Or rather, no new pictures to post. So, today they finished the spray foam insulation and loaded all the drywall in through the front window via some scary looking scaffolding. I'm glad I wasn't here to see it and chew my fingernails off. The rigid board foam insulation was also loaded up there to be installed, and 1/2 of the tile we selected was picked up too. Last week Chris picked up the hard wood flooring, which sits in our garage. I'm told the area was measured for carpet on the stairs, hallway, and boys' room too. So I guess there is a lot going on, just no visuals to go with it.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how we are walk-under-ladders lucky that we got our Home Equity Line of Credit when we did - we had to take 95% loan-to-value - but that is at the value of our home as it stood before the remodel. (With adding on 2 BR and a bath, we certainly increase the value of our home.) I don't think we would have been able to get that high of LTV now in this credit-frozen market. If we had gone a different way with a construction loan, and tried to use cash from the future potential value of our house, we may have ended up in an even worse situation, given the decline of values on homes (though our neighborhood has remained relatively stable). All in all, I am so glad we pulled the trigger when we did. And not just because we're tripping over toy-clutter in the living room...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Let it Snow!
(oh please not literally!)The insulation installation started today, and it just looks like upside down snow up there! We weren't here at the same time as the installers, but we had to crawl through a plastic lining to get up the stairs and check it out. They still have to come back on Monday to finish. These views give an idea of what the cut outs will be for the 3 windows in the master bedroom, 2 smaller ones on either side of the big one, though the sizes here are only approximate..
Here's a view from the top of the stairs, looking from the hallway into the master bedroom:
We'll also have some rigid board insulation over this, giving us an insulation of nearly R40. Sweet.
Also, the frame around the skylights are in, here at the top of the stairs
and in the boys' room, obviously both before the sticky snow was put in. The skylights will have a little shelf below them, though I guess it's difficult to see at this angle:
In other news, yesterday was a very productive day - picked out tile in the morning, carpet at noon (ultimately decided to go with different carpet in the hallway than the boys' room) and looked at plumbing fixtures in the afternoon. I was starting to get very frustrated with our builder's "allowance" for these things - he supposedly gave us the "top of the line" pricing, but we're finding that we really have to do more sleuthing and bargain hunting to find what we want and stay within our range. Overall, though, I think we're doing a good job of finding good quality things that are interesting, but still affordable. Part of it has to do with the 'showroom' concept - where the public can go and look for what they want, but only the professional can purchase the item. For the plumbing fixtures, at least, the prices they charge at the showroom seem to be considerably higher - with not all that much more selection - than one can find at Home Depot, for instance. Supposedly the quality of the merchandise is the same, so I'm not sure how it all works....but it looks like we may be skipping the plumber's paradise showroom and finding our fixtures elsewhere.
Here's a view from the top of the stairs, looking from the hallway into the master bedroom:
We'll also have some rigid board insulation over this, giving us an insulation of nearly R40. Sweet.
Also, the frame around the skylights are in, here at the top of the stairs
and in the boys' room, obviously both before the sticky snow was put in. The skylights will have a little shelf below them, though I guess it's difficult to see at this angle:
In other news, yesterday was a very productive day - picked out tile in the morning, carpet at noon (ultimately decided to go with different carpet in the hallway than the boys' room) and looked at plumbing fixtures in the afternoon. I was starting to get very frustrated with our builder's "allowance" for these things - he supposedly gave us the "top of the line" pricing, but we're finding that we really have to do more sleuthing and bargain hunting to find what we want and stay within our range. Overall, though, I think we're doing a good job of finding good quality things that are interesting, but still affordable. Part of it has to do with the 'showroom' concept - where the public can go and look for what they want, but only the professional can purchase the item. For the plumbing fixtures, at least, the prices they charge at the showroom seem to be considerably higher - with not all that much more selection - than one can find at Home Depot, for instance. Supposedly the quality of the merchandise is the same, so I'm not sure how it all works....but it looks like we may be skipping the plumber's paradise showroom and finding our fixtures elsewhere.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Inspections: passed!
