Drywall Begins

Today I was greeted by a large truck during lunch. Two guys brought in the longest strips of drywall I've ever seen. I walked upstairs to see our contractor taking measurements in the bathroom. He said that he's going to speed up bathroom production while the kitchen cabinets are made, so we may have a finished bathroom before a finished kitchen. This is good news for everyone in the house - walking two flights of stairs at 2:00 in the morning is just plain dangerous.

Back to the drywall. What's great about using a contractor is not having to worry about quantities of building materials required to complete the project. You deal with one guy, and he takes care of quantities, and deals with anyone taking care of tasks on the job site. By the end of the week we should have all of the drywall hung, taped and sanded to a smooth finish.

While this finish won't exactly match the rest of the house, we feel like the texture of the new walls will be a great look. 

In other news, we finally received a wall mount sink that will work great in our half bath. The third time was the charm on this one - right depth and right space. Can't wait to see this baby go up - she's going to be cute.

Finally, for work tomorrow I get to build a brick patio for a women's shelter here in Kansas City. A coworker saw our garden on the blog and "volunteered" me to lead this charge. Becca was gracious enough to join me this evening to get all the materials set up for the job site. As you can see, she laid out a beautiful flagstone path that will also be installed tomorrow. 

Can't wait to see walls begin to go up tomorrow. And that's not all. Hardwood floors come in next week. The show must go on!

Big Changes and a (Good) Surprise

Happy Monday everyone. The crew put in a full day today to make sure that everything's ready for sheetrock installation to begin tomorrow, and it really shows. Before I walked in the front door today I walked around the side of the house to this beautiful sight.

The first of our two new Pella windows has been installed, and we couldn't be happier with how it looks. The muntins you see in the top half will be stained dark when kitchen trim is stained, so it's not totally complete but it's close. The bathroom one will be installed very soon as well.

And that's not all. Our island has finally arrived! We ordered it six weeks ago and shipping was repeatedly delayed, but I picked it up Saturday, and Chris and I promptly put it in the middle of our gutted kitchen and had a celebratory beer on its walnut top. We absolutely love it, and seeing something finished in our very unfinished kitchen was pretty surreal.

The walnut grain on top is beautiful, and will provide a very practical surface that we can use and abuse. This was something we decided was important when we opted for marble counters rather than granite. They are slightly softer and less durable (but oh-so-beautiful and perfect for a classic kitchen look) so the island should make up for any loss in fuctionality. 

I picked up these cute little saddle stools to go with it. They're very comfy and fit nicely under the petite island. The whole setup is currently in our dining room, which is actually nice since we've cleared out the table and chairs.

The crew also got everything all insulated today to get us ready for drywall. The walls were previously empty between the studs, so we hope insulating these two rooms will help our house be a bit less drafty and a lot more efficient. It's strange how filling in the spaces between the studs creates a slightly wall-like effect. Our interior designer friend warned us that when the drywall goes up the room will suddenly feel a lot smaller, and I can see how that would be the case. 

And now for the surprise. Chris was talking to the contractor this morning who informed us that included in the remodel is installation of a ventilation system, which goes into the basement and vents out the wall. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what it does, other than he told us it will make our dehumidifier, which runs constantly in our basement unnecessary. I like the sound of that!

And I like a good surprise - we've had a couple of plumbing snafus during the project - all of which have been fixed, but they're still stressful as they happen. The first was a leak in our basement ceiling last week, which was apparently the result of a poorly connected pipe (big shock there, right?) that had been shifted when the kitchen was replumbed. The plumber fixed it promptly the next day. Then this weekend I ran the washer and our basement sink backed up. We tried to snake out the line ourselves but couldn't. He fixed it today, and I haven't had a chance to talk to him to get the recap. All in all though, he's our hero and has taken everything in great stride, and we know that moving forward our once condemable plumbing is in great shape.

Chris has repeatedly expressed his urge to kiss the plumber. I haven't warned him yet.

And finally, for all of you who are dying of "did the valve arrive" suspense, rest assured we have two valves, installed and ready for faucet trim. Yay for UPS!

That's it for today. Check in tomorrow to see walls start to go up. Crazy!

Rub-a-Dub!

Surprise! Look what magically arrived at our house today. When I left this morning, our upstairs bathroom was a big hole with no walls, no ceiling, and a 4x5 foot hole in the floor, through which you could see straight to the kitchen subfloor. Fast forward 10 hours, we have a bathtub installed!

I've already sat in it and drank a glass of wine and let me tell you, it's a great place to hang out.

And that's not all. Yesterday and today, the plumber and the "wrecking crew" (as I've come to call them - the two demo guys you should most definitely NOT underestimate, trust me) have made some mad progress throughout the whole house.

In our upstairs bathroom, walls are framed in and pocket door kit is installed. Subfloor is down, and let me tell you it is solid, level and as beautiful as subfloor can possibly be. A crazy huge original cast iron stack that extended the full four floors of the house (basement, 1st floor, 2nd floor and attic) and was supported only by 2 leaning and totally not secured 2x4's (YIKES!) has been removed and replaced, and the new toilet is roughed in.

