Up - Up - Up!!!!

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, from my crazy idea one afternoon at the house, we decided we would vault the ceiling in our master bedroom. It is an old house, so by today's standards - the ceilings are low throughout the house (8ft) and I thought it would really open up the master bedroom and give it more character. Yesterday, they finished framing it and while I haven't seen it in person... I am really happy with our decision... what do you think?

In addition to finishing up our ceiling, yesterday they also framed the bathroom for the 4th bedroom. This bathroom crosses between where the 1939 and 1980 houses meet - so while the 4th bedroom was one of the first spaces to be framed, they had to wait until the beams below were put in and everything was supported before the actual bathroom could be framed. Matter fact, over the weekend when I was there - you were basically just walking on a plank to get to the front of the house where our master bedroom/bathroom/closet are. Yesterday, they completed that bathroom... this picture was taken from our bedroom looking at the bathroom:

From what Brian said, they are getting close to finishing up the framing and everything looks good. I cannot wait to see it! We are waiting for the windows to come in so those can go be installed... and I think next up is plumbing and then electrical... not 100% sure about that... but as long as it is forward progress that is all that matters to me. Will keep you posted as I get details from Brian!

Wide Open Spaces!

Things were quiet at the house this past weekend.... they wanted to give me the opportunity to get caught up from my lack of blogging for a few days.... Actually, as I mentioned our G.C. was sick with the flu late last week and on Friday his head framer was also sick, as was a lot of the crew, so they took the weekend off. Hope everyone gets well soon.

As the new beams were put in to brace and support the ceilings there were many "pony" walls (I think that is what they are called, or at least what I have heard Brian call them) up throughout the house, so while you could tell that the spaces were much more open, the views were still obstructed. Yesterday, they were finished putting in many of the support beams downstairs -- now we really have a wide open space in the downstairs of the house:

What is pretty cool is this picture is taken from the back of the hosue (in what will be the mudroom) and you can see all the way across the house and see that the front door is open - Love how open it will be:

Standing in the 'breakfast area' and looking into the dining room:

So one of my crazy ideas when they first took out the ceiling in the back of the house was that we had to figure out a way to make use of all the extra space up there.... I mean I know it is attic space, but still, I thought it would look really cool if we raised the ceiling in the master bedroom... or did something with the space... so I suggested it to the builder. He said he would talk to the framer, but that it made sense and shouldn't be that difficult. Our master bedroom is not a "huge" room and I felt like doing this would make it feel larger. We debated it, but ultimately decided that it was worth it... well, I decided it was worth it and Brian agreed... probably every night before we go to bed - Brian will look up at the ceiling and say "Was this really worth X?" and I will say - "Yes - I think it is" It is sort of hard to tell in these pictures... but here are some pics from the progress they made on it:

Think that's about all that was going on at the house yesterday... they are getting closer to finished with framing... and I am finally almost all caught up from my lack of blogging!

Trash Talk...

On Thursday we had filled yet another dumpster... so they changed it out again. This is dumpster number 5 or 6 (I think):

Speaking of "waste" -- the Port-O-Potty was also delivered to the house...eek. And no our contractor is not just wearing a mask because of the smell of the Port-O-Potty... but he actually was in the hospital on Wednesday night for the flu, but is so dedicated to the project, that he was out at the house making sure everything was going as to plan... if that is not dedication, I don't know what is! Thank you Rufino and Get Well Soon!

Thought this was a cool picture, Brian not only takes a ton of pictures of the progress at the house, but sometimes in the mix, I find some really cool "artistic shots" -- this one shows the plans and the window in the entry way before it was removed. Because of the new design, there will no longer be a window here:

And now the window is gone and has been removed:

Not sure how secure this small bit of bricks is at the corner of the 1939 and where the addition in 1980 was added... but Brian will tell you, the brick is about to fall over and is not very secure at all:

The foundation company had to come back and fix some issues that had not been corrected initially when they did the work 6 months or so ago...

In the kitchen you can also see all the temporary supports being used as the new beams are going in to support the second story of the house.

The roof now also has additional support to make sure it stays on the house... good thing... right!? Apparently there was very little actually holding the roof on... living where hurricanes can happen, glad we now have a secure roof!

View from the living room across to Brian's study, which is now fully framed:

In the playroom there were shelves on either side of the fireplace, our intention was to just refinish these... but our contractor felt like that was going to be a bigger headache... so he went ahead and removed them and we will start over:

Upstairs in the hallway, we are reusing the windows that were already there... we even have an additional window that had not ever been used that was found in the attic which matched the 3 already in the hallway.... the new space for these windows has now been framed:

Here is the view of both the upstairs windows framed and the downstairs one from the courtyard... very happy with the progress:

And finally another picture of all the framing that is now complete on the second floor:

Slowly, but surely we are making progress at the house!!

Lots of Progress!!

