Dirty house? Clean it up!

Finally!  We've begun work on the big house!  It's been a long time coming and we're so ready to move forward with our plans.  We focused on perfecting our floor plan this fall.  Our draftsman is a friend of a friend and he has been very patient with us as we perfected every square inch of our new home. We've finalized the main floor and are currently working on putting the finishing touches on our lower level. 

Earlier this year Greg began tearing into the main house.  It wasn't much of a job for me since I was home with little Stella, so he went at it on his own with the help of friends and family.

Remember Stella?  Aw, isn't she cute? Pay no attention to the dangerously-placed saw...leave it to Daddy!  He sure knows how to make her smile.

But I digress.  Greg worked tirelessly to prep the interior of the main house for our big plans. We tore down the wall between the house and garage to add additional square footage and open up the space. The existing garage will be reinvented into our dream kitchen - a space big enough for this two-cook household to comfortably move around in: 

Good-bye, ugly ceiling fan!

The ceilings and subsequent blown insulation were the next things to go.  Greg decided to re-use the insulation from the ceilings in the house by transferring it to our pole shed ceiling. Nothing goes wasted around here!

Getting cleaned up.  Ceilings gone!

Next to do was all of the wiring.  Greg's brother is an electrician and was gracious enough to come over and get the job done.  The only space that is currently still wired in the house is the temporary laundry room/utility room downstairs.

Check out that huge pile of wiring on the left side of the garage!  Quite the job.  Greg also tore out the remaining bathroom upstairs.  Now all that remains is those two ridiculously-placed staircases.

Dinner parties.....hors d'oeuvres....Tuesday nights.....sitting fireside, glass of Cabernet in hand.....crisp, Autumn mornings.....children's laughter....Christmas mornings.....

Can you see it?  I can.

Big Plans for the Guest House

This weekend's project was a big one! We had lots of help to get through it.

Thanks to Dad, Mom, Brian, Steve, Brianna, Mark, Kyle and Jolene for helping!

We moved forward with some big plans for the guest house. Initially we were thinking that we would simply redo the existing structure with some new sheet rock, carpet, and call it good. Well, our urge for a real project got the best of us.

We decided living in a glorified dorm room would not fly with us, after all. We're adding on a bedroom to the back of the house between the kitchen and the pole shed. The guest house will actually be right up against the pole shed now. This is going to add an additional 160 square feet to our already spacious 400 square foot hut. Along with this adjustment, we're also going to vault the living space to give it a bigger feel.

This weekend was all about the new rafters and the bedroom addition. Brianna was able to spend the night with us in the fish house! Just like camping, right Brianna?

Tearing off old shingles

Mom and Brianna

Old roof almost off!

The cement slab on the right side of the photo above is where the bedroom will go.

View looking through the back kitchen wall

View from the kitchen

Kyle taking off the rafters

Jolene and Brianna taking a much-needed break

Old roof is history!

Pops McGee

Mom: The Inquisitive One

New bedroom wall

This reminded me of an Amish Barn Raising

Brother Steve

Something was happening, not sure what!

New rafters in place

The rafters that were over the living area were re-used for the bedroom. We're all about re-using and recycling where we can!

We've still got a long way to go before the place is ready to move in to, but we're getting closer. I'm excited to see the end product!

The Dirtiest of Jobs

Tearing out the ceiling of the guest house was a dirty job. Kyle was willing enough to step up and help Uncle Greg.

Great Weather Does Not Call for Housework

We took advantage of the amazing weather this last weekend and have done some work outside. We needed this time to brainstorm some ideas for what we really wanted to do on the guest house, considering the time frame we have to work with.

Gwen, Randy and the kids stopped out to help us with our tasks. Thanks to Marisa, Erika, Kiersten and Ian for helping us make an awesome fire pit!

Gwen and I spent the time pulling nails out of all the interior 2x4s. We plan to salvage these and utilize them in either the guest house or the main house. It would have been foolish to throw all those boards away!

Randy and Greg worked on cutting up all of the scrap wood, as well as deconstructing all of the cabinets, etc.

For a 2400 square foot home, you’d be amazed at the amount of “stuff” this house had! We counted 32 interior doors. That’s right – 32. Where were all of these rooms??

