Photos from this Weekend

It was a busy Saturday down at the house. Finishing up with demo, installing a new roof. Busy busy busy.

Framed Addition

So at this point the addition is framed out, we are starting to get a good idea of what the space will be like when it is all done because we can see where windows and doors and closets and the bathroom will be in the new master addition. Really exciting! Here Kel is standing in the doorway of the French doors that will open up from the master Bedroom onto our deck. There will be four picture windows along the top of this south-facing wall to let in sunlight and give us passive-solar heating effects.

This is a view from the alley, you can see what the slope of the flat roof on the addition will be like from here.

The crew in action.

This is the addition with only one wall up, the north wall. There will be two windows above where the bed will lie in the master BR and one window in the shower (to the right in this image).

The back of the house is still wide open at this point, as you can see here. Nice view from the existing bathroom! Everything should be closed up early this week and the plumber and electrician will begin their work.

Garage Up!

I just had to do a little test parking on the way home from work : )  It's funny how we have done planning and planning and planning, and then when something is actually built it surprises you.  My first impression of the garage was that it is very tall - I guess I didn't realize most of the old fashion brick garages around us were around 8 or 9 feet in height, ours is a 10-11 ft. slope.  I went out and measured the width of several of the garages near our house to determine how wide would suffice without being too huge, I neglected to measure the heights! Good news is we'll have plenty of room to hang bikes, skis, and all kinds of things high onto the walls.  I like it.  The rest of our yard looks like a dump.

Snowy House

Ideas for Broken-Off Brick Part

Here are some pictures that show the idea of the 'fix' for the broken off brick corner.  I am thinking about the back of the house utilizing wood siding, which would wrap around the corner of the house where the brick broke off.  Kindof like the corner of the addition in this first photo on the corner, and then as this photo is around the french doors of the house, and then use smooth grey stucco for the addition and garage.  If we can't figure out how to implement this type of linear wood siding, or some variation, we will rebuild the brick and stick with the Hardy Plank on the back of the house and on the addition.

This photo shows for example, what my dream would be for the addition, but the wood is expensive I think so we are just going to try to use it on a little part.

This photo shows the combination of brick, grey stucco, and wood plank.

Here is a little coloring I did to depict this concept to our contractor a while back.

And voila, a basement!

This basement is much nicer than the old, dingy, smelly one that was originally in the house - or added at some point.  It will have 8' ceilings as opposed to 6'6", a couple of larger windows, and much more room.  It also stabilizes our foundation.  The wood posts will not be there in the end, they will be replaced by steel beams and supports and there will only be a few required.  One big piece of the puzzle done, ahh.

Digging, and a mishap

Photos below of the crew digging out the basement.  One of the corners of the existing house fell Monday, obviously not part of the plan - it will either be rebuilt or we are thinking of one creative solution, but we have to see if we can make it work!  I was not happy at all when this happened.  It felt like our house was being destroyed, like they didn't care what happened to it as they were working on it as long as they got their job done.  It was a stressful day.