Last Week's Progress

Here is the outside. You can see most of the siding is done on this side and the french doors are in place.

Here is the other side where the siding is finished.

This is the new HVAC unit.

Here is an overview of last week's accomplishments of the HVAC guys.

Here is the entry to the new hallway. Notice the labels where the linen closet and doorway to our bedroom used to be before they tore them out.

Here is the hallway. The wall to the left is the wall of what will be Lily's room and to the right you see the laundry and linen closet. At the end of the hallway is the entrance to our new room.

Now that you have your bearings (hopefully) you can look below to see a more comprehensive look at the area.

This is what you can see of what the plumber did last week. There is probably lots more behind walls and such.
All in all a pretty productive week I'd say.

Not so interesting in pictures...

So the roof is done. Now the HVAC guys and plumber are hard at work. The pictures are not so interesting. Pipes and ducting. I'm glad it's there, but it's kind of boring. I think I'll do a collage type thing when it's all up to show the difference closer together.

Another Day, Another Dollar...or 6,000

Jay ordered the fixtures for the bathroom today. I like what we chose, but I am still a little worried about how it will all come together with the tiles and sink and everything. He ordered the sink faucets, shower head and knob, a commode, and all the accessories we'll need for towels and such. That stuff really adds up fast- hence the title.
The roofer was here today and he had help! They finished most of the roof. I have a picture, but I'm too tired from moving stuff to make space and running around all day doing errands to go downstairs to upload it to the desktop, so you'll have to wait. Jay is wiped out too. He cleared a ton of space in the garage and the basement. I think we'll go to bed now and try to rest our weary muscles;-)

Gymnastics Camp

I just dropped Ryan off for his first day of gymnastics camp. It's the first time I've ever dropped him off for anything besides Sunday school and for that I'm still in the building and they can call me out of service at any time if he needs me. I just remembered there was one time we dropped both boys off for a play time at gymnastics, but they were together and we didn't stray more than a half mile from the gym. This seems different somehow. I'm all a flurry with mixed emotions. I'm proud of how much he has grown and how well he handled himself as he walked off to camp. I'm excited for him that he is experiencing fun new things. I'm nervous that he won't know what to do with himself or that something will happen because I'm not there. I'm a little sad, I'm not sure why. I tried to smile and talk only about how fun it would be and what a big boy he is so he wouldn't feed off my emotions.

I think he has some mixed emotions too.
I'm sure he'll be fine, but I'm still waiting by the phone and checking the clock obsessively to make sure I am there on time to pick him up.

Two Day Catch Up

I told you exciting things were going to happen this week, but even I didn't know how exciting it would get yesterday. We had yet another ferocious thunderstorm. It happened in one place in the whole state and it was right over our house! This time they were done work for the day, so it didn't affect them, but the rain pouring into our house freaked me out a little bit. [I should note here that the rain is coming in because of the termite damage in addition to the fact that we have no siding and the gutters are not in yet.] Luckily nothing got ruined that we weren't intending on replacing anyway(ie the downstairs carpet). The roofer was back today, so I'm hoping the state parks association won't have to come by and declare the waterfall in our family room a no build zone or anything.
Now maybe you understand why there was no update yesterday. I was a little busy gathering all the old towels and stuffing them places to try to stop the carnage. Then of course there was the clean up so said towels didn't cause mold.

Without further ado I give you pictures from yesterday...

Here the boys watch as they take out the slider and wall between our house and the addition.

Disappointed boys arrive to find the whole in mommy and daddy's room covered up.

The window from the hole in our bedroom.

TODAY-
Today was crazy busy for me. I had two appointments the morning and three kids. I saw the window truck arrive as I left and when I returned home we had windows!

I went up to check out our room and found holes. Not one, but two holes letting in all the hot air. Thank goodness the doors were both closed keeping that hot air mostly separate from the rest of the house's air. It was also good that we were out of the house because it was pretty warm even with the doors closed.

All the windows in the addition were in, so the only one left was the bedroom.

I also found this very pleasant surprise. It's our shower stall! I didn't know they were going to build it so soon.

The overall view of the house today with windows!

