Drywall!

We stopped by our house briefly yesterday (Saturday) evening and almost the entire upstairs had been drywalled! Not taped, but it was up! There was one section, right beside where the glass blocks are going that wasn't done, so not sure if that was an oversight or what, but that's good progress. I imagine that they were going to do the downstairs today.

I've misplaced the cable for the camera so can't upload any pictures for this post or the previous one. As soon as it turns up I'll update these posts. Update: found the cable! :)

Fenced in

We now have a new fence -- unfortunately it's a bit longer than we wanted it. It was supposed to stop at the edge of the paving stones, but it goes right past that to the edge of the garden. (We wanted to leave a walkway between our house and the neighbour's house.)

There is still no drywall up. It was supposed to have been started on Wednesday according to the builder on Tuesday. We went to the house last night (Friday) and there had been no work done since we were there last, which I think was on Tuesday. Brooke phoned him today and was assured that they were going to be working through the weekend to put up the drywall. We shall see!

Insulation

We went by the house on Saturday and took a bunch more pictures, so here they are.

Here's our new patio area along the side of the house. There is a wooden frame on the ground behind the rhodo which I believe is going to be placed around it to contain the dirt.

The insulation is in place now and it looks really good. Here's a picture of Brooke checking out how it is sealed around the window in the TV room.

The hole in the wall of the landing is framed off, but they apparently forgot to remove the heater. I think that'll be fixed, but if it ends up staying the way it is now, I think it'll look okay.

And just in case I didn't include a photo of it previously, here's my awesome new bathtub. There is a hole in the outside wall above it where the windows haven't yet been installed.

Tele-update

I just had a long conversation with the builder about the state of the renovations (he's a bit of a talker, but then so am I!) although I haven't been there today. He said the framing and plumbing inspections have been passed, and the guy doing the insulation was in there today (and will be tomorrow as well) and the inspection for that is scheduled for Monday. The drywall will go up after that -- originally (early last week) he had said the drywall would have been done late last week, so we've slipped by about a week. Once the drywall is in place, he figures there will be about seven 10-hour days worth of work to do all the painting and other finishing, so that sounds like two work weeks to me. I think he said the outside pavers were put down today (or will be done tomorrow?) and he's picking up the fence tomorrow, so that might get installed tomorrow as well.

When we were there yesterday we saw that the little seat between shower and tub has been framed, which led us to change our minds on where the lip of the shower should be. Originally we were going to have it go straight across, continuing the wall of the shower, but now we're going to angle it from the corner of the wall to the corner of the seat. The bathtub is in place, and the plumbing is all roughed in for the shower and tub. I imagine the toilet and sink are roughed in as well if the plumbing inspection has already been done, but I didn't notice that specifically.

The beam that goes through the middle of the skylight in the closet won't be able to be removed, but Brooke mentioned that we could put opaque glass at the level of the ceiling to just let the light through, and not actually see the beam.

Siding

When we were at the house yesterday, the siding was nearly complete. We haven't gone over there yet today but I wouldn't be too surprised if it's done now. The electrician had just finished installing the in-floor heating in the bathroom when we were there... and luckily Brooke noticed that he'd continued it right through under what is supposed to be the shower, so some of it had to come out again.

Our snazzy new bathtub has been delivered, I'm very excited about that! Too bad I won't be able to use it for quite a long time yet! It's just sitting in the TV room at the moment. We still need to pick out our faucets and such. Oh yeah, and then have it all installed and tiled.

We were originally planning to tile the shower and around the tub and then have lino on the floor, but the flooring guy said that he's seen that done, and it doesn't work so well, so recommended we tile the entire floor, so that's what we're doing. (And I know he really meant it because we would have bought the lino from him, but are buying the tile from someone else so he talked us out of a portion of our purchase from him!)

Photos!

First of all, here is our new daughter, Charlotte!


Here's the front of the house as of a couple of days ago. When we were there yesterday, the siding was starting to go on, so it's already changing.


This is what our roof looks like when viewed from above -- so it's not really V-shaped as it looks from the ground!


Brooke took this picture of me checking out the window in the new bedroom, shot through the wall of the walk-though closet.


When they first put in the skylight, there was a ceiling beam going right through the middle of it.

Then they fixed it.

I'm alive!

In case you were wondering :) Charlotte was born on May 28th and this is only the second time I've found any time to be on the computer since then.

The reno is coming along nicely! The windows are in, the roof is finished, the two skylights are in (there's a story about one of the skylights which I'll share later!) and the paper that goes under the siding is on. The siding is in the driveway, painted & covered with a tarp to dry, and will be attached soon. Inside, the interior walls have been framed, and the electrician has put in the wiring for the lights, outlets, etc. We're still waiting for the plumber -- the original plumber backed out, and I'm not sure if Sean has a new one lined up or if he's still looking. As soon as the plumber has plumbed the bathroom and moved the water tank, I believe the insulation and drywall can go up, so we're getting there!

