Stairs - Coming Up!

Take one last look at the house before it REALLY starts changing.  Trust me.  You'll hardly recognize the place when we're done with it!

Sometime in January, we finalized the main layout of the house.  This allowed Greg to start a very important project:  the stairs.

If you'll recall, we used to have two sets of stairs in the house.  Bear with the pictures, it's tough to visualize if you didn't walk through the house before demolition.

Staircase 1 pre-demo

Staircase 1 post-demo

Staircase 2 pre-demo.  Nice paneling, very scenic.

Staircase 2 post-demo, post house-lifting (note: where Nola is in the 2nd picture is where Brian is standing in the first picture for reference!)

Clearly, this wasn't an optimal floor-plan for a 2400 square foot rambler. We took both sets of stairs out and are replacing them with a new, more user-friendly set.

Below, Greg is making the first cuts in the floor.  No turning back now!

There it is.  Big ol' hole in the floor. Watch your step! You can see where staircase #1 was where the wood is a little lighter.

You can still see the old layout in the sub-floors. Back in the day they used to build the walls before the floors.

Hard at work!

More on the way!

Foundations

Walls getting set for the poured-cement foundation for the entry.

 

The new garage will attach here.  We will excavate and build the new garage in due time.  For now we're focused on the living space.

Here you can see the entry point to the crawl space.  This will be accessible from the garage.  Greg is one ingenious man!

Wah Lah! Ground back-filled in.

 

Foundation is complete for the entry way!  While at it, Greg opted to tear off the remaining siding.  He'll need most of it off for the next part of the project anyways.

Goodbye, ugly peachy pinkish brownish-ness!  Now how will people find our house??

Digging Holes

Next up, excavating!

As I've said, we're turning our existing garage into our new, fabulous kitchen.  A lot of thought went into this decision, actually.  Do we work with what we have, keep a smaller square-footage and likely outgrow the space?  In this option, we'd spend significantly less, but very likely have to move in five to ten years. Otherwise, do we expand our space by converting the existing garage into our kitchen while adding on a new entry-way and garage? We would be forced to spend a lot more in this instance, but we would be guaranteed to have plenty of space for our growing family.

We opted to expand our building palette.  Sure, we'll be spending a little more, but with as much work as we've put into this space up to now, we want this to be our forever home (or at least until the nest is empty).  The investment will be worth our while in the long run, and we'll have a little more flexibility to make the space unique to our tastes, rather than be concerned about what will "sell" in 5-10 years.

Time to excavate!  Greg was able to hire the job out to a good friend and get the excavating done this fall before the frost hit.

Poring over the plans

The entry will be angled off of the corner of the existing garage, with the new garage extending off the entry.

Greg decided to excavate over four feet down not only to accommodate the frost line, but to also create crawl space below the entry way that we can use for seasonal storage.  It will be accessible from the garage.  No need to stuff Christmas decorations in a closet somewhere in the house!

 

Ah....I love progress.

Life is too short. Lift up your house!

Don't you hate it when your house sits too low?  I hate when that happens. Luckily, Greg has the skills needed to fix the problem.

When we purchased this home we were faced with an interesting problem.  The house has no duct work.  The only existing heat sources were electric baseboards and there was no air conditioning.  If we were planning to invest our time and money into a project of this magnitude, it only made sense to upgrade the existing utilities to include central heat and air.  Besides, window A/C units don't make for a nice view of our vast property.  They're rather ugly.  So, we decided to add new duct work to the home.

Enter Phase 2 of our problem: the ceilings in our basement sit at just under 8-feet.  That means, after adding in the necessary duct work, our basement ceilings would be a measly 7-feet.  Claustrophobia, anyone? 

So, what is one to do when faced with a problem such as this? Why, lift up that house, of course!

The crew had to lift the house up inch by inch. It really was a neat, albeit nerve-wracking, process to see:



About 6 inches of progress so far!



Notice the difference between the house and the garage.

View from the garage - eek!  You can see into the basement from here!



Someone must keep the crew hydrated....thanks, Nola!

Notice the new stringers in the floor go over the old staircase in the photo above.  For several weeks our house seemed to be more of a jungle gym than anything!

View from the basement to the outdoors!  So surreal....

The Day One Crew!

Day Two: More of the same!

About 15 inches of progress.  Wow!

Greg opted out of using more cinder blocks to increase the height of the house.  Rather, he built a structural wood frame of sorts. By doing it this way, we'll be able to put siding all the way down to the existing block.  It would look pretty funny if we had 4 feet of cinder block on the outside of our house.  Often, I wish I had an ounce of the creativity and ingenuity that Greg has.

All the walls have to be supported through the process.
Also you can see a section of the structural frame being built - sort of looks like a ladder.

Steve helping build the frames

Almost ready to position the framing





 

It's amazing what an extra 17 inches does to the view from our house.  Its as if we added a whole floor!

No project would be complete without some burning.  BURN IT ALL!





Project complete!

 Whew!  Got through that process unscathed.  It was a little nerve-wracking, but my confidence in Greg's abilities never wavered.  He never disappoints!

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.