The first big decision

I haven’t posted anything in almost a week. I got sick over the weekend and was out of work yesterday. So, today you don’t get a picture, sorry, but I do have some updates. The destruction is moving along very well, and actually has a fair amount of reconstruction woven into it. Lots of studs are getting replaced, and most of the sill plates have already been replaced with nice pressure treated wood. It’s looking a lot cleaner. There was so much damaged wood; I’m amazed the house never fell over. There is still a fair amount of damage to replace, but they are making quick work of it. I met the two guys yesterday who are doing the work and took the opportunity to thank them for a good job.

We have a major decision to make about the roof. All along, the plan has been to build an overlay on top of the existing roof. We would use that space to insulate and to run mechanical (plumbing, wiring, gas). Unfortunately, the county is requiring beefed up engineering if we go this route. Our two options are to run beams, possibly 2x12’s, east to west over the existing roof, or put new footings through the center of the house, underneath the bedroom walls. If we do the 1st option, it still requires digging under the foundation on the east side of the house and putting in new footers. The second option would require moving all the walls from the middle of the house, jack hammering up the foundation, pouring new footers, and then covering with new slab. Needless to say, both options are expensive, and the first option is potentially going to result in a roof that looks overly thick.

The whole point of doing the overlay was to preserve the knotty pine ceiling. However, we find ourselves at the point that we may have to go with the most direct, cheapest easiest method, which is to insulate & run wires from inside, then sheetrock the ceilings. The end result is almost the same: we have R30 insulation in the ceiling, and were able to run mechanical “upstairs.” The only difference is the loss of the knotty pine. The contractor has saved all the wood they took off the walls, so we are going to broach the subject of reclaiming it to use again, maybe on the living room ceiling. We’ll see. We don’t’ have to decide today, but the roof is the one thing holding the county up with our plans, so we definitely want to move forward.

On a good note, we get to keep the kitchen window! It has to shift a bit to the left, but it will still be there! I promise more pictures later this week…

The closets

Originally, the house did not have bedroom closets. The closets were added when it was converted from a duplex into a single-family home. They were added on outside the house, and initially just built right over the dirt. Later, a partial concrete footing was added, but it wasn’t a good job. They have both rotted through once before, so we decided to have them gutted & rebuilt. This is the trenching & rebar in preparation for the new foundations (guest room closet pictured, but the master is in the same state). We are assuming the floor of the “new” closets will be level with the floor in the bedrooms, which will be nice. Before, they were raised up about 6”.

The sill plates – which I think is what you call the 2x4 that sits on the slab – are in really bad shape. The contractor says they are Douglas fir, which is apparently a big no-no. They should have been redwood. They are literally going to jack up the house in places, cut out the old sill plate, and install new redwood. Somehow, that sounds expensive…

They are getting ready to take jackhammers to all the concrete outside the house. Things are moving along well. It’s nice to go over every day and see progress. I know it won’t always be like that though.

Walls? We don't need no stinkin walls!

Well, they are making progress in deed. Behold, the living room and guest room. It's really strange to see it all torn up. The interior wood looks good. The wood on the lower portion of the house along the bathroom side is in pretty bad shape. We exptected that though, as the dirt used to be piled about 8" up the side of the house. They will need to replace a fair amount of it before buttoning things back up. No news on the permit yet, but hopefully, it will time out so it's signed off just about the time they are done clearing out the inside, and have finished jack hammering up all the concrete outside. We are going to work at the house tomorrow, clearing stuff away on the patio side, in preparation for the jack hammers. Here are a few more pictures of the inside progress. House Pics

No turning back now

I stopped by the house today to grab the mail & pick up a few things. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they began the demo, and from the looks of it, are making pretty quickly work. Almost all of the knotty pine wains coating is gone from the living room & guest room, and the carpet is pulled up. They have also taken down light fixtures & window coverings as they go. Check out the basket weave floor - kinda cool. The tiles are probably made of something that starts with an "A" but that's just a guess. I'm pulling a Sgt. Schultz on it.

We are saving a fair amount of the knotty pine from the walls to use on the ceilings in the pop outs. I grabbed some of the carpet to bring to the rental. so we can put it down in the office where the dogs go in & out. This takes the pressure off keeping muddy paws off the new carpet there. If they keep up at the rate they are going, they should have the inside of the house pretty well cleaned up by the end of the week.

Hopefully, we are meeting the contractor Saturday to talk about stuff. I guess the plans have moved on to the "Plan Checker" and we may have some small changes to make. I'll keep you posted. I'm really happy to see work starting; it makes this much less abstract to me.