We have passed all mechanical and framing inspections -woo-hoo! A lot of other stuff has happened today, but I'll to have to report more on all that stuff later, because I watched the debate and the aftermath, and now it is time to go to bed!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Duct, duct, grey duct
(Or duct, duct, goose, if you grew up where I did)
We had 2 evenings of chaos at our house last week. The HVAC guys had to fit us in between other jobs, and so had to come from about 4-8pm or so. They were placing the ducts for our new central air/furnace for the upstairs AND punching through to the rooms downstairs, so that we can use that system to cool the whole house in the summer. This is one of the added bonuses of doing the remodel - no more lugging 2 giant window AC units up from the basement every spring and down every fall. Plus it'll be a 1000x more efficient way to cool the house- ok slight exaggeration, but much, much more efficient. Given the 3 rooms upstairs, they had to figure out a way to get the very large ducts from the knee-wall space where the unit will be to each of the rooms above and below. One of them will be encased in a low shelf in our closet:
This then splits and the duct on the left goes to the living room downstairs, and the one on the right goes across the front of the house, which will be under our window seat - this unfortunately limits the storage space we thought we would have under that seat, but the floor joists change direction in that part of the house, making it difficult for them to go under the floor.
The vents going downstairs are fairly unobtrusive, small and circular things on the ceiling. The larger return air vent in the dining room isn't that bad either.
We also had a bit of a scare on Friday - our builder had an eye injury involving a nail...but it turned out to be just a corneal scratch and he should be good to go by Monday. Next up, the electrical and plumbing inspections, then we move on to insulation.
We had 2 evenings of chaos at our house last week. The HVAC guys had to fit us in between other jobs, and so had to come from about 4-8pm or so. They were placing the ducts for our new central air/furnace for the upstairs AND punching through to the rooms downstairs, so that we can use that system to cool the whole house in the summer. This is one of the added bonuses of doing the remodel - no more lugging 2 giant window AC units up from the basement every spring and down every fall. Plus it'll be a 1000x more efficient way to cool the house- ok slight exaggeration, but much, much more efficient. Given the 3 rooms upstairs, they had to figure out a way to get the very large ducts from the knee-wall space where the unit will be to each of the rooms above and below. One of them will be encased in a low shelf in our closet:
This then splits and the duct on the left goes to the living room downstairs, and the one on the right goes across the front of the house, which will be under our window seat - this unfortunately limits the storage space we thought we would have under that seat, but the floor joists change direction in that part of the house, making it difficult for them to go under the floor.
The vents going downstairs are fairly unobtrusive, small and circular things on the ceiling. The larger return air vent in the dining room isn't that bad either.
We also had a bit of a scare on Friday - our builder had an eye injury involving a nail...but it turned out to be just a corneal scratch and he should be good to go by Monday. Next up, the electrical and plumbing inspections, then we move on to insulation.
Perfect Landing
Our new and improved stairway is now roughed in. We had to have a longer landing to allow the stairway to end further into the hallway. This eliminates the head-height issue of people knocking their head on the way up the stairs. (At 5'0" I never seemed to have a problem...) Eventually the new landing will be nicer wood, stained to match the existing stairs, and Chris will try to use the old stair treads for the remaining stairs if possible - they were still in good shape. Here is the new landing. If you look back at the post from 9/27 you can see what the stairs used to look like.
Of course, extending the landing upstairs resulted in one of the few intrusions into the downstairs of the house - we had to steal space from above the hallway off of the kitchen and above our broom closet. In the picture above, I believe the white material currently to the side of the new landing is what used to be in our hallway downstairs. Below is what that hallway looks like now. This will get soffited (is that a word?) off and will look like it has always been that way.
Interesting story about the stairs.....we've been told by some neighbors that the women that lived here for the first 65 years after the house was built used to keep her jewelry in a secret compartment under the attic stairs. We've poked around a bit, but so far, no hidden trap doors or treasures found!
Of course, extending the landing upstairs resulted in one of the few intrusions into the downstairs of the house - we had to steal space from above the hallway off of the kitchen and above our broom closet. In the picture above, I believe the white material currently to the side of the new landing is what used to be in our hallway downstairs. Below is what that hallway looks like now. This will get soffited (is that a word?) off and will look like it has always been that way.