A ton of progress is being made at the house. These pictures were uploaded to the blog last week, but I didn't have time to go back and actually update the details (we had family visiting), so finally I am doing it!! Hopefully, there are still a few readers out there!

I believe these pictures are from last Wednesday...
As I have mentioned before in an earlier post, one of the cool features that we decided to keep was the opening from the original stairs, which is now much more open and symentrical. Here you can see from the first floor what it will look look like when looking at our entry way. The doorways to the rooms off the entry are now framed too.

Look up... you can now see from the first floor all the way up to the second floor:

Here is a view from the second floor of the opening... now the floor around the opening just sort of ends... good thing they put the railings up - makes me nervous to see it right now. I think we will be really happy with this change and the decision to keep it open:

View from the front door of the downstairs and opening:

They started the framing for Brian's study... full framing to come, but the room is now marked off:

Framing in E's room is basically complete.... this is a view of her closet and little "nook" area. As you can see, her closet is a nice size... plenty of room to store all of her clothes!!

This is the other side of E's room - showing the entrance to her bathroom and her window framed out:

Here is a view of the back of the house with E's window framed out which is replacing the 4 windows that were in the old master...

Next up... more framing! Will try and get those posted tonight too.

More Before and After... Adjusting the Walls

On Monday, since it was a holiday and my office was closed, I had the opportunity to go by the house in the late afternoon and check out what was going on with framing and see the day's progress. I didn't take many pics because while a lot of progress (new beams, framing in the 1980 house) had been made, we were also trying to figure out things with our builder. We were able to determine where we could re-use the original 1939 doors and adjust some of the incorrect door openings in rooms before they were framed.

When we were designing the house - we were fine with the location of the "1980 stairs", but didn't like how closed off they were, so one of the things we wanted was to open up the space and take the wall down -- also if you look at the before picture, the walls beyond the stairs, sort of "stair-stepped" back:

Now we (will) have a much more open space... and instead of a wall closing off the stairs, there will be newells and a banister, it will look pretty different and hopefully really nice -- also -- in this picture you can see that under the stairs, some of the space is "framed" in because we will have kitchen storage under there and on the front side will be a closet -- thinking about leaving the banister in pink wood -- what do you think (j/k):

Here is another "before" view of the stairs before with walls on either side:

This picture was taken from upstairs and you can see the new beam to support the stairs now that the wall is down and into the kitchen space:

Here's another new beam that went in to support the 1939 house - I am pretty sure this is looking at what will be the breakfast area and the living room.... but Brian will need to confirm that.... in other words, this may be "updated" when he reads it because I am completely off ;):

Our 4th/Guest Bedroom upstairs is already framed... guess that means we are ready for visitors.... The pink framing inside the room is the opening for the bathroom (on left) and the closet (on right):

They have also cleared out all the brush on the back of the house and took down the fence that had fallen (I am pretty sure parts of the fence fell down during Hurricane Ike) - here is a picture at the back of the property, behind the car port and will just be a small area of grass (dog run for Ike?!):

Yesterday Brian said they had made a lot of progress and had finished framing the 2nd (E's bedroom) and 3rd bedroom, and the "jack and jill bathroom", finished the opening in the front of the house so that it would be centered and not look like we just left the stair opening, as well as putting in other beams and supports. No pics of the progress because he was busy the whole time there. Even though he doesn't always read the blog -- let me again say how lucky I am that Brian is on top of EVERY detail going on at the house. He can visualize everything and has worked tirelessly on this project. I am SO thankful for all he does each day making sure this house is our home!

Think Pink ... It is Framing Time!!

By Friday (1/18) they were basically done with the demo and the lumber got delivered to the house to start on framing...

Brian is great about texting me pictures when he goes by the house to show me what is going on there, on Friday he texted me this picture to show me they started on framing - couldn't believe we were moving on to the next phase... I also "liked" that some of the wood they were using was PINK!

Lots going on at the house:

The kitchen wall that faces the court yard had to be completely replaced for a variety of reasons, here they are starting on the framing and you can see both what will be the kitchen and the stairs - on the second floor the windows were removed so that when the wall is fixed, the windows won't crack -- we are actually reusing those windows, so once complete they will be put back in the hallway space:

Here is a picture of the new wall with the framing done for the new kitchen windows:

What will be the play room, used to have sliding doors, the new windows are now framed in, here are views from both sides of the room:

Here is a view of the court yard with both new walls now framed:

One of the first interior walls that has been framed is the laundry room wall, perhaps the "pink" wood used will make doing laundry more fun... wishful thinking!

While Brian spent some time at the house on Saturday - I loaded up E to enjoy the beautiful day at the park nearby - hoping this weather continues because not only is it enjoyable for us, but is ideal for working on the house:

Before heading home, since the workers were done and things inside were "neat", Brian wanted to show me some things, so we took the opportunity to show E her new room... she was very "excited" about it:

That's it for this post... Brian and I are excited to see what happens this week at the house and all the changes to come - will keep you posted as they happen: