Excavation Begins for Foundations

This project is really moving quickly it seems so far! Sean worked on the calculations early this morning in preparation for the poured walls guys to come and excavate for the foundation footers. They would be digging at the front for the new front entrance and porch and also at the back for the living room and covered porch.

The project really feels for real now and we are starting to feel the pinch of having people at your house from 7:30 am until 5:30pm. It isn't that bad, but we aren't sure how long we will really last living here. They will be having to turn off the gas and water services next week to get the services relocated, so maybe that will be the time we take our field trips to our friend's houses for a hot shower....

Pre and Post Laundry Room

Here are the pre and post demo pics of the laundry room. Wow, they sure do work quickly! The last picture shows where the old wall in the dining room used to be (on the left) and where they constructed the new wall (on the right). I believe they will be moving the utilities to the right making was for the new laundry room that will be in the same location, and moving back toward the backyard will sit the new hot water tank and new furnace that will be zoned to service the new spaces, and then furthest back will remain the water softener and well pump and across from that will be the new half bath!

Interior Work Begins

Before pics of the dining room area and front window, which will be the new hallway connecting the front door and foyer to the dining space and new addition living room. They built the new interior wall right away to separate the major work area in the garage and laundry room from the rest of the house. Notice how the new wall makes the existing area smaller by about 3 feet. Here we go!

Ground Hog Day - Flight of the Fat Boy

So, we have had a pesky ground hog family living on the property for as long as we can remember. Our neighbor often uses some kind of air rifle to attempt to exterminate them one by one and Sean has tried to stink them out and gas them out with many different types of potions - yet this year, yet again, a new family of "fat boys" as we affectionately call them have popped up again.

Now that we have destroyed their playground, they are on the run and all look very confused. This one was sitting on the front ledge one day when I was home for lunch, so I grabbed my camera and tried to sneak up on him to get a pic before he ran away. Much to my surprise, he didn't move at all and I was able to take some up close and personal shots of our Fat Boy. He created a new hole at the front of the house overnight - boy is he going to be mad when the footers get poured and he will be evicted once again.

These are the views of the lovely storage pod and I think the reality of the garbage taken out of the garage and shed was much greater in person than the photo captures. It felt really good to purge and I hope we can keep up the trend of keeping the "stuff" to a minimum.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHhh! Today was the first day I forgot to take before pictures and I am sooo mad! I am mad b/c you would be soo proud of us if you ONLY KNEW what these garage and shed spaces looked like before we started the massive clean out!! You would think some sort of miracle happened here -- well it did, and their names are Dan, Mike, Joe and Madeleine.

The Ohio Blue stone stripped from the front of the house was tackled by Joe and Mike who had them cleaned and stacked and categorized by girth, no kidding! The mortar they chipped off the stone was left in the demo area to be used as fill.

Madeleine and Dan helped Sean and I clean out 9 years of God Knows What - some goes in the garbage pile and the rest was stored into boxes and put in the storage unit in the front/side yard. In the shed photo you can see the gas line running through the ceiling that also continues into the garage rafters and then into the house. Remember, we have no basement, just slab on grade so utilities float through conduits and the HVAC ductwork is encased in the slab. The existing shed will become the new office, and the existing garage space will become the media room/family room.

Post-Sycamore

The top pic is the post sycamore pic. If you don't live here you hardly would notice it is gone, but the lack of shade throughout the day is very evident to us. It's not like we can sit on the shady patio anymore anyway, so I guess the timing is right.

Madeleine was in town this weekend and was amazed by the progress. Though she wasn't thrilled to schlep garbage and boxes on Saturday, she got excited to help Sean confirm some measurements in the backyard, especially when she was put in charge of spraying the stakes. Of course she did find time to take a break to sing Camp Rock tracks atop the majestic sycamore stump stage! Notice the huge pile of stone from the front of the house -- and check out the amazing work Mike and Joe accomplished with it. . .