Interesting story about the stairs.....we've been told by some neighbors that the women that lived here for the first 65 years after the house was built used to keep her jewelry in a secret compartment under the attic stairs. We've poked around a bit, but so far, no hidden trap doors or treasures found!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Best Bargain Ever
Ok, we did our weekly house shopping trip and ended up at Home Depot, so Scott could look at the granite vanity top choices we have available (we're going to go with the grey 'Napoli' one). We looked around at other things too, such as faucets, tile, and toilets, and lo and behold on a clearance rack we found a stainless double robe/towel hook that was similar to, though not the same as, the type of faucet we are getting from Delta on sale for........... 1 cent each! yeah, $0.01! I splurged and went back and got the 3rd and last one of the shelf, thinking we could use it for a hand towel or something. It is close enough to the style we chose for the faucets, etc. that I think it was worth, um, 3 cents at least.
We also got some more ideas for tile for the shower. We went back to the same store where we got the vanity and found a really cool (but very expensive) glass mosaic that we like for a border in the shower - we'll see if we can find something similar at the Tile showroom used by the "tile guy". See the one on the right:
We haven't found anything we like other than a classic white subway tile for the main part of the shower, but I think that will give it a classic look. And we are looking a shower doors in a catalog too - again, who knew there were so many choices. I favor the plain clear glass frameless, but Scott would like a little more privacy with a 'steam mist' glass....a decision we still have to battle out.
Speaking of the shower, here is the framing for the shower, with the bench:
Here's the area of the vanity, with the area of the custom medicine cabinet to the right, and the plumbing and electricity ready to go:
Here's a little triangular shelf alcove at the top of the stairs on the landing (this was my sister Rose's idea - thanks Rose!):
The HVAC people will be continuing their work tomorrow evening for our new central air/furnace that is going upstairs.
We also got some more ideas for tile for the shower. We went back to the same store where we got the vanity and found a really cool (but very expensive) glass mosaic that we like for a border in the shower - we'll see if we can find something similar at the Tile showroom used by the "tile guy". See the one on the right:
We haven't found anything we like other than a classic white subway tile for the main part of the shower, but I think that will give it a classic look. And we are looking a shower doors in a catalog too - again, who knew there were so many choices. I favor the plain clear glass frameless, but Scott would like a little more privacy with a 'steam mist' glass....a decision we still have to battle out.
Speaking of the shower, here is the framing for the shower, with the bench:
Here's the area of the vanity, with the area of the custom medicine cabinet to the right, and the plumbing and electricity ready to go:
Here's a little triangular shelf alcove at the top of the stairs on the landing (this was my sister Rose's idea - thanks Rose!):
The HVAC people will be continuing their work tomorrow evening for our new central air/furnace that is going upstairs.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Vanity Fair
It is done. The vanity has been purchased and ordered. We started out thinking that we needed a 6 foot vanity (double bowl) and that we'd get 2 medicine cabinets with mirrors. It was hard to find a large selection at 6 feet, but we had it whittled down to a few choices, both over our budget. Then we realized that with the way the wall over the stairs butts out into the room (see below) it would actually work better to have a 5 foot vanity, and make this wall into a little shelf - and Chris (our builder) offered to make a custom medicine cabinet above it.
Thus, we were able to shave off a bunch of money by not only downsizing to a 5 foot vanity, but also by opting for mirrors instead of medicine cabinets over the vanity, and having a custom built medicine cabinet (stained to match) and extra shelf on the R side. Here is a picture of the type of bath vanity we got - the vanity top will be different and the lay out isn't exactly like what we'll have, but the color of the wood and style is what we've got (but I doubt we'll keep green apples in the bathroom.)
Thus, we were able to shave off a bunch of money by not only downsizing to a 5 foot vanity, but also by opting for mirrors instead of medicine cabinets over the vanity, and having a custom built medicine cabinet (stained to match) and extra shelf on the R side. Here is a picture of the type of bath vanity we got - the vanity top will be different and the lay out isn't exactly like what we'll have, but the color of the wood and style is what we've got (but I doubt we'll keep green apples in the bathroom.)
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