Two Houses. Both Gutted. Yup.

Work continued into the evening on the guest house. We had a few people stay around to assist us in our continued endeavor. After the hard work put in on the main house earlier, we thought we had it made. “This is just a small project,” we all told ourselves. Who were we kidding?!

Prior to being a guest house, the structure was a single car garage. The prior owners had finished off the garage with plywood, rather than sheet rock. Not only did they screw the plywood down, but they caulked over all of the screws and then painted over the caulking so it was next to impossible to locate the screws. Stripping one wall of four plywood panels took over two hours.

Considering we didn't start this project until 8:00 P.M. should speak for itself.

Our thanks to Cindy, Tom, Carmen, Chris and Rocky for sticking around and helping us out!

Greg came back later on this past week to finish the gutting process:

Opening up the space of both the main house and the guest house will really help us to visualize what we want to do with the space. We’ve got lots of ideas and have a few weeks to make some big decisions and get moving on the guest house.

Then it’s on to the main house!

Guest House Sneak Peak

Not much time to blog right now (I am supposed to be packing...shhh don't tell Greg!), but I thought you may enjoy a sneak peak at our guest house progress.

Not only was Rocky (Chris' dog) some good entertainment while we worked last weekend, he decided to pitch in as well.

Project Managers of the world take note - hiring a dog onto your crew increases your productivity ten-fold:

Good dog.

"Excuse me, Sir, but dare I say I believe you may have just kicked my wall in."

This phrase could have been heard repeatedly throughout the day this past Saturday at the Prokott residence........if we were snooty, tired, old British chaps!


But British chaps we are not, and as such, many a wall were kicked, pile driven, punched, smashed, and hammered to the ground. The brave men and women that joined us came armed and ready with whatever they could round up; whether it be hammers, power tools or a dog name Rocky.


Combined we put in a total of 122 hours of labor. This was a feat that would have taken Greg and I a whopping 3.35 work weeks to complete. For this we want to thank those of you who came out to help us. We couldn't have done it without you. We worked hard, but we had a good time doing it. The two cases of beer we went through is proof-positive.


First and foremost, it's very important that I point out that I have officially committed to the task at hand as of last Saturday. Not only am I "along for the ride," but I have all chips in.

Why?

Because I'm the proud owner of a toolbelt.

That's right, Ladies and Gentlemen, a genuine leather-with-pockets-galore toolbelt. I wore it with pride the entire day, even after Greg advised that it doesn't count if I'm only hanging my hammer on it.

But I digress. The day was a complete success. We started with the honorary first hole in the wall (notice: I wasn't trusted to wield a true sledge hammer! A regular hammer will just have to do):

Well, that was fun. On to the work.
It was amazing how many layers these people had on their walls and on their floors! In one area I counted 4 wall layers and 3 floor layers. Each one was uglier than the next!
Here is a pic of the wallpaper we found after pulling off the wood paneling in the living room:

Note to the previous homeowner: Nice job measuring out your wood-paneling using black spray paint. Stay classy.

The day progressed layer by layer, wall by wall. It seemed the work would never end. But progress was made the walls surely came down. Check out the progress!

No demolition party would be complete without a few breaks and some brewskis.

We couldn't immediately part with the beautiful nature scene that was once a part of what used to be the master bedroom, so we propped it up in the living room for a while.

What a joke.

Upstairs completed:

Of course, we had to keep the stove!

On to the basement. The basement was also completely finished. They apparently rented it out. It was interesting to hear stories about the previous homeowners. One thing we consistently heard from our neighbors was that they were both rather "sickly" people. After pulling the cabinets in the basement kitchen, it's no wonder! Check out all that mold!

More basement progress:

While we had no ceremony, it was rather ceremonious demolishing the mom-sized shower:

You can see where the shower used to be in the last photo. The (non-functioning) toilet is all that remains.

I think we did pretty good for a single day's work. We are now the proud owners of an empty shell of a house!

Next up is the guest house. This will be priority #1 from here on out until we move in. It will need to be completely ready before the end of November since that is when our lease is up.

Stay tuned!