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.