Insulation and drywall Tuesday March 31st

The drywall continues to go up (literally- onto the ceiling) in the bedrooms.


We insulated between the rooms to deaden the sound



They used a can of urethane insulation in every joint or hole to cut down on losing any heat.

Master bedroom build Monday March 30th

This is the view out the back of the house where all of the bedrooms face.


There are five deer out there now, if you click on the image you can see it at a larger resolution.


We are standing at the end of the hallway looking toward the new addition. Again the hallway is at the front of the house.


I am standing inside of the master bedroom facing the front of the house, on the right you see the master bathroom.


This is the view from the bedroom, walking into the bathroom. Straight in front of me will be the sinks.


Walking into the master bath, the closet and shower room and toilet are on left. If you look closly you can see the shower stall is installed, it's a tan or a very light brown and blends into the 2X4s.


This is the bath room, I mean the room with the bathtub. Diane wanted the shower and tub rooms to be hold their heat, so this room will have two sliding glass pocket doors to let the sun into where the vanity sinks are, while keeping the warm moist air in the tub room while bathing. If you look closely you can see the framing for the yet to be installed plate window. This window had to be custom ordered, using tempered glass because of the proximity to the tub.

Insulation and masterbath layout Friday March27th

This is a shot of inside of the new masterbath, from the corner where the tub sits. The two door ways at the end are the closet on the left (the shower stall is sitting in there now (it's red)) and on the right is the doorway for the shower and to the toilet.


This is a picture taken from the master bedroom room walking into the bathroom , there is so much more room. Again this layout eliminated the hallways between the shower room, walk in closet, the water closet (toilet) and the bath tube room.


As you can see, they have spayed a two part urathane expanding foam to "seal" the outer walls. From there, insulation will be applied. These walls are 6 inches thick per code, and should provide much better insulation.


Jim's framer, Gino built these platforms for the fron load washer and dryer. Instead of buying the expensive 12 in platforms, we built 24" platoforms so that the dryers are at working height. There is also plenty of storage slace underneath.

Thursday March 26th

The roof was finished yesturday and the roofing was finished today.



They removed the old exterior wall and now you can see the actual space.

Tuesday March 24

This is the garage ceiling. They are installing R30 between the rafters here, and will insulate the pipes and ducts later.



The mason needed to add two feet or so onto the existing chimney to clear the roof line and stay within town codes.



The framers are finishing the second roof over the old one. Once this is done we will be able to take out the old wall and get our extra two feet for the bump out.

Monday March 22nd

We met with Jim today to go over the schedule and budget for the project. Jim provided an estimate at the beginning of the project where he projected the total cost plus or minus 10%.
Our project required some intense labor because of the unexpected discovery of the joist and other challenges of the bump out that were difficult to estimate. To Jim's credit, he will not go beyond the projected cost of his project estimates. This is how he has conducted his business for the last 30 years. We are extremely happy with the quality of the work, the speed in which it is getting done, as well as the professional nature of his team. We highly recommend Jim.

So the good news is that they are beginning to sheet rock walls. As you can see from the picture below they have removed the wall between the old and new house


Jim's crew installed a door on the front gable to keep the cold out- it has dropped into the teens here.


Below is the rear of the house, where the slider will go in the master bedroom.

The week of Monday March 16th

A lot went on this week, and I couldn't keep up:
I had the Flu and was out from work Monday and Tuesday. It is hard to sleep when the masons are breaking up the concrete in the garage to pour a new floor.





The major work that was happening was the construction of the support that will extend the roof another two feet beyond the original rear wall support to the new rear wall.



What is happening is that the trusses that supported the roof were cut, and attached to a microlam beam. The microlam beam is then attached to the newly constructed rafters, which are attached to the newly constructed outer support wall. Thus, the new wall supports the extended trusses, and allows the new roof to be built above the old roof.


In other happenings, the new constructed area's bedrooms were insulated, wired and plumbed. The drywall was brought to the second floor to be installed the week of the 23rd.

The kids showers are plumbed and installed in both the new constructed and reconstructed areas.
This weekend Diane and I went to look at tile, carpet and flooring for the second floor. We discovered a flooring product called Karndean (http://www.karndean.com/newhome.asp?karnregion=usa&karnproducts=residential) We were very impressed by this stuff. It is different from laminate flooring, it holds up very well (we saw proof of this at Carpet Source http://www.carpetsourceflooring.com/(I highly recommend this company)) comes with a 15 year warranty, is very easy to replace and is totally water proof. The cost is about $4-$5 a sq ft installed. A little less than laminate ($5-$6 a sq ft installed) and more than carpet ($2-$4 a sq ft installed). We would like to use this in the hallway and maybe in the kid's bathrooms, which we planed to tile.

Friday March 13th

Nobody was too happy when they found out that I wanted to make the change to the layout, but everyone was accommodating. We lost a day of framing the interior in this area, and we would have to move some windows they had installed. But all and all, Jim's crew's main concern is we get it right.
We met with the Jim, his architect Tom, Jim's daily operations person, Rich and the framing crew to make sure it was all possible, to make sure we didn't need to order anything or reorder anything.
We found several issues though that day. One was that the floor joist were running the wrong way to make the second floor 2 ft bump out.

Existing second floor build Thursday March 12

Thursday night I walked up to the second floor and walked through the newly constructed walls that form the master bathroom. After the hours and hours that Diane put into figuring out this layout, it seemed claustrophobic in reality. The constraints Diane had were to make the shower room, the bath tub room as small as possible to keep them warm. Her layout accomplished this but it was a series of hallways. Neither one of us having no experience in this sort of design, it was hard to see this from the layout.






I went back up stairs and figured out a way that would allow all of the ordered fixtures and tubs in a design that was still warm with small rooms but eliminated the hallways and made it seem more open. It worked out nicely, and we were able eliminate the section that was protruding into the master bedroom, giving us more room.

Existing second floor build Wedsnday, March 11

Canned lights in the hallway in the new addition.



Heat registers are being installed in all of the rooms in the new addition.



You are looking down the new hallway that is separated by the old end of the house. To the left you can see the new framing for the kids rooms in the original part of the house. They will build all of the walls first to make sure the trusses are supported before they remove the outside rear wall for the bump out.



This is the beginning of the new bump out. First they remove the siding and expose the joists. From there, boards are cantilevered from the inside out to support the new wall.



They new windows are in for the master bathroom. Originally there were going to be three separate windows, but the middle window in the vanity area of the bathroom was blocked by the chimney.

Progress Monday March 10th

The crew has been roughing in the walls, electrical, whatever can be done on the existing second floor.


Don't forget that the back wall (on the left) will be torn down and rebuilt 2 feet beyond where it is now, giving us more space. There is an existing bump out now, the difference is that all of the wall will be this far out.



The new section got it's windows today on the second floor.

Second floor progress Monday March 9th

This is what the existimg second floor looks like now.


The rough vents were cut in the new section for the heating and AC.

The rough wiring is being installed in the new section.

Shanty town- Sunday March 8th

This weekend we moved the kids from upstairs to their new accommodations while the upstairs is being torn down. If you look closely in both photos you can see that neither cat is bothered by all of the change.
We have been staying on the fold out couch in the family room.