Ok, so the end of visualization is nearing and I couldn't be more excited. Look how huge that covered porch is gunna be! All I can think of is how cool it is going to be now to entertain and have people over and even if it is raining we can still hang out outside. Love it! The concrete continues around the corner around the side of the family room and connects to the door that will lead to the back hallway and into near the new 1/2 bath and media room. Room for the grill and plants and fun.

And, to really get things moving along this week, the gas line has finally been turned off so that they can excavate for the new garage. The existing line ran right underneath, so it took some time to get it shut off and coordination made to get the foundation started. I can see where they sliced the gas line and nothing seemed to blow up, which is nice.

I have totally moved out of the property now; the kitchen is empty (did I mention how gross it was to clean out nine years of stuff, which normally wouldn't be gross except I am a collector and maybe even a horder, so it was really taxing on me and my wonderful friends who helped me to sort through and purge and organize my stuff) and the family room is empty now so that they can start on taking off the back part of the existing house to open it up to the new space. I do need, now that I think of it, to go back and rescue some temperature-sensitive items from the hall closet like medicines and stuff like that. The bedrooms are filled with boxes because those rooms will remain virtually untouched in terms of structure. The back rooms will get new windows and all rooms will get new carpet eventually; but for now they are packed with stuff to make room for the facelift in the family room and kitchen.

It is really starting to come along, isn't it! You can see on the first shot the hip style roof line - which was a mistake, but a good mistake. The original plans showed a hip roof (flat angle) versus a gable (pointed top) but then over time it was modified to be a gable style. The framers worked off of a an old set and so I got the phone call that day that the roof had been framed incorrectly, but that I may not mind the way it looked. The framers were ready to re-do the roof when I gathered my "housing committee" - my awesome neighbors, who helped me to determine that this was a great mistake and that the gable style would work just fine with the overall design. So, no demo was necessary and work continued. Ok, part of me may have decided to stick with the gable just so that we didn't have to take steps backward! No really, it looks great!

The front foyer and porch are taking shape. The family room addition on the back is really starting to look big -- it has been looking small to me just standing on the concrete slad trying hard to visualize what it would look like with a roof and walls, furniture and life! I am so bad at visualizing and it can be very frustrating at times, so I am staying calm and really putting a lot of faith in the architect and the process, sometimes to the frustration of others. They are working on researching if the back cable and power lines that currently come in to the back of the property above ground and connect to the roof, if they can be relocated underground, and ultimately have that back pole removed because I am the last house on the street that it services. The neighbors would also like to see it removed; really there is no part of it that is pretty and its main function seems to be a fireworks display when squirrels and birds wander way too far into its components -- and BOOM!