The bedroom window is now in and the guys are packing up. I have yet to take the end of day pictures.

Evening update:

Matt, our contractor, went around and filled all the potential leaky places with some sort of yellow goop. Let's hope the works, at least for now. They also fixed all the termite damage they could get to without causing more problems. They "sistered" another board next to the old one. The framers are finished for now. They will be back to put in the back door and later to put in a couple windows and a slider in the existing part of the house. That way we can move some of the stuff down into the addition and make room for them to move.

We are getting squeezed pretty tight now. We have to make room in the garage so they can put a furnace for the addition, we have to clear space in the basement for the electrician and the new furnace down there and now we have to clean out our closet so they can build a bigger closet for the washer and dryer and hopefully the new wall. The new wall will divide our old room into a hallway and a smaller room that will be Lily's. I don't know where we are going to put all our stuff! I guess I'd better start figuring it out.

Over the weekend...

the roofer came and "papered it up."

The roofer's helper got sick Friday, so he called someone else to see if he could help out on our house. He said he would, but he didn't. His excuse was not as good. He was still drunk when our guy went to pick him up in the morning. So the roofer came all by himself and did the work alone. It's a quality guy that will come out and work on your house on a Saturday when he doesn't have the optimum conditions and still do a good job.

Jay and I took the kids to the carpet store(big mistake) to try to pick out our flooring. We got some samples, but we totally blew our budget. We didn't even see any carpet in our budget. I think we'll have to go back when we don't have any distractions and look for the "budget" rack;-) We did find the most gorgeous manufactured hardwoods that we should be able to retrofit into our kitchen!

So now the big blue tarp is gone and it looks pretty cool. We've picked out most of what we need to order for the inside. We are chuggin' along. Some exciting stuff should happen this week. I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I won't go into it now, but stay tuned!

Fun with Titles

I did this spread in preparation for my "Word Art" workshop today. I just love it so much I thought I'd share. I thought Erin would especially appreciate it.Coming from a military background I don't have any friends I can say I've known since birth or preschool or even elementary school. So for me Ryan and Ben's friendship is really special. I hope they stay friends forever.

What's Happened Today

The whole skeleton seems to be in place though I am a layman, so I could be wrong.This is a view of our room from the bathroom door.

Here is the bathroom and Ryan checking out the day's progress.

Here is the closet. Jay thinks it's too big. He is not the one who has basically had to move out of our current closet to make room for the other person's suits. I won't name any names, but I think we all know the girl is supposed to have most of the closet. He will love it when I get all the shelves and organizers in there for our shoes, hats, ties, belts, etc. Plus he won't have to get dressed in the dark anymore because he'll be able to close the door and turn on the light!

Here you can see the current roof under the new one. It's kind of weird. It does make me think of what a cool attic space we could have if they cut it out. You know like those ones they always show on tv with the rocker and the antique trunk of grandma's old stuff. For us that will just be dead space though. I'm cool with that, but I've always liked the mystique of those old attics. You might be able to see that they still need to cut the overhang of the current roof off and place studs up to the ceiling here and over the bathroom and closet areas.

It is shaping up nicely and it's starting to seem very real. Of course I've been dreaming up ideas for the new space forever, but now I really feel like this is going to happen. I think when the drywall goes up it will really start to feel like a room. I imagine the siding going up will make it feel like it is really part of our house. Right now it's kind of like a new engagement ring. It involves lots of promise and excitement, but it doesn't totally feel like a part of our lives yet.

Thursday's Progress

It's the end of the workday and the roof looks almost like a whole roof.

This is what it looked like this afternoon at lunch time...

A little pick me up for Jay at work:-)

Here is where things are now. This is probably the best shot to see the overall picture, but to get the whole picture you need to see the others too.


You can see the rib work (so to speak) of the roof is done.
I'm not sure if you can tell by this picture with all the wood going all different directions, but the framework for the bathroom and closet ceiling is in. Those two areas will have regular 8' ceilings, but the bedroom will have cathedral ceilings :-)

Lunch Time Report- Updated

This is where the guys left it at lunch time today. I know it's lunch time because they stayed here to eat today;-) Ryan chatted them up for a while when they were done. They told him the same thing every other construction guy has told him...Stay in school you don't want to do this for a living. Interestingly I always thought construction workers liked their jobs.

