Breezeway 3: electrical, HVAC, and masonry

This week, as we suspected, the big work slowed down so progress looks less dramatic. But some critical infrastructure got put in and we are definitely seeing things come together.

First - the electrician came and wired us up! Nothing is live, but they fed the lines into the basement where they are ready to be linked up to the circuit breaker box. Here are outlets, switches, and (in the next photo) the recessed lighting:

 Here's the wiring to the back patio:

And here's the line to the basement, complete with giant hole in the floor:

You may have noticed in picture one that we also have a fancy new garage door (beat the plywood board from last week. The mason came to remove the brick work and raise the door up the level of the future floors Here's the view from inside the garage:

They made progress on the front wall too, installing the Hardiboard and starting to do some of the decorative work that will make the wall blend into the rest of the house's style. In addition, they pulled up the big slate squares that led to the now defunct entry AND pulled out our mailbox, since the placement doesn't make any sense now without a door there (even if a future owner potentially uses the garage, it still seemed odd to have a post mailbox right there near the house - it would make more sense at the end of the driveway).

Our mailbox is currently hilariously propped up beside our front door (it's on the other side of the door now, but this is a good view of the gigantic post):

We need to decide on a new mailbox. We are leaning towards some kind of wall-mount one right below the entry light on the brick, like this one from Home Depot:

Any opinions, pros, or cons? We could definitely use some suggestions here. No door slots, as we like our front door. Having some security (like this model) is nice, but then we're forced to use a key every time to get the mail out (recall that we don't even use a key to get into the house anymore, thanks to keypad entry).

Finally, onto HVAC. Today the AC people came and hooked up our vents. We have an intake/return (this one here) and two vents - one at each end of the room. This room, while not fully insulated, is now officially "conditioned."

Earlier this week, our heating guy came and put in hot water pipes from our heating unit up to where the baseboard will be installed once the drywall is in.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment. In the meantime, tell me your mailbox ideas!

Breezeway 2: framing and walls

A lot of progress in 3 days - I'm sure at some point, the big work will cease and small adjustments and behind the walls things will make the changes seem much less dramatic. But for now, huge strides.

On Wednesday, I came home from work to find our front breezeway wall and door gone and a whole new wall with windows up:

Here's the inside, partially framed. They took off the garage door and doorframe as well (and inadvertently blocked us off from the contents of the garage, since we have never had the key to the garage door):

Hi doors! Fortunately our builder works with a local salvage company that resells used house and construction supplies for charity, so this pile of stuff all has a potential second life, rather than being destined for the dump:

By Thursday, the floor was framed and the wall was framed a bit more (and we got into the garage):

Then on Friday, our missing back wall was put back up, raised to the right level, but were not fully fastened into place yet (they posted a sign telling us not to actually use them yet):

They jackhammered some of the concrete away from the entrance of the kitchen, also to get set for adding flooring:

This week we also made some decisions - we're going with baseboard heating, to match the rest of the house. It will be a separate zone, but the baseboard will look identical to the newer ones upstairs. We chose this over a few other options. Radiant heat sounded nice but was the most expensive, plus there were issues about what kind of flooring we could use. Electric radiant heat was out for anything except engineered wood (which looked pretty fake) because real wood cannot handle the temperatures. Hydronic radiant heat (i.e. using our hot water running through the rest of the house) was compatible with real wood (only custom slats that are quarter sawn, not prefinished flooring). It made me nervous though to think that the wood had to be very specific or else risked curling. What if it was fine at the beginning and started curling in a few years. Wood and temperature changes are not exactly mutually exclusive, but they are not best buddies either. Plus if something did go wrong with it, we would only be able to access it by pulling up floor boards. That plus the fact that it was the most money made me decide to pass.

The cheapest choice also wasn't to our liking. It just reminded us too much of an afterthought and too much like a hotel. It was cost effective and efficient, but did not go with the house.

We opted to spend more money on the baseboards as a system that blended better into our 1950s house. That also necessitates doing some work on the AC ducts to bring AC to the room as well. Not cheap, but cheaper than the radiant heat and something we already understand.

We also chose our floors. Though by taking radiant heat off the table we could choose from anything, we learned that in the end the difference between using Home Depot prefinished wood flooring (with some pretty negative reviews online), fancier prefinished wood flooring, and custom sanded and stained slat floors was only about $300. For yet a tiny bit more, we could get the fancier quarter sawn wood. We decided to splurge, at our builders recommendation.  Hopefully we like what we get.

Breezeway 1: A little breezy

I'm not delusional enough to think I will update every day for a 6-8 week project, but I can't resist showing some first day pictures.

First - no more back wall. They're saving the French doors to put back up at the end (you'll see them again in picture 5).

We're not actually sure what the white board is attached to the brick on the left of the picture. The big board probably is what will become of our kitchen door when they take the actual door off the hinges.

No more ceiling either - look how roomy it is up there! Too bad we're going to cover it up with insulation and seal it up again.

Our patio at the moment - glad we got in some grilling last weekend, because it might become a bit more challenging now...

 And the view from the yard back towards the house - hi French doors!

They did do one thing inside the house - cut out a little square of vinyl from the kitchen to make sure they knew what level they were working with. Fortunately we can cover it back up with the floor mat. Not that we'll be using this door that much longer:

I'm still rather in awe that this project is happening - by far the biggest one we've embarked on. Wish us luck!

About to begin

In a meeting today with our contractor, he said they are looking to start early this week. Oh my! We are well into cleaning the room but it definitely isn't ready for demolition yet, so that is how we are spending our weekend.

In the meantime, I bring you some hilarious visitors that have stopped by our front door (captured on our security cam) recently. You may recall that last fall the most frequent visitor to our camera was a spider. These pictures are significantly cuter.

This bird wanted a closer look:

This one was caught in the act of landing or taking off or something:

Another one just stopping by to say hi:

A furry friend came to visit as well (probably drove the cats crazy):

 Incoming!!!

It's a good thing we have this camera helping to make our house safe from intruders like birds and kitties. That's it for now. Exciting updates to come as breezeway work begins!

The Plan

OK, time to tell you about what we're actually doing in here--

This is the view from the kitchen. This wall will be insulated and covered with drywall, with "wall washer" recessed lighting on the ceiling directed at the wall (for illuminating artwork) plus 4 normal downward recessed lights. Because the floor will be raised (more on that in a second), the garage door has to be lifted, which means some masonry work. It's also going to be a fire-rated door to block off any potential garage issues, and with no window (it will look just like our front door). There will be a switch that controls all the lights near the garage door, and crown and baseboard molding to match the rest of the house. 

Moving clockwise, towards our front yard, this wall will no longer have a door on it. It will have two nice windows with horizontal grid lines to match our other windows and the rest will be insulated. The outside will have some detailing to match the rest of the house and covered with Hardie board, which is a fancy type of siding that offers better insulation.

Making our way around the room, the wall with the shorter dresser on it (you can actually see it in the photo above better than the photo below) is going to remain brick. The wall around and between the two doors (to the living room and kitchen) will be drywalled. The middle area where the clock is hanging will have an ethernet connection and plugs, since it seems a logical place to mount a TV.

One thing - our designer isn't putting crown molding above the exposed brick. I'm having trouble imagining if that is right or not, since we don't have any brick now. The rest of the room will have it. Does that sound right? The doors to the living room and kitchen will be removed and the frame puttied where the hinges currency are. Another set of light switches will go in here as well.

Moving to the back - this wall will actually look very similar to how it is now, just raised off the ground. We are retaining the french doors, which apparently are worth several thousand dollars. The parts above the door will get insulation and finished with molding to match the rest.

Onwards to the floor - the flood will be raised to meet the level of the kitchen/living room. The wood we decide on will actually be brought into the kitchen, which requires a lot of extra work to move out the stove and fridge, possibly carve some space in the cabinet above the fridge (our builder isn't quite sure until the remove the linoleum and look at the bottom of the fridge to see the levelers if we have enough clearance at the top, but fortunately the cabinet has a large lip we can work with).

In addition, they're sprinkling lots of outlets around, running one to the exterior in the back, and adding two lights outside the back french doors - a decorative entrance light and a security light, both controlled from the two switches in the house.

Left to be determined - the exact flooring (we go shopping with our builder in a couple weeks to select it) and the huge issues of HVAC. We thought we had it figured out but the current heating guy seems pricy and the radiant heat quotes seemed strange to our builder. So we're calling in a few more opinions. But we're about 2 to 3 weeks out from construction...

Which means we really have to work on emptying out all that junk...

Ultimate Arbiter of Value

How do you like our new formal title? We're signing a contract that says that's who we are, so it must be so.

I guess I should backtrack a bit.

One of the reasons the blog updates have been few and far between this spring is because we've been saving our energy and our money for our biggest project yet - remodel the breezeway into an indoor space (we even "resolved" to do it for New Years).

Well it turns out that even though we were willing to part with several tens of thousands of dollars, in the scheme of things this is a "small" job and we were having trouble getting contractors to follow though on providing us estimates. We have four design/builders come out, plus one architect, between February and April and finally got them all to give us their proposals about two weeks ago, after a lot of, well, the only real term for it is nagging. Not the best feeling when one is about to hire one of these people.

So it's been a long slog.

But, I'm thrilled to say that we found someone to work with. He was the cheapest, the most highly recommended among the design/builders, the nicest, and the most prepared with ideas and literature on various options. He is also LEED certified, almost obsessive as we are about energy savings and using low/no VOC paints and products, and opts to reuse components when possible to reduce waste and cost.So we are confident that we made a good decision (or, at any rate in case this is a "jinx" scenario, certainly the best decision we could given our options).

In the end, the apparently small scale of the project led us to decide that we did not need a separate architect, given that we were working within an existing footprint. That lowered the cost significantly and let us get a more realistic number up front (rather than forcing us to pay the architect's not-insubstantial fees and only THEN start pricing out contractors).

At this point, we've met with the design/builder who did rough measurements and provided a very rough proposal and estimate. Then we met with him again to go over more specific details, after which he provided a more detailed mock-up. Then we met with him along with some subcontractors (specifically an electrician and carpenter, with input from the heating guy who couldn't attend but has already worked with us and knows our house). This week, we'll meet with him again to select actual products that will influence the cost, and THEN we will get the final estimate and start work. Our goal is to be done by the end of August.

Oh, and our official "title" at the top? On the memorandum of understanding we signed with our design/builder, he noted that all parties will reach an agreement on the appropriate balance of cost, quality, and speed to determine the best value, and that we, the homeowners, are the "ultimate arbiter of value" on the project. Can't resist a title like that.

Next time I'll tell you a little more detail on exactly WHAT we are doing with the breezeway.

A functional sump

In less than 60 minutes of professional help, we have a functional sump pump and several hundred fewer dollars.

The sump basin is now much cleaner. I wouldn't drink out of it, but we can see the bottom now. This new sump is quiet. So quiet we can only hear it if we are standing right next to it. Which is a problem, since we would have no idea if it stops working, until the basement gets really damp.

So I installed this:

It's powered by a 9V battery and the water sensor is attached to a wire - so it was pretty easy to drop it to the top of the basin. It does work....I dipped the sensor in water and it does make a super load beep. Hopefully it'll still work years later, should the sump ever fail.