On the first floor, the old closet is knocked out, and new plumbing is routed to and from the old kitchen sink as well as the newly added half bath. Half bath and closet walls are totally framed in, with pocket door kits installed.

And, Chris' personal favorite thing (and my second, after the bathtub) . . . . . . 2 beautiful, new, energy efficient Pella windows are sitting in boxes in our living room, just begging to be installed in the kitchen and full bathroom. C has been laughing at by bathtub obsession all night (granted, I sat in it, fully clothed, for a good 30 minutes whiled I called numerous family members and drank a glass of wine) but I just smile imagining the ridiculous behavior that will occur when he comes home to find new windows installed. It will be crazy. Complete mayhem, I promise you.

Anyway, long and short is, progress continues and it rocks. Hopefully another update tomorrow.

I'm in Love!

Look what arrived today! We've been getting mad deliveries from all the stuff I've ordered, but this is by far the one I've been most excited about. And it did not leave me disappointed - it's beautiful! All 180 pounds of it. Yikes!

Nino liked it too. Don't worry, he and I talked and he does not plan on making a habit of sitting in the sink once it's installed. 

In other news, the wrecking crew continues to make amazing progress. I'm thrilled to announce that demolition is complete, and the rebuilding stage has begun! They encountered one surprise though, and that is that *someone* (I suspect the same person who plumbed our bathroom drain with hose clamps) notched into about a half dozen of our ceiling joists, significantly weakening them.

That's not all! The notches caused the bathroom floor to sink, so they poured a concrete slab in the bathroom floor to bring it back to almost level (it was definitely still not level, just for the record). So, there's now a big hole in our bathroom floor/kitchen ceiling.

Our contractor assured us this is not a big deal to fix, so before they put up the new walls they need to reinforce a few ceiling joists, and replace some bathroom subfloor. I was very pleased to find the materials already here when I got home today - 2x8's for the joists and plywood for the subfloor . . .

 . . . as well as a big pile of studs! Proof that rebuilding has begun! And these guys aren't just laying around - check out the brand new stud wall already built in our office!

 

This is the framing for our new half bathroom, as well as the new smaller closet we're having built to replace the closet we knocked out to make the kitchen bigger. 

And see those metal slides in the middle of the photo? That is the first of three pocket door frames to be installed in the house! This one is to enter the half bath from the office. The others will be for entry to the bathroom from the upstairs hallway, and to the closet from the kitchen. All three frames appear to have been delivered today, so I suspect we'll see them in place in the very near future.

 

The crew working on our house has been really great about keeping original pieces that are reusable, so here you see two original doors as well as quite a bit of original oak trim. We'll reuse these two-panel oak doors for the half bath and closet downstairs, and the trim will be be reused throughout all the downstairs construction. 

So this is where we are - just three days in. We're very impressed with the pace of progress, and love this whole setup where we go to work and come home to find all kinds of surprises! So far all good, so hopefully it stays that way. As far as next steps, we have a plumber coming Monday, as well as our cabinet maker for final measurements, and then the electrician comes Wednesday. How's that for progress?

Now that demolition is finished, I'm ready to clean up the plaster dust that's settled throughout the house. And then I'll probably have some cereal for dinner. Because that's just what you eat at times like this. 

Wrigley was feeling left out after the whole Nino-in-the-sink thing, so here's his shining moment, sitting next to all the lumber piles. He's just one of the studs.

Demo Day 2

It's weird to come home to a different house. Tonight I walked in the kitchen and it felt like a barn. No flooring, no ceiling, just beams, and lots of brown old wood. Things are moving fast. The guys are really doing a great job minimizing dust and the mess.

It's really neat to see the innards of this old house. Picking apart the walls gives us hints of the way rooms used to look. We found that behind our bathroom mirror was a framed recess for a medicine cabinet. The old sash weights in the windows are pretty cool too, they look like big, five pound hotdogs.

Apparently our bathroom was remodeled in the 90's. Somebody turned the shower 90º, and took 75% out of a huge closet in the 3rd bathroom. At one point, it was a walk in closet with a window facing north (and we're taking it back to that floorplan).

We'll keep you posted on the progress. Cabinets and plumber get working on Monday.

D-Day

Today was demolition day #1, and we couldn't be happier. The contractor informed us this morning that demo should be complete by the end of the week, and based on today's progress that seems realistic. We're very encouraged, and can't wait to see things continue to improve.

Our kitchen walls, ceilings and floors are about 70% gone, and over the next two days we expect to see the remainder disappear, as well as the bathroom walls, ceilings and floor. You saw our before photos yesterday, so soak in these photos of the kitchen just one day later.

Entering the construction zone from the living room.

 

Kitchen without walls.

Corner of cabinets and walls left to remove.

Wall from kitchen to office.

Back door.

Future half bath space, between kitchen and office.

Kitchen Eve

I think the biggest challenge in renovating an old home is living with work in progress. Holes, old flooring, cracked plaster — the ugly parts that you're saving up to fix when you are ready.

Well, tomorrow marks the beginning of the end our current kitchen and upstairs bathroom.

Here's a last look of the original "before."

Someone is ready for some demo.