Not so inviting

Well, for those of you who have slept here, it doesn't look so comfortable anymore, does it? This is the guest room. If you look at the far left of the picture, you can see where we ripped a piece of the wainscoating off the wall (thanks Lisa!). We wanted a piece to take with us when looking at floor and paint samples. The bottom of the board had major termite damage, which is not surprising.

For the floors, we are beginning to think that we should not buy the cherry we initially looked at. There are a number of other interesting options for half as much, which means saving us over $4k. That's a substantial amount of money. Demolition is supposed to start this week or the next. I went to the door place today and I think we are close to making a decision on the type of doors to use, both for the inside doors, and all the doors leading to the outside.

We have been dropping the dogs off at the old house when they need to be alone for quite a while because we don't have a dog door setup here yet. Next weekend, we need to get that done. We are going to use a piece of wood to make a dog door that will fit into the sliding door that leads to the backyard. It should work....We've kind of slowed down on organizing over here. It feels nice to be a bit of a slug and relax some. We had our first company this weekend too, with visits from Lisa & Jim. Glad to see them both at the temporary digs!

Our neighbor shot a short movie of the Pod being loaded onto the truck. I need to piece it together, but hope to have it posted in the next few days.

Sunset from the deck

Not the best picture, but this is the view from the deck of our rental house. It really is an amzing view. From the north (the right hand side of the picture) you can see "A" beach, all the way to the rock on the left. There is a telescope in the living room so we can actually watch people walking on the beach. Pretty cool.

We talked to our Architect yesterday, and she says the county is not going to be a problem, so we are hoping the permit will keep moving forward. Also, I talked to the contractor this morning and he wants a key to get subs in to look at the place, so that's a good sign, I think!

The rental is getting orgainzed and I can now get ready in the morning and get out of the house on time without stressing out trying to find stuff. That's it for now - back to work!

The dust settles

No picture this morning, just a short update. Jeff and I packed like madmen for three days, and our hard work paid off. The movers - in just under three hours - were able to put every box and almost all the furniture in the Pod. We didn't think it would all fit, but it did. There are just a few things (a couple of dining room chairs, one bookcase) in the garage. We also had them put the fridge and stove in the garage. The Pod gets picked up today between 9 & Noon, and we won't see our stuff again for 3-4 months.

Everything is at the rental now except for a few clothes. Our real home is 98% empty. I can't believe we did it, but I am so glad it's over. It was a tiring and unsettling four days. The fact that we had the strongest offshore winds I can recall having in quite some time added to the fun. Today, I feel like I need to apply Chapstick to my entire body. I woke up again this morning to 65 degree weather and howling offshores...

I'll upload a couple of pictures of the rental house later this week when I get a chance. The next order of business is to get the rental organized so life can kind of get back to normal.

The latest word from the contractor is that even though we are adding less than 10%, which means we don't need a minor use permit, the county is balking. Our architect was supposed to go talk to them yesterday, so we should have an update in a few days.

Thanks for stopping by :) David

The movers arrive in one hour. We are in great shape. Yesterday was exhausting though. we have internet at the rental so i can stop posting from my phone.

Decker is upset about the move and has taken to eating Rileys poop.

The Pod

Well, it looks smaller than we thought it would, but are optimistic the movers can pack it in. It's the end of day two of packing and I think it's fair to say we are tired of packing. The guest room, living room kitchen and dining room are done. Tomorrow it's the office & master bedroom. Monday midday, the movers come to load the Pod. I think we are on track...

That's it for now...

David

Boxes

Welcome to our remodel Blog. I've never blogged before, so this is going to be a learning experience for me. Also, I don't anticipate having oodles of time to spend posting, so I'm going to try and keep it simple. Most of the photos here will be coming from my phone; it's just easier that way. So if you click on a photo to enlarge it and it looks grainy, you're going to have to live with it :) We thought this would be a fun, fairly easy way to keep everybody up to date on the progress of the house

Now, on with the meat of it all. This is not very sexy for a first post, but we have to begin somewhere. Friends & family, behold $300 worth of boxes & packing materials. What a great way to spend all our Christmas money! We priced boxes locally, and it was actually a bit cheaper (and much easier) to order them from MoveOut.com. They shipped for free, and since they are coming from Fresno, we ordered them one morning, and they were on the doorstep - neatly packaged, I might add - waiting for us the next day. In addition to this shipment, we have a bunch of moving pads - of equal value, incidentally - arriving today. Since everything is going into a Pod for three to four months, we had to buy moving blankets instead of using them from the moving company. We figured it was cheaper to buy the blankets than damage pieces of furniture.

I have the next four days off, so the packing commences tonight. The idea is to have everything boxed up & ready to go by noon on Monday. That's when the moving labor is showing up. We've got them for 3+ hours and they will be doing the heavy lifting & loading the pod. Anything that doesn't fit, well, it's either going to go to the rental house, or find another home.

More to come...

David