This is the left bedroom wall.

This will be our bathroom

Just past the bathroom if you can make it out through all the craziness is going to be my our walk in closet. I'm very excited about it, I've never had one before.

They are back at work now, so hopefully I'll have more to show you this afternoon!

Update:

Due to a sudden and torrential lightning storm all work stopped shortly after lunch. So there is not too much more to show, but you can see the roof line now. So it goes, so it goes.

Now for what you really want...

The lunch time progress report.
To really see the progress you have to look at it from our bedroom window which will soon not be there because it will be an interior wall. Instead it will be the end of the hallway that leads to the new addition. See how that works:-)






Jiminy Cricket it's hot out there! I walked in to the air conditioning after taking these pictures and realized just how incredibly hot it is! Those poor guys working out there in the sun. I wonder if they would take advantage of the sprinkler if I set it up for them.


Update: It appears the framers are actually done for the day. I saw them leaving around noon and it is now 2:15. That would be a pretty long lunch. I guess they called it a day because of the extreme heat. It's probably best because I'm hearing lots of thunder now. At least the storm should cool things off for tomorrow.

An Interesting Trip

We went to Target this morning. It was quite an interesting trip full of mommy decisions and child strife. It all started out well, everyone seemed in a good mood. We picked up a few things we needed. I even picked up a box of donuts because Ryan asked so nicely for them. Then we continued through the store browsing a bit as we made our way to the sunglasses on the other side. Ryan lost his second pair of the summer last week and we are going to the beach soon. That might not be enough to get me to buy them, but the pair I bought for myself at Target this year recently broke too, so I figured I'd get us both some. They didn't have the style I liked last time which is really upsetting because it is really hard for me to find sunglasses I like and look good on my face. I did end up getting Ryan some and these baby ones with an elastic band for Lily. I thought Lily should have those since the moment I got the plastic ones near her she grabbed them and almost bend the ear piece off. Plus the regular ones said for 3 and up and she still puts stuff in her mouth and breaks things regularly. Then it was time to get the cold stuff and go, so we headed back over to the other side of the store (yes I know, bad planning) to get milk, eggs, etc. On the way Lily spotted the donuts and had to have one in that way that only 1 years olds can. She cried. I tried to distract her, but she was focused on those donuts and no amount of bright, shiny, noisy objects were going to deter her from achieving her goal. She squirmed and wiggled to try to get her hands on the box. She screamed and pointed thinking I should hand them to her. I hate to give in to crying fits, but it was past snack time and people seemed to think stopping and blocking the aisle in front of me and my screaming baby was a great idea. It's really hard to maneuver a cart with a preschooler and a bunch of junk in the front while you hold a squirmy toddler that wants donuts. Finally I just opened the stinkin' box of donuts and gave one to Lily and one to Ryan to avoid his inevitable protest (that coincidentally started as I pulled out his donut, but stopped as soon as he realized it was for him). Sometimes you just have to give in a little to keep you sanity.

Before all the mayhem with Lily, on the way over to the sunglasses, I realized Ryan had reached a new stage in his little life and it's not a good one. I realized this at the pivotal moment when he said, "Mommy, I need more Thomas the Tank Engine trains because Friend Ben has more than me." And all at once I realize that he is now comparing himself to his peers. This could mean disaster. I told him that we don't need to have something just because someone else does, but he was not convinced. He then broke in to a chorus of, "Please, please, please!" This is not something he normally does and I've always tried to prevent this the same way my parents did, "It doesn't matter how many times you say please I'm not going to change my mind." Then of course latter I undo all the good I've done with that by completely caving when his sister begged (in her own way) for a donut. I'm hoping the bonus donut for him distracted him enough that he didn't put two and two together. ::sigh:: Erin, no offence, but I've seen your basement of unending toys and if this stage continues I'm not sure we will be able to come over and play, we can't afford it;-)

As an added bonus to this lovely shopping experience both kids fell asleep in the car on the way home. I was so pleased because I saw the framers heading out of the neighborhood for lunch as we pulled in and I thought I would have some peace and quiet. Of course Ryan had to squelch that magnificent dream by waking up as I carried him in and protesting quiet time. "I'm not tired!" has been whined at me so many time since then that I might just flip out. He has cried, screamed, made tons of excuses to come out of his room, lost dessert, TV and the pool this afternoon all in the time that I have written this post. All in the time that was supposed to be quiet and relaxing. It has not been so quiet or relaxing.

