House Update: BIG changes! The end is in sight! (Almost)

We have made a LOT of progress since my last post. 

The siding is on.  It's a color called Coastal Sage, which is basically a greenish gray.  All the trim is white.

Cabinets are in.  Here's a picture of some of the kitchen cabinets (without the doors obviously).  They are now painted white.

Here's the view from the other angle.  Also, the light fixture over the island is up!

Here is the master bathroom vanity.  All the cabinets are now painted white.

These are the laundry room cabinets.  I couldn't fit it all in the picture, but these cabinets go all the way to the ceiling.  Lots of storage!

Light fixtures are up with the exception of a few hall lights.  This is the foyer chandelier.  You can also see that the walls in here are painted.  Everything is now painted except for the 2 spare bedrooms, the bonus room, and the master bath.

This is the dining room chandelier...

...and this is the dining room ceiling!  The crown moulding is up in here, as well as the ceiling medallion.

Here is the living room fan.  You can also see in the background that it is painted, and most of the windows are trimmed.

This is the light fixture in the breakfast table area, to the left of the kitchen.

Here is the fan in the master bedroom.  The windows are trimmed, but the crown moulding isn't up yet in the tray ceiling.

Here is part of the hardwood in the master bedroom.  It's finished now, and the living room is almost finished as well.  It's Asian Walnut.

Here's a closer view.  It's a dark wood, with a lot of variation in it. 

These are the front porch lights, on each side of the front door.  The garage and back porch lights are up too, but it was too muddy to go around and take pictures on that day.  It's been extremely busy, but David is making a lot of progress while still trying to work on other jobs for people.  The heat is on inside, the claw foot cast iron tub for the master bath was delivered, and the stove was delivered.  All the remaining tile and trim has been delivered, and David is ready to start tiling soon.  It won't be much longer!  Thanks for visiting!

Garage Repair/Porch Addition

David has not only been working on the construction of our new house; he's also been working on quite a few other jobs over the past few months!  In this job, he worked with his friend Danny Barrett to repair a garage roof that was falling in and add a porch roof to an older home.

As you can see, part of the garage roof was already starting to fall in!

Scary!  This whole section of the roof had to come off and be rebuilt.

Here's a shot of the new framing.

Here's another view from the outside of the garage.

In addition, the homeowners wanted to add a porch roof.

Here's the porch roof as it was just framed.

Here's a picture where you can see the new porch roof along with the new garage roof. 
Later, the homeowners plan to add new siding to the entire house.  For now, they are happy that the garage ceiling is no longer about to fall on their heads! 

House Update: Sheetrock

Here are some pictures of the sheetrock after it was completed.

This is the dormer over the foyer.

Here's a closer look.  The sheetrock at the top of the arch is curved. 

Here is the fireplace (behind some scaffolding!) with a partial view of the french doors in the living room.

This is the back wall of the living room, with the french doors and arched window.

Here's the kitchen island.  (It's purple because that's a special sheetrock to use near water, since the sink will be in the island.)

Here's the tray ceiling in the master bedroom.

This is the bonus room.

Currently, most of the house is painted.  The heat pump has been installed, and the siding