Renovations Week #4

I am hopeful that we are half way done with this project . . . fingers crossed!  This week all of the sheetrock went in including patches for the holes that our electrician and plumber left.  The walls look great, but with walls we found it much more difficult to take pictures.  Oh, well, here is what we were able to get for you!

This was the lift they used to put our ceiling up.  I wish we could have seen them use it!

The master closet and bathroom with walls!  We even have attic access in our closet instead of our bedroom.  Phew!

This is our laundry wall with water.  There are outlets there, too, but they didn't get cut out the first time.  This has been fixed now.  You really have to keep your eyes open to catch mistakes!  

The boys closet that ended up being 4' x 10' . . . . wowzers!  It also has attic access instead of the bathroom.  The things you don't think about when moving walls around!

Joshua loves to pose, but here is a closet in a bedroom.   

The boys bathroom is looking great!

The master bathroom.  It was nice to see everything cut out just right to fit the fixtures we are putting in.  Everything should fit perfectly!

Master ceiling!  It is going to be amazing!

More master bedroom.  Hopefully we can put a love seat or chairs over here!

After getting all of the dry wall put up our contractor started running out of things to do because his mudder cannot come until Monday of Week #5.  :(  But he realized that we don't have to do any painting up in the loft, so he started putting the floor in upstairs!  I am glad that he doesn't want to waste time, but I think he'll still end up a little bored next week until things can get mudded and painted.  But I'm pretty excited to slap some paint on those walls next week!

Hardwood flooring is going in up in the loft!  

I thought it was fun to see some of the mess that has come and gone.  These guys are super neat and leave everything clean all the time, so this was taken while they were still working.  I am grateful for clean contractors!

At least once a week we end up eating dinner out at the house.  It is fun to be in the house with lots of space and take a break from the 'little house' as we refer to it.  Don't get us wrong, we are very grateful for a place to stay, but it is small and it is good to get out where there is more space for these boys.  

The heat wave broke for us this week, so we spent a lot of time down at the house weeding.  The weeds took advantage of the heat and tried to take over the garden.  But with about two hours of all of us working we were victorious!  

This is just one pile of weeks that we removed.  It is nice to be able to just throw them outside the fence.

Michael loved weeding with his new stirrup hoe!  He learned about this great tool at 'Food Camp.'  Love it!

Jacob didn't want to miss a moment of weeding!  Joshua ended up watching Hyrum most of the time, but that is its own large task sometimes!

Our hard work paid off!  You can see the ground again!  

 We started doing more harvesting this week including many zucchini!  I love zucchini and am trying to find new ways to use it because we have tons!   We also have eggplant that are coming on strong . . . ratatouille yum!  And our peach trees gave us some fruit but between the Japanese Beetles and the deer we only came away with 6 peaches.  Now we know that we need to pick them before they are ripe or someone else will!

 We have also been keeping an eye on the huge abandoned garden near our house.  We found some blackberries and hopefully some pears that will grow and ripen soon.  But we mostly found weeks taller than me.  :(

It has been a good week, and it sounds like next week we will get to do some of our own work on the house, so wish us luck!

Renovations Week #3

This was a hot week, so I think all of our contractors struggled, but still a lot was accomplished.  This week our subcontractors needed to get into the framed walls and do their stuff.

Our great electrician came and put in all of the cans, outlets, switches, bathroom vents and much more.  He was a very busy bee, and he did it all in one very long day!  It is hard to show his work because switches aren't fun, but here are some cans on the ceiling in the master.

Our plumber was also hard at work putting in stuff for the bathrooms.  It is really interesting to see how much goes into the walls that we never see.  He was still finishing up Saturday after we left but he said that all of the plumbing on the main floor would be done before he left.  

Boys Bathroom with a bathtub!  Wow!

 And I never had any idea what a bathtub looked like, so here are a couple of pictures of the bathtub from the side and underneath.

The tub goes right into the framing!

If you look closely you can see cement under the tub, so the bottom of the tub is sturdy.  OH, the things I've learned!

The master shower.  I am just so excited about this.  They poured the cement and have the drain in!

The house finally has a water heater!  It isn't installed but it is still progress.