Update for Jay

Trying to get this in before 5 so Jay can see:-)

Walls!

This morning the framers came and started building walls!

This is where they are at what appears to be lunch time.

Status Report

There has not been a workman (is it okay to say that?) here since Saturday. There was some problem with a broken down truck and then the 4th and all that rain. Hopefully someone will be here tomorrow. The framer is supposed to start Monday! I can't wait to see something going up. I know the slab is there, but it doesn't look much different than the porch. I think it will really start to feel real when some walls go up. I'm excited.
Even though no workmen have been here this week it has not been without progress. Jay and I have been to the tile store and two bath stores twice each. We picked out everything we need to outfit our bathroom, I think. Every time I think we don't have any more to pick something else comes up. We're not 100% on the toilet color and the vanity, but I think we are close. We actually ended up changing our minds on something we had been sure of since the beginning once we looked at it with our colors. We were sure we wanted brushed chrome fixtures, but we ended up going with satin nickel because it seemed to go with our tile better. I do like the satin nickel quite a bit and I really love it with the rest of our color choices. I really hope this all comes together well because it's hard to picture everything bigger than the samples.

Happy 4th of July!

Today we celebrate our country. I feel so blessed to live in the good old US of A. I'm grateful for the people who fought so hard to make life work here and those who have continued to make it better. I can't imagine wanting to live anywhere else. It's a great country. As Lee Greenwood would say, "I'm proud to be an American."

Special thanks to those who serve our country in the Armed forces, the police department and the fire department. Thanks for defending our lives and our freedom.

Weekends go so fast

It's Monday. How can it be Monday? It doesn't feel like we had a full weekend. Jay even had a 3 day weekend because he took Friday off. I don't feel like there has been any time to relax. Friday we went to the tile store and the plumbing store. We were going to go to the carpet store, but the first two were so exhausting and took so long we didn't have the time or energy to try to pick out one more thing. Who knew shopping for fixtures could be so hard?! We manged to pick a tile, maybe two that we are pretty sure we want to use. We still have to pick a sink, shower and toilet (I hope my mom-mom doesn't read this post, I said toilet!) to go with it, but hopefully we will find something that works. It's much harder than I thought it would be to pick everything for our bathroom. Just when I think I know how much there is to pick something else come up, like the hardware for the vanity. All of Friday was disappointing. The construction was a disaster. The poured the concrete for the slab and just as they were about to get the last bit in and smooth it the bottom of the sky dropped out and drenched the slab and the poor workers. They tried holding plastic over it while they smoothed it out, but the rain kept coming hard and they had to leave the plastic on when they left. When they returned all dried off after the rain stopped the concrete had hardened with ripples from the plastic in it. They had to tear out the whole thing. The only good part about the whole thing is that we are working with such a good company. They were able to tear out the whole thing Friday afternoon. They came back Saturday morning and redid the slab so they wouldn't trow our construction schedule off too much.
Saturday I did a bunch of work for my Creative Memories "business" and a little bit around the house. Sunday I went to a double Christening for my cousins' babies. Well it was actually a huge multiple Christening, but I only knew two of the babies. We went to a party after and the host had a pool, so our whole family ended up in it. We were on the road that leads to Jay's parent's house on the way home, so we decided to stop by there on the spur of the moment. We stayed there until almost bedtime. We got home, got the kids in bed and then it was time to wrap up a few things and go to bed ourselves. The few things took way longer than we planned and we went to bed way too late and still didn't feel like we did all we wanted to. So this morning arrives and another work week starts and the weekend seems like a distant memory.
I checked my blogs this morning and realized I had not checked them since early Saturday morning or maybe even Friday night. Now that is a busy weekend!