it through the rest of my morning until nap time.
So anyway, that's about all that I have to report. A few decisions, and the fact that I can sleep in my own room in my own bed for a few more nights. ~Kellie~

Remodeling Purgatory

I mentioned the title of this post to a friend this morning while discussing how things are coming along with the remodel. I say that it's like purgatory because we are completely in limbo with things. We've moved things out of most spaces to be redone, but the contractor hasn't actually started yet. They've (he and his framer- that's framer not farmer) worked up their plans, measured some things, given us a contract, and ordered trusses but as of yet that's the extent of their work. We are all sort of on hold until the trusses get here then it's full steam ahead.  They did have this lovely dumpster delivered. It makes parking in the driveway a treat. It also makes it interesting to get in and out of the front door because it's unfortunately right in front of the sidewalk, but that was necessary to ensure that more of the debris got into the dumpster than on the driveway when they rip the roof and part of the side of the house off. *WoopWoop raise da roof!*

 As far as any other work, we rented a storage unit and have started packing it full and Henry has taken the liberty of starting to gut the office area. That's not really part of the contracted renovation on the house, it's more of a no time like the present thing. The ceiling will be removed as part of the renovation anyway and the drywall and insulation in there really sucked as did the fake framing that they put up to hang drywall- seriously, you couldn't find a stud to hang a shelf which is a HUGE thing to me. It all had to go. It smelled funny and it was old and weird and the electrician will need access to put in the million plugs for all my equipment. #BuyAllTheThings!!! That room will have its own dedicated circuit which means that it won't be tied into the exterior GFI circuit. That was a really stupid and cheap move by the previous homeowners. I'm pretty sure that's not to code. Anyway, when we explained to the electrician that we wanted four new circuits with this he was kind of shocked and obviously asked why since that's not really how it would normally be done. We had to explain that we both work from home and have special equipment and that we will each have an office for said equipment so it's a necessary evil. So anyway, here's what the office looks like all naked and such.

 As for the rest of the house, it looks pretty much the same. Here's one last shot of that. It's not really the most current picture but the shape of the house is still like this.

Some of you might wonder what our end goal is with this, so for all you visualists and those with inquiring minds, I've worked up some drawings. Pretend that I'm good with photoshop.

 Here is sort of what the house will look like when we're finished. It will get all new wide plank vinyl siding. We're still looking at samples and trying to choose a color but it will probably be something fairly similar to the current color. If you're more of a technical person, here's a rough (very rough) sketch of what currently exists as well as what will change. The dimensions are all wrong but that's ok. I also just realized that the closet in what will be Jonas's room shows that it juts out into the room but it doesn't, it's actually over the stairs so he will have a little more room than it appears.

We still have to gut Colin's room which is the one downstairs behind the office and off the kitchen, and we still have to move all of our things out of the master bed and bath. Colin and Jonas will be bunking with Kinsley and Henry and I will be bunking downstairs in the living room on an inflatable mattress. Sounds delightful am I right? You guys know you're jealous. My office and Henry's office are/will be in the dining room. I am thankful for super yards to keep babies out of places they shouldn't be. It's cramped living already, but it's gonna get worse before it gets better. As I said before, we are all on hold until the trusses are built and delivered. I am trying to enjoy having my master suite as long as possible to maintain whatever dignity I have until this is all over. They estimate like 3 months before it's all completely finished. So there you have it so far, that's what's going on here. It's a good thing that everyone will have their own space when this is over because we're all going to get sick of each other. If you guys think of it, y'all pray for us!  ~Kellie~