 Our HVAC guys worked as well, but moving air return vents is pretty boring, but I am grateful for their work nonetheless!

While all of our subcontractors were working upstairs our carpenter finished drywalling the family room!  One room is completely drywalled!  Sweet!

Family room with walls!

Family room, the other side!  

 And now that walls are going up we need to make sure we are ready to paint because we will be up soon!  Here a few colors we are looking at!

Brown for the master.

One of those for the living space. . . we think.  And maybe we will use one in a bedroom?

The paint is on sale until tomorrow, so I know what we will be doing tomorrow!

With renovations going on and it being a hot week we decided to spend some time playing in the water.  The boys finished their reading program, so they had free passes to the pool, so we took a day to go and play there.  It was Hyrum's first time to a water park and he loved it!  His favorite was when we would raise and lower him in a huge water fountain.  We tried to capture his joy the best we could!

Then, we took a night to picnic at the new house and water the garden and water the boys while we were at it!  It has been a fun week in the sun and now it should be a little cooler.  Phew!

Renovations: Week #2

I feel like things are going so quickly which is kinda nice, I'm not going to lie.  This week they finished all of the framing including the family room downstairs.

This is going to be one great family room!

They even fixed the bathroom wall, so we can fit a vanity in the bathroom.  Phew!

And they framed in all of the bedroom closets.  We had to make the boys closet bigger because of a problem with the doors, but I think that it will work out better that way.

Guest bedroom or baby bedroom closet to hide the hidden door. 

The big boys bedroom closet.  It will end up being a walk in closet which should be amazing!

They prepped almost all of the floors to put in the new wood flooring.  

They still have a little work to do in the loft, but it is almost ready!

 Then, the plumber came and started doing the rough in work for the bathroom and laundry room.  It is pretty exciting!

Master bathroom plumbing.

Master shower is started!

Water for the washing machine!!

The rest are just for fun!  

My storage space is getting to be pretty full, and I haven't even moved anything in.  Hmmm. . . 

The best secret passageway ever!

 It was a productive week!  It is really fun to see everything take shape.  We will be moved in before we know it!

Renovations: Week #1

Construction on our home began a week ago, and it is fun to see what you can get done in a week.

You can empty a kitchen, rewire it and put in new lighting.



You can discover a vaulted ceiling, turn two office rooms into a master suite with a bedroom, closet and bathroom.  We are all broken up over the vaulted ceiling.

Master bedroom with the bathroom in the background.

Vaulted Ceiling in Master

Master Closet with the shower to the left.

You can expand the other bathroom and take out a wall to create the big boys bedroom.  Now actually we have to fix that wall because the vanity won't fit, but hopefully that will be an easy fix.  Eek!

Boys Bedroom with Bathroom in the background.

 The dining room is almost opened up.  They will have to put in a header, so it will be a little trickier.

Dining Room

 You can create a laundry space in a bathroom.

Laundry room in bathroom.

 And you can learn lots of interesting things about a house.  For example, you can learn that they glued the carpet down.  In part of the house they were nice enough to do it to a board separate from the floor board.  That was nice of them to do in part of the house, but not in the entire thing.  On the other half once the carpet was up if you stood still for too long you would be stuck there.  So, they started laying a subfloor as the carpenters were tired of getting stuck.  I learned that just taking this awful industrial carpeting out makes everything look nicer!  The room below we aren't changing much, but just taking out the carpet makes it look so much better!

Bedroom without carpeting.   

We also learned that we can't put the garage in the basement without completely finishing it which we didn't budget, so we are working on a plan B.  I think we will end up with an attached carport closed in on three sides.  We'll see how that goes.  You just can't do construction without a few surprises, and I feel like we have had our fair share!  Though, I must admit that surprises aren't as bad when you aren't the ones discovering them and trying to work around them.  

I have also learned that being the general contractor is kind of fun.  I have pretty much taken on that role as I have trouble giving up control and want to make sure I know what is going on at all times.  It has been fun learning about the process and order things need to be done.  I will definitely not be going professional with my new skills, but it is nice to be more educated.  :)

Stay tuned for another update next week!