Back to blogging!

I lost my blogging steam about a month ago, but now I'm back on it! Thankfully, the construction continued despite my laziness.

Here are the developments:
When we came home after Thanksgiving in Florida, we had windows and doors!

This is a view of the back wall of the great room, at night, before lights were installed.

Great room sliding glass door to the deck on the left and window to the right.

Great room window to the left,and sliding glass door to the deck on the right.

We also had a finished deck! We used Trex for the decking and copper piping for the rails (to match our bedroom screened-in porch.)

There was progress made on the interior of the house as well! The arches had been cut in for the kitchen pass-through and from the dining room to the kitchen: 

Pass-through to the kitchen from the great room side.

Pass-through to the kitchen on the left, dining room on the right.

Pass-through viewed from the kitchen (the plastic was an attempt to keep heat in the kitchen.)

Then, at the beginning of December, they took out the old picture window and installed a new sliding glass door in our dining room! We can now step from the dining room to the front porch!

Dining room sliding door

Two weekends ago, Jeff and I painted the trim around the doors and windows--the trim will all be Dover White--our go-to Sherwin Williams trim color: 

First coat of trim paint done!

Molly cuddled up in the future fireplace while we painted the trim.

You can also see the can lights in the view above. We'll be adding ceiling fans with lights as well.

The best surprise this last week was coming home on Monday to find that the workers had installed the porch swing! They joked about how big it was, but I had measured and it fits! Best feature? It might be the cup holders on each side:

On Tuesday, the insulators came and sprayed the foam insulation. They missed a bit so they'll have to come back, but the house is warmer than it was. They'll be coming back to install more insulation batting: 

View of the fireplace/TV wall.

View of one of the skylights

This is our old fireplace; this will be covered up and hidden in the wall.

A view of the insulation above the great room/dining room wall. This is where they missed insulation.

Yesterday, sheet rock showed up! This is a good sign, and it lets me hope we will one day have walls!

Today the fireplace company is supposed to be installing our new gas fireplace! If they do and if it's functional, we're going to move our couch into the living room for the weekend so we can enjoy it. Marshmallows, anyone? 

New developments!

We now have a front porch! Well...almost. We have the concrete pad, and the roof over the porch. Over the next week, we hope that the shingles will go up on the porch roof, as well as the bead board for the ceiling of the porch. As is the southern tradition, we'll paint the porch ceiling pale blue, like the sky.

I just ordered the porch swing! It's a 5-foot, white, roll-back model. Our contractor put in big beam where the swing will hang, so that it can carry the weight. I'm hoping the swing will arrive in the next couple weeks so the construction crew can hang it.

The posts are up for the back deck, and we're waiting on the copper tubing that will go in between the posts.

The dark brown Trex for the decking is on order,

The MOST exciting news is that the windows and doors are supposed to be here on Wednesday!!! Oh, happy day! Once we have windows and doors, we can let the cat roam the house again. Right now, we're having to keep her in the master bedroom or kitchen, and that's it. (She's not an outdoor cat; I don't want her to be hit by a car, and I don't want her to be killing birds.) She is making us a little crazy--she scratches on the doors, wanting to go out, runs around the bedroom all night. I'm ready for her to be able to get out of the bedroom.

Here's a view of the front of the house:

And the back of the house:

And a view of the new living room:

Taking shape!

 The workers stayed late on Thursday, hustling to get the trusses up and sheathing on because of the rain forecast for Friday. They put a big tarp over everything and no rain made it in!

Shot of all roof trusses from outside

On Friday, the crew started building out the end wall--the wall that will have a center column with the fireplace & TV, two sliding glass doors to the future deck, and side windows.

Below is the frame for the new gas fireplace. it will be low on the wall, and it's a horizontal fireplace.

This is the tile that we'd like to use on the column, by the way: 

Yesterday, Monday, October 24, the workers started framing the windows and doors--we can now see what the space is going to look like when it's finished!

