Just in time for the rain

We have a roof again! This was the view Thursday morning.

Give it a few more days

And we have a second floor and a master bedroom/bath framed up by Tuesday evening (following Memorial Day). Roof trusses in, but no roof yet, but Steve saw it the next day, and it was there.

Two days later, a main floor

The previous pictures were from the end of the day on Tuesday, these are from the following Thursday afternoon. We have a new mainfloor framed (kitchen, mudroom and half-bath), and the floor is going in for the second storey. Yes, that is our new entry to the mudroom.

Here was something unanticipated... looks like plain old dirt and rocks you'd find in the yard, right? Well, it was in our walls between the main floor rim joists and the exterior cladding. While it's good insulation, it's bad for moisture protection. They were able to remove it from the areas being remodeled. Haven't got a strategy yet for the rest of the house. What were they thinking 95 years ago?

Chirstopher and AJ trying to stay out of trouble when touring the construction. They like looking at the parts of the house that haven't changed - I think it's reassuring to all of us at times!

This is the back of the dining room buffet. You can see the exterior of the "cabinet" on the left. The rest was part of the exterior wall shielding it. This will be the wall you see when coming into mudroom. New floor joists for the master bedroom are above it.

Here's the new kitchen wall facing the backyard. Window on the right is over the counter, window on the left is over the booth/dinette. Above is the existing bedroom floor!

Supports inside the middle bedroom holding up the roof before The Big Roof Truss goes in.

Razing the Roof

Now this is serious demo! Not for the faint of heart. Thanks to Brad from White Crane for the photos. In one (fortunately nice) day, the roof came off the back of the house. We are on our third dumpster. A new roof truss will be going across the house (side to side) where you can see the supports in the middle bedroom. That bit sticking out in the middle is the upstairs hallway (see the next photo).

Another shot from Brad. This is the upstairs hallway, looking into what was the back bedroom. What a view! The new roof truss is going across here.

All covered up for the night.

Another shot of the Big Blue Tarp.

Two Weeks In

Even "less" to see inside this week! Everything (2 out of 3 bedrooms, both baths, and kitchen) is stripped to the studs and the electrical and old plumbing has been pulled out. In the basement, they are getting ready to put in a new support (that's the hole in the floor AJ is pointing too).


The foundation has been opened up into the to-be mudroom crawlspace. See the next photo for the exterior view.






AJ in front of the mudroom foundation. The supports for the back steps and porch also went in this week. That "bump" in the exterior wall is the back of the dining room buffet, which will become an interior wall in the mudroom.



Here's the temporary power pole in the backyard. There was no power or water to the house this week. Whoops, we forgot to finish clearing out the freezer in the basement. Yuck.

An interesting "co- incidence": whenever our boys visit the house, they need to go to the bathroom, even if they just went before we arrived. I wonder when (if) the novelty will wear off?

A Booth for the Kitchen

Here is the very cool booth Michal Crosby found for us at Architectural Antiques. Steve is thinking how nice it will be to sit in it with a cuppa and the newspaper. While we are not purchasing the milkcrates of tiles, it does show that the table is in good structural shape.

It's the right vintage for our house, and with a little clean up (there are several coats of paint) will be just great. At 5 feet long by 6 feet wide (at the most), it is narrower than the space we had planned, so we met with Zoe and Brad on Friday and moved the mudroom wall over by 6 inches (mudroom gained, kitchen lost) and shoved over the fridge and added about 6 more inches of counter and cabinet. Just in time, because framing is about to start next week!

One Week Later

It's time for our first official walkthrough. Here's Christopher standing by the sign out front.


I was very impressed with the schedule board!






Cardboard insulation (not original) inside unused space in the middle bedroom.









Brad and Steve admiring the attic through the middle bedroom ceiling studs.










And the treasure behind the walls? An old wiskey bottle. Empty unfortunately.















The Upstairs bath before...




And after demo! Tub was on the left, sink was on the right.












Remember the downstairs half-bath? This tile was down about 15 mintues after I took this picture.

And the walls came tumbling down

There were just too many possible captions for this photo. You'll have to write your own...

The kitchen sink is still standing.

Where the refrigerator was....

A view of the attic through the (absent) middle bedroom ceiling.

The old "knob and tube" wiring is still there (but not for long).

And They Are Off!

It's Day One! And some of us are very excited (others, less so). White Crane Construction is on the job. Inside it's zipwalls and site protection. Outside it's dirty. Marv arrived and is digging the hole for the mudroom foundation/ crawlspace.

A closer look at the hole for the mudroom foundation. No buried treasure.

We've got a dumpster! Atomic Waste recycles too. What should go in first? It's so hard to choose. We should have a ceremonial "first toss".

We Are Out!

I am sure we are not the only ones who have said "Hey, when you get all this junk out of here, there's actually a lot of space!". We moved ourselves to the rental house a week ago (it snowed, ugg) and finished clearing out the back of the house this past weekend. Here are a few photos of the kitchen in it's last hours.

First Blood

First blood was drawn by the remodellers at the end of April - they had a peek under the siding and in the kitchen ceiling.

Checking to see what, if anything, significant is in that soffit (there isn't, so it's going away). I will miss the 50s beehive light. It's the only remaining fixture from the house when we bought it 18 years ago.