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. . .

Timmmm Brrrrrrr Falling the Sycamore 7/11/08

Take a good look at the top pic on this entry -- the big sycamore came down today. It took the four men about 6 hours to remove the tall tree from the backyard to make way for the new addition. We had it evaluated a few years ago because the safety cables holding the split trunks together had snapped and we wanted an update regarding the health of the giant. The arborist said it had a desease and was being eaten from the inside out by bugs - much of one of the trunks was hollow as you can see in the last picture. It was an amazing site watching it come down - Andrea, Erin and I watched from the family room as it came down limb by limb.

7/10/08 Stone Removal

Work began today on the front of the house with demolition of the bushes along the right side of the house - just outside the master bedroom windows and the brush/bushes/weeds under the two bathroom windows just to the right of the existing front door (that is hiding behind the umbrella tree. The hedge row under the bank of six windows that looks into the existing dining space was also removed because this will be where the new front door will be located and the new front foyer and covered porch. They removed all of the stone from the front of the house and dumped it into the backyard - the goal is to have Sean's dad, Joe, look at it to see if he can clean the Ohio Blue stone so we could incorporate it somehow into the new design - maybe for the hearth of the fireplace, etc.

Ground Breaking July 9, 2008

Sean and his youngest brother, Michael, surveyed the rear of the property at 7am that morning to mark the areas that would need to be hit by the demolition crew. They had it rough staked and ready before the crew arrived at the property.

The boys left for their next job site before the crew arrived. I became very emotional when they drove the machinery up the driveway - this was really for real, oh my god! No turning back at this point! The rubble in the rear demo picture is the patio being chomped up - they had the whole rear area demolished within a couple of hours.

After I took the pic of them getting started in the back, I realized I really needed to stop watching their every move and get ready for work -- so I hopped in the shower, blew dry my hair and was getting dressed when there was a vibration of the house and the power went dead. I threw the rest of my clothes on and ran to the back window to see the (3rd pic) power line that goes from the back yard pole to the house laying on top of the cage of the bobcat! It was pretty scary to look into his eyes and see the fear of being toasted so early in the morning, but luckily the backhoe driver was resourceful and used the bucket to lift the live wire off of the backhoe so that the driver could get to safety.

After a nice dinner out with conversation consisting of positive hopes of how we hope this accident on the job site on day one was not a sign of things to come. . . the very nice electrical workers managed to have the power up and running by the time we woke up the next morning.

Pre Renovation, rear view

Here is the rear view of the house and property --The large bank of windows that you see along the back of the house are in the family room, which leads out onto the concrete patio. The bank of four windows just to the left looks into the 3rd bedroom and they will just be replaced.

The huge sycamore with the split stump has eroded the patio with its roots and creates work all year round to clean up after its shedding tendencies. Raking its leaves in the fall takes days and though it is a wonderful tree that offers us much needed shade, it will have to be removed not only for safety b/c of the split stump and bugs that are hollowing it out, but also to make room for the new family room and covered porch.A 22' family room addition will be added to the existing structure and a 17' covered porch will extend beyond this new room.

The existing family room will be converted into the new dining space and the chimney that you see in this photo rising from the center of the home will be removed so that most of that wall that separates the kitchen from the living spaces can be opened up to create an open feel with the kitchen overlooking the dining room and family room beyond.

These are before pictures of the front. While clearing out the garage to make room for the construction to begin, I found my planner from 1999 (along with many other things that I save for sentimental reason and no good reasons at all), which likely was saved because it documented the timeline from offer to closing on this property - June 15, 1999.

Since 1999, dreams have been brewing of making this wonderful property into a home we can stay in for a very long time to come. The current footprint is about 1500sf, 3br/2ba with a family room, kitchen, dining room and a two car garage with attached storage shed. The plan is to add a front porch (where you see the set of six windows to the right of the garage) so the new front door will no longer be hidden behind the umbrella tree. Then, the garage space will become a family room/media room, and the shed to the left of the garage, which is hard to see in this pic, will become an office space. The new garage will be built at an angle off to the side of the office. And that is just the beginning. . .

(Click on the photos throughout this blog to view a larger/closer image) This is a project that has truly been in the making since I walked the property in May of 1999 with tears rolling down my face wondering if a home purchase was either a brilliant idea or totally stupid. My mom was the one who talked me down out of the tree when she said, "well, if it is a mistake, you just stick a for sale sign in the yard, that's all!"


While cleaning out the garage this past week, I came across my day planner from 1999. It reminded me that I closed on this house on June 15, 1999 - wouldn't that have been weird if the construction started on that anniversary? I say it is close enough to be surreal.


Anyway, 9 years later, the dream is becoming reality. We have not talked about it too much with our friends and family for fear it would just be a lot of talk with no action. After many heart-felt conversations debating whether to move to a newer, more spacious home or to just stay here and modify this one, we decided to stay put, enjoy our location, and let our roots grow right here. It is crazy to think we will have lived in only one home together (for the forseable future, anyway), especially when we are both in businesses where growth, movement, building and relocation are everyday happenings. We are so excited!