View of the back wall. Fireplace in the center, with two glass doors on either side. There will also be triangular transom windows above the doors.

Back wall and a side window. Sorry for the funky angle on this--I was taking pictures around the plastic tarp sealing off the space from the rest of the house.

A view of the back wall without the glare of the sun.

Raising the roof! (Construction day 8)

The roof trusses went up over the sunroom today.

The trusses for tomorrow are waiting on the ground. Those will go over the current living room.

The weather is lovely--it was up to 80 degrees Fahrenheit today and tomorrow it's supposed to be warm as well. All the better for raising a roof! There is a chance of precipitation on Friday, so hopefully they can get it covered up by then!

Slow, slow, quick, quick (Days 2 and 3 of construction/destruction)

After so many months of waiting, things are now moving at light speed. Yesterday, the workers filled the enormous dumpster with old siding, ceiling, windows, and walls. There is now plastic between the former living room/sunroom area and the dining room, and more plastic sealing off the entryway and bedrooms in the old part of the house.

View of the sunroom ceiling, held up by temporary posts.

The dumpster full of old siding, windows, and wood.

The former fireplace, which will be covered over by wallboard. The new fireplace will be on the back wall.

A view of the space under the sunroom, and looking out over the back yard.

The dumpster was emptied on day 3, ready to be filled with more construction debris.

Looking down into the space beneath the former sunroom.

The area to the left is where the stoop to the back door used to be.

A view of the underside of the roof.

We're using a folding table in the kitchen for our meals (we would be on the screened-in porch, but it's a little too cool outside.) It's kind of fun, and it feels very informal. After dinner, we fold up the table and do the dishes.

Today when I came home, all of the flooring had been removed from the old sunroom. Apparently some water was getting through, so our contractor is trying to figure out how to prevent that from happening again.

There were a couple of discoveries--there used to be a door leading into what is now the laundry room, before the porch (which later became the sunroom) was added on. They also found that the fireplace surround used to be brick (instead of black ceramic tile.)

Tomorrow they will put in the new subfloor in the area that used to be the sunroom.

There's no way they'll start in the rain...

That was our thinking, until I looked out the window and saw a truck pull up in the front yard! Despite the rain, demolition for our project began today.

First a huge truck brought an enormous dumpster into the back yard--unfortunately, the truck was then unable to get out of the back yard because of the rain--they had to bring a big truck with a winch and a steel cable to help extricate the truck. Sadly, our lawn is a little worse for wear because of it, but that's one of the hazards of renovation, and we'll deal with it later.

On the bright side, the crew was able to get a lot of demolition done. They brought in scaffolding, ripped out the ceiling in the sunroom, took out the picture window between the living room and the sunroom, and took out the part of the wall in the sunroom so they could easily move debris into the dumpster. 

The room seems enormous! 

I've covered over the hole with plastic for the weekend so that the cat can't get outside, and birds and other animals can't get inside. 

Bricks and pavers!

Today we looked at bricks and pavers!

Construction is scheduled to begin on Monday, October 3--one week from today! The first order of business will be the new front porch and patio. Today we went to a local rock retailer to look at choices of brick and other paving stones. The choices seemed to be brick, bluestone, and more bluestone.

Neither Jeff nor I care much for bluestone--it looks elegant, but a little cold. We'd rather have a warm, earthy color, so we'll probably go for brick. We wanted to see more choices than the local establishment had, so we went to Lowe's, but they didn't have brick--just faux brick. This weekend, we'll head down to Roanoke to visit a couple more rock sellers before we go camping.

We still haven't decided on the flooring. Considering everyone's votes, online and offline, we have three votes for each of the choices. I guess we'll have to make the choice ourselves!

Other changes--we've moved the dog's crate from the dining room to the bedroom--she'll want no part of all the people who will be in the house; the dining room table is now on the back porch; and the cat food is on the back (screened-in) porch as well. We don't want the cat to panic and/or get out of the house while the workers are here, so we'll make sure she's in our bedroom each morning before we leave.