I've got to go feed the baby, will try to get on again soon to post some photos!

Nearly done framing

I was in and out of the hospital today twice expecting to be induced (but got sent home both times due to them being too busy) so didn't pay too much attention to what all happened with the reno today!

However, the entry hall now is mostly framed -- just the piece at the back where it joins to the existing roofline is missing, and they removed the sliding glass doors from the original bedroom. I took pictures, but they're on the old camera as the new camera is in the hospital bag, so it'll be a few days before I add the photos.

I didn't see the guys this afternoon so don't know for sure whether the inspector did come or not. I was thinking the plumber and electrician were due to start today, but I think it's just that they're due "early this week" sometime.

In between trips to the hospital, Brooke and I worked on finalizing our tile selection for the shower (down to two choices now, and I'd be happy with either one!) and took our carpet and lino samples in to the place we bought them from to be matched, so we're making progress there as well. We still have to pick out the laminate flooring for the TV room, and whatever linoleum we ultimately use in the bathroom -- but that'll come after the final tile selection so they coordinate!

Who's out there?

I've had a couple of people tell me now that they're following along on this blog, but I'm curious who all is -- so leave me a comment on this post and let me know you're reading!

Just beneath the line, you'll see a place where it says "0 comments" (or however many) - just click on that, and then say Hi -- select "Name/URL" to fill in your name, and you can just leave the URL field blank.

Thanks for reading! :)

We have a roof!

Today they put plywood on the entire roof, and also (mostly) framed the wall where the window seat is. It's still missing a few pieces of plywood on the outside. There's still a bit of tie-in to be done in the roofline at the back, along with the final wall around the vaulted entrance, but Joel said they will finish that up on Monday and then it will be inspected on Monday afternoon. Then the plumber and electrician will be starting on the inside, and these guys will start to put on the siding.

So I guess our big task for the weekend is deciding on the paint colour! We haven't decided for sure whether we'll stick with the same dark green colour, or repaint the entire house while we're at it. Last year or so when we repainted the front door we had settled on a particular shade of blue/grey. I wonder if I can still find the paint chip!

More roof beams

The rest of the roof beams are in place now, and the roofer is scheduled for Wednesday of next week to actually put on the shingles and such, so sometime between now and then I imagine that these guys will be putting on plywood. Right now it's still open to the sky.

Sean pulled out the nail keeping the bedroom door shut and I had a wander around inside. Our bedroom is going to be huge! I didn't realize originally (until he told me yesterday) that the roof slope that's visible on the outside is also on the inside -- he could add a flat dropped roof, but it might be cooler to keep it vaulted. Of course that'll make lighting the bedroom a bit more interesting.

Sean expects to begin demolition of the laundry room on Monday, but will be keeping the laundry machines connected (as much as possible) so we should still be able to wash our clothes here! He said the plumber told him moving the water tank will be easy, he'll just need to put it on a bit of a pedestal so no need to rip up the (new) concrete again like Sean was thinking he'd have to do. So that's good!

***

I'm updating this at the end of the night. They forgot (or intentionally didn't) re-nail the door shut so Brooke and I went into the bedroom and wandered around some more tonight. The sliding glass door is still in place so we just locked that when we were done, so the house is secure! We're starting to envision how we're going to finish it -- we'll probably have some kind of wall lights as well as ceiling lights since it is such a large space. I'm thinking one on the front wall and one on the wall on the right (as you look at it from the street) centered between the two windows. Not sure on ceiling lights -- Brooke thinks maybe something along the lowest point, perhaps track lighting pointed some one way and some the other.

Starting on the roof and inside

Today half of the supports for the roof were put up, and they gutted the master bedroom. The interior door from the master bedroom is nailed shut, so I sent Brooke up the ladder with the camera so I could see what's going on, too!

The pink mess in the bottom picture is the insulation inside the bedroom, taken from the sliding glass doors looking towards what used to be the closet.

Besides all this, they also took down the shelves and everything in the laundry room, so I'm guessing that there will be some work done in there soon, too.

Tuesday evening update

Since this morning's post was quite long, I've added this evening's photos to it instead of to this one, as it flows a bit better! (Taken with new camera #2! So far so good!)

You can see that there are now three sides upstairs! The window in the front isn't done yet, which is why it's a weird shape. There's an extra bit at the bottom and a piece missing at the top, I imagine it'll be properly rectangular tomorrow.

In the third picture you can see that the piece of overhanging roof above the new entrance has been removed.

What you can't tell from the pictures is they have "moved inside" now -- our bedroom door is nailed shut so no one can wander into the house via a ladder, and when I peeked in before they sealed the door, the drywall was off the interior wall, although they hadn't started on the other walls yet. The picture to the right is what the (corner of the) bedroom looked like yesterday after we moved out of it, but before they started tearing it apart!

