Almost there, except not

It's been a slow few weeks, all things considered. We have several more coats of paint and a floor, and lovely doors and windows (that absolutely will need covering with room darkening curtains.

The IKEA Pax closet unit are up and starting to be drywalled into the closet corridor. We had to adjust some of the lighting in that corridor that didn't match what the plans said--they were installed centered on the original walls and not taking into account the closets themselves, so there was some extra patchwork that had to happen, which will require yet more paint. (If the picture below doesn't make sense, don't worry--it's a lot of confusing lines and angles--I'll devote more time to it later.)

The pocket door to the hallway was fully reframed and patched back up. It's more level with the rest of the doors and the trim is more symmetric, so that's back on track too.

AND we have a deck. We love our color choice, though now that we see it together with the paint on the siding, we realize that we paired two different grays that fall in similar brightness levels, but with one cool (the deck) with one warm (the exterior) and it's...maybe a bit odd? I don't think it's bad though, and I don't know what our other alternative would have been (a dark gray deck would be hot under foot, we don't really use browns or other colors anywhere else, and our exterior matches the rest of our house). We still do not have railings because of a complication there that happened when we switched from wood to metal, which is a story for a different post.

But the biggest thing we are still missing is here:

It's hard to feel like we're getting close to the end when we don't have a roof. We had estimates and then we had revised estimates and then it was supposed to come last Wednesday but then it was supposed to ship last Wednesday and our poor contracting lead has been on the phone with the roof company every day.

We've been told it's coming tomorrow. We shall see.

Windows and Waiting

Well, we did indeed get our windows, so at least those came on schedule. Though that probably means the door and transom windows will arrive "on schedule" in mid-June. 

This week will be a stressful one while we go through inspections and learn whether or not we can proceed. We passed "water" last week and have electrical, plumbing, and framing this week. Framing requires that the unit be sealed, which, as you can imagine, requires a door and not a hole, covered with Tyvek...though it's possible that someone will have pity on us and divide that particular inspection into two parts that will allow us to proceed with a boarded up opening instead of an actual door.

Which is bad because we have a garage and basement full of the things we've been ordering that need to go INTO the house (sink, vanity, medicine cabinets, closet units) that we very much want out of our living space. Though I have to admit that besides the boxes, this addition has, as planned, had very little impact on our ability to live in our house. Besides through the crawl space, it really is just a thing that takes up a lot of room in our yard.

And so while we wait to learn the fate of our project, a few small details. We ordered our tile, which was what we decided on here with one exception. We'd already swapped out larger floor tiles for smaller ones in the shower thanks to your advice about smaller tiles being less slippery (thanks to grout lines). Our contractor and architect went one step further and advised that we stick to unglazed tile, to give it even more friction. So we opted for the penny tiles here, in Sapphire:

(If you can't read the miniscule writing, it's the very middle tile, second row up from the bottom.) We liked the hexes but they were backordered and we decided we did not want to risk it, so we stuck to the rounds in order to guarantee we could get them when we needed them. Which could be in a week or two or could be in June/July. SIGH.

The shower is looking a bit different, with some pretty intense waterproofing which we imagine is for the steam shower (because that needs even better sealing than an average shower).

Finally, we selected the Trex decking color from the three grays closest to our existing (very dingy) decking and similar to the stone on our patio:

We're going with the top one, called Pebble Grey (yes, they spell it the British way). We won't actually be getting the deck until among the last steps of this addition, but at least for once, it was an easy decision to make quickly--unlike our bathroom light fixtures, which we STILL haven't settled on after literally hours of searching.

Fingers crossed for good news this week!

Framed and Waterproofed

 

Some rain in the forecast last week and this meant it was time to take this party inside. Last Friday, the crew was here late to transform this (1pm):

To this (7pm):

The addition now has plywood walls and is now mostly water tight (we saw a couple drippy spots where the roof waterproofing sheets met, but have been assured that will be fully sealed up before insulations and roofing). Here's a fun game--can you see the different between the picture above and this one? Besides the "door," which got added on Monday.

Do you give up? The roof overhang on the right and left shrunk about six inches. D has been very particular about our trim line and wanted minimal overhangs, to match our existing house, which has almost none. The plans call for no trim but the builders added it. We honestly didn't notice until the architects came for a site visit. It was apparently an easy adjustment to make so the crew pulled it back according to the plans.

Now we have an enclosed space that we can (awkwardly) access from our office window. Of course we had to explore. The wall between the bathroom/hallways and the bedroom and the extra wide lintel (because it's a pocket door, so half the doorway will be covered by drywall to contain the door when it's open) has been framed. Still, it was hard to visualize exactly what would go where:

The next time they came to work, visualizing because a whole lot easier. All the internal structures appear to have been framed out. We have a clear hallway and doorway, and the wall behind our bed has been constructed.

On this side, you can see where the shower will go (or maybe you just see a lot of vertical boards, and that's ok too):

Outside the house, the team is working on pouring concrete for our deck footing. Here's a giant cylinder of concrete, drying in a cardboard mold. Obviously there's more hardware that goes in there, since it's still about a foot away from the deck frame:

Here's another view of the footing, from the side:

The site has been quiet for a couple of days, and we're not sure if that's weather related or due to the fact that we're moving on to subcontractors (maybe it's time for plumbing and electric?). We're excited for whatever is coming next.

New Year, New Goals

It's 2018 and it's time for my annual look backwards and forwards at what we accomplished last year and what we plan to do this year for the house. And so without further ado, here's 2017 in a nutshell:

Last year, we had a pretty modest list of plans, with a small baby still needing constant attention and with a major renovation recently under our belts (breezeway to sunroom conversion).

So mostly, we needed to organize our lives. How did we do? Well I had three spots I wanted to clean up - the office, kitchen, and linen closet. The office closet got addressed last January and, more importantly, has largely held up to the chaos caused by two children. Here it is today, with only minimal staging:

The rest of the room remains in progress but we are just waiting to purchase the last piece of furniture and buy some more toy bins. We've also tried to thin out what we have and started what I hope will be a lasting tradition of asking the kids to pick out some toys that they no longer play with to donate on Christmas Eve. The problem of course is that incoming toys still surpass outgoing ones, but it's a start. I'm marking this one as "accomplished" (or as much as it can be with two small ones in the house).

The kitchen also stayed organized as we continue to use the system suggested by our professional organizer. We moved on to tackle the pantry last month and will continue that one over the next week or two (update to come). So check the box on that one too.

The linen closet - well, we decided we just don't care. We have a plan but the truth is that even though it's a disaster in there, it's a contained disaster made up exclusively of sheets, towels, and pillows. The ones we swap out regularly are to the front and for now we are willing to ignore the rest. It will be a pretty space once we fix it up, but it is low on the priority list and doesn't even make this year's to-do wish list.

Next up - automation: this was more about learning how to live with the Roomba and force it to do our will. I'd say we managed pretty well, learning where to place the electric fences and even managing to have it clean around the Christmas tree skirt full of toys without disaster. Most days it runs, it completes a full circuit and collects a bin full of cat fur, cheerios, various other crumbs, etc. I barely ever vacuum these days so YES, another box checked.

Finally the doorbell - that's a resounding nope. We tried a couple more times to fix it ourselves whenever a friend said they had an idea of a solution, but since this one requires a call to an electrician, I suspect it will wait until a more pressing electrical problem that can't be ignored and then be lumped into the same professional visit.

And no, we still haven't replaced our basement door (a goal for 5 years now)...

Unplanned major updates last year were the tree-related repairs, the new washer/dryer combo, and all the new trees.

Onwards:

I think we've finally mentally and financially recovered enough from the tree damage and the previous year's remodel to put some big projects on the list.

1. First up, my goal to replace the counter and add a backsplash to the kitchen:

There's a pretty big crack in the piece on the right and it's always felt like a cheap choice given the lovely cabinetry, so it seems like a good time to replace it. Plus I've craved a fancy backsplash for a while now and switching both at the same time makes sense. We'll also probably repaint so that the whole kitchen/dining room space gets a makeover. There will be much more on this later as I brainstorm exactly what to get (I have absolutely no idea what colors I want).

2. Organize the basement closet. This one is more of a mishmash than the linen closet and so I can never quite find what I'm looking for.  I'm trying to figure out exactly what needs to go here and what doesn't and use the space better:

3. Move/take down/rearrange trees and shrubs as laid out here.

4. Reach goal: have a deck installed over basically the same footprint as our brick patio. While the kitchen counters are my idea, this belongs to D. He thinks we will get much more use out of a patio level with the house rather than the steps down to a dirty and weedy brick patio. I was unconvinced it was worth it, since I hate the outdoors once the bugs com out - until a neighbor told me that raising up our hang-out space a  foot or two off the ground would significantly reduce the impact from mosquitoes. So maybe we'll at least get some estimates and plans.

5. And lastly - that darn basement door again.

What about you, loyal reader? Any plans for your home this year?