Shower doors, floor and cabinets!

I came back from my Smith Reunion and found this!! So excited. The floor was done on Thursday, then on Friday the cabinets, shower doors and bathroom door went in. It's actually looking like a bathroom now :) I'm so excited to have a real door and the light on the inside now! We're getting so close. Next week the plumber and electrician have to come back and then it's just little finishes and we're done!

Painted walls and floor started

We have walls! The walls are blueboard covered in plaster. We had to let it dry over the weekend and I painted yesterday so I wouldn't have to worry about paint on the new floor, or trying to paint around fixtures when they go in.

The tile guy was here today, but had more leveling to do than anticipated and wasn't able to do it all today because he had to let some holes he filled dry, but you can start to see it. We actually had something work out well for once in this house, which is that the bathroom is the perfect width for 4 full tiles across, so no cutting in that direction, which will look nice. It almost worked out lengthwise too, but there will be a half tile at the back wall. He will be back tomorrow to finish the floor!

Shower in!

We have a shower! It will have curved doors too, but that's later. We also have all the rough electrical done, including new sconces in the family room! Yeay! This house is in dire need of hardwired lighting! I'm very excited we were able to tag that project into this one.

We are waiting for the electrical and framing to be inspected, then it's adding some insulation in the ceiling and putting up wallboard time!

New studs

Our contractor gave us the news that they were going to have to rebuild the framing throughout most of the bathroom. The 2 X 3 metal studs were just not going to cut it. Many had to be cut, many were bent and damaged. Our lead carpenter came up with some good ideas on how to beef things up without losing precious space. We fit all the pieces coming in assuming 2X3 not a bump out to 2 X4 all around. He did have to make one wall 2 X 4 but he actually put the 2 X 4 perpendicular to the 2X3 existing studs, which helped with securing the new plumbing and putting protective plates over the copper pipes as they pass through the studs. The other wall he used new 2X3s and put them right up against the existing. You'll also noticed the concrete has been re-poured! No more big hole! The shower was also delivered today! That is going in tomorrow :)

New plumbing!

Big day today with new plumbing and we already had the plumbing inspector here to sign off on the permit! Wohoo! They are utilizing a vent stack that is over in the wall by the light switch, which was previously either unused or just used by the sink, I forget. So the new vent pipe goes up the wall from the toilet area, across that wall above head height and then hooks up with the stack. Well, it's not hooked up just yet, they had to pressurize the system, and then the plumbers will be back to finish it off.

That's a hole alright.

Jackhammering commenced today. We vacated the premises- including taking Willow in the car all morning while I ran errands. Of course it would be rainy and I couldn't take him on nice long walk. Oh well. He was happier in the back of the car than in the house with a jackhammer going.

Erik, the "destroyer"

That's Erik's new nickname from our contractor. Here he is in action! There are just a couple little odds and ends left in the demo to finish today.

"Warm Sahara" Bathroom

That is the new nickname for this bathroom due to the vanity granite color and floor tile we picked today. Wohoo!!! This is the fun part :)

Bathroom #2 Redo

We have a plan cooking to make the house layout work better for us. This involves making a master suite out of the back bathroom and current TV room, then moving Keagan into our current bedroom.
First up: gut the bathroom. The bathroom was put in as part of the addition in 1969. As our contractor said "this bathroom doesn't owe anybody anything at this point."
The shower that was in there was not big enough to pass code today, so the first thing we were worried about is if we could actually fit a modern shower into the small space. We think we've figured out a new layout with all three pieces on the right hand wall using a corner, curved shower that is going to work.
Erik and Ken (thanks, bro!) concurred the demo this past weekend. Ken was vital to the operation because Erik needed an extra pair of (strong) hands to get some of the pieces out and Ken knew how to cap the plumbing! It's mostly done, with the floor, taking out the insulation (insulation? yup, it was apparently an exterior wall at one point), and the rest of any wallboard. We were happy not to have found any major rot issues behind/around the old shower. We were not exactly thrilled to find 2X3 metal studs, but as John (the contractor) says "we can work with it."
Can't exactly say it's a pretty sight at the moment, but it's one that means progress!

New Fence!

After YEARS of the rotting old horse fence, bolstered by first plastic chicken wire and then wire deer fencing, we FINALLY got a new PVC fence installed today. Willow started busting out of the old, broken down gate and then one big cross big fell out in the front and we couldn't put it back into place. That was it. We were done with bandaids on that fence. It was just wrong all around and not safe.
I am so happy with the new fence I can barely contain myself. We actually expanded the back yard by bringing the fence up to where our neighbors' fence started and then coming down the driveway with it. You can see where the old fence was by the flowers and bushes that lined it. We'll have to transplant those because they are now in the middle of our new backyard section. We also replaced the small side section on the back of the house. We contemplated moving the fence into the "meadow" on the side of the house to expand the back even further, but decided against it. We're happy with the size of the yard and that side area won't really grow grass because it's so shaded, so it's not the best play area anyway.
Here's the new look!

Welcome Home!

Here's our new front door area with the new color, new mailbox, light, house numbers and welcome mat. Welcome home!

House Painting Done

Here are some shots of the house painted, with door color too :) I'll take a final picture of the front door once the new light, house numbers and mailbox go up. The color looks more yellow or more almond/beige depending on how the sunlight is hitting it. I like the door color a lot. I think it's a really warm red that isn't too dark or too orange. We're also happy to have the oil tank slightly camouflaged and not quite as noticeable.

House Painted!!

Well, it's not quite done. This is the first coat- I think they are doing 2, and it's not 100% dry, so the color may shift slightly, but I couldn't wait to post! I'm still processing. My house has been that sad grey (and various others) for so long! Seriously, I'm going to have to be careful giving people directions now, I'm so used to saying "it's the grey ranch". Woah.

I can't see out my windows!

There is a new law in Mass. that if a house is built before 1972 (or something close, I forget) you have to treat it as if there is lead paint unless it's been certified that there is not. This means that before the guys started scraping and sanding to prep the house for paint, they had to tape up all our windows and doors, and add tarp everywhere to catch all the chips and not let anything get into the house. It is very weird being in the house today and not seeing out the windows. But I'm super excited to have the three paint color samples we chose up in the front! The picture doesn't show the differences very well, and honestly, when Erik gets home, he probably won't see much difference either ;) But I do! The painter told me which one he likes best, and the contractor gave me his opinion. Now I just have to decide. Keagan just keeps saying "I want yellow!"

Prepping for Paint

The painters were here today to replace some of the rotten trim pieces and power wash the house. You can see how much of the old paint chipped off with the power washing. Yikes!

Exterior painting in the works!

I'm psyched to report that we'll be getting a contract soon for the exterior paint job! Our contractor was here with his painter to look around and we got a preliminary estimate which we agreed with and he's writing up the paper work! There is a new law that every house built before 1974 (I think) needs to be painted with a contractor who has been certified to handle lead contamination, which basically involves tarping and collecting all the paint chips from scraping, and keeping the kids out of the area while it's done. Not a big deal, and our contractor is certified to do it. It's never simple, is it?
Soon, I will get to pick colors :) That's the best part, right? I can't wait to have our house looking nice from the outside. I will post more info and colors as things get going.

Roof Work Begins!

60s degrees and sunny today, so our contractor made the call to do the roof! Guys were here a little after 7am and made pretty quick work of pulling off the old roof. I have been slightly afraid of hearing someone fall through it all morning (I never take anything for granted with that addition part of the house!), but so far so good!

Trees Gone!

In addition to our siding and roofing projects, we finally decided to get rid of some dead trees around the house. Can you see anything missing in this picture???

No more dead pear tree!! Yippeee! I was so excited the first Summer we were here when this tree gave us 3 pears. Sadly, that was the last year anything live came from it. We've just been dragging our feet about removing it every since, but it's been such an eyesore I just couldn't take it anymore!

Here are the tree guys shoving the dead elm out front in their chipper. They don't food around. One guy just grabbed their (small, I thought) chainsaw, made two cuts and shoved the thing over and it went BOOM! onto the road, with branches flying everywhere! It was VERY dead and VERY dry. Pretty spectacular to watch, but they had it all cleaned up in no time. I actually think it's the cleanest that corner of the yard as ever been. The picture was taken from the safety of the front couch.


Here's Keagan inspecting the stump afterwards.