Moving along

The photo on Friday's post came, not from a new card reader, but from a new camera. And then I realized that it was putting a magenta stripe down the left-hand side of every picture about a quarter of the way in. So today I have to exchange the camera for another new one!

Over the weekend, we moved every single thing out of the master bedroom, right down to taking the faceplates off the electrical outlets. Nearly everything is out of the laundry room as well, except for the actual laundry machines, frequently-used cleaning supplies, and the recycling. We haven't taken down the shelves or cupboard yet either. The shelves could come down now (other than the one being used to hold the cleaning supplies) but the cupboard has a bar attached beneath it that we hang things on to dry that can't go in the dryer, so that'll come down right before they need access to that wall to install the new window.

It's 10:00 am right now and they're working on the upstairs framing. Sean said they won't be able to finish it today as they still don't have the beams for the ceiling, but it sounds like they should be able to do a lot of it anyway.

We're going to start a message board of sorts for ideas and communication with Sean as we keep having thoughts or realizations and don't want to lose them. I mentioned that to Sean this morning and he said he'll get a clipboard.

The first two items for it are the fact we realized that the cable internet connection doesn't come into the computer room but rather goes into the master bedroom and then an extension cord runs under the carpet into the computer room. So we want to get that properly split and a "real" outlet put into both rooms. The second item is we decided that rather than a normal baseboard heater in the bedroom, we want one similar to what we have in the kitchen that is flush to the wall, more like a furnace vent, and have it placed under the window seat since we'll never put furniture in front of that anyway.

Less impressive today

Today they only put in a half-day, in part because it is quite hot, in part because they need some beams... and possibly in part because it's the Friday before a long weekend. The floor upstairs is finished now, and one wall is built but not yet upright, nor the windows cut out.

Not having much luck with card readers. I just tried to upload the photos I took with our new USB card reader, and it wouldn't work. I pulled it out and was going to plug it right back in and noticed it was pretty hot... and the plastic is melted. *sigh* Back to the store!

I'm being framed, I tell ya!

Impressive-looking progress today! The outer walls of the entire downstairs are now in place, along with the floor of the upstairs. That first step out of the bedroom upstairs is a reasonable one again.

They were here quite a long time - arrived at 8:00 and I think it was after 6:00 before they finished. I guess they wanted to get this whole part done. I believe they will be framing the upstairs tomorrow.

Sean gave me notice that we need to move out of the two affected rooms this weekend as they'll begin moving inside sometime next week.

It turns out I was right about the placement of the safe, so that's good! They covered it in duct tape, and then there was just a thin film of cement over top of it. They haven't dug it out yet, but Sean tapped it with a hammer to show it to me and the cement just flaked right off.

No change

They came by this morning and took down the tarp, but I don't think they did anything else. Perhaps touched up the cement a bit if anything. It probably just needs to dry -- I haven't spoken with Sean today.

Of course it's raining

Today they poured the slab, so of course today was the first day in quite a while that it rained. Not hard, but enough to require erecting a tarp. Perhaps they would have done that anyway but I'm sure it made things a little more miserable for the workers.

I'm not 100% sure they installed the floor safe. If they did, it's covered in concrete. There's a bit of a dip in the area of the closet that might be it. Hopefully tomorrow they'll dig it out and I'll know for sure!

Siding is off

Today, work on framing was begun. The Bobcat was taken away and the fill was all packed down, both within the area of the renovation, and the driveway area. All of the siding on the front of the house was removed, and wood was put on top of exposed edge of the foundation.

The foundation has bolts sticking out of it, and the wood has matching holes. At the moment, it doesn't appear to be attached in any way, but I imagine that's next, or soon.

I finally bought the safe today, so now I'm ready for them to pour the slab. (As if they were waiting for me!)

No more pit

Today was my last day of work, and I left a little early so the workers were still on site when I arrived.

The forms were removed from the foundations, and the pit has been fully filled back in with recycled fill. We talked about our plans for the garden on the right, and so Sean was able to rip out the juniper using the Bobcat - I wish I'd had a video camera. The Bobcat actually tilted when he was pulling it out - it had quite the root system. But the rhododendron is unharmed, so Brooke and I will be able to build our new garden around it, later on. We left the multicoloured bush in place for now as well, although I'm not sure with its position if we'll ultimately be keeping it or not.

One of the trucks (sounds like it was the one that delivered the waste bin) blew its power steering line today and leaked fluid all over the street. They've soaked it up as much as possible using kitty litter, and will power wash it as well. Hopefully it won't do any damage to the asphalt!

They didn't get to the framing today, so I guess that's the next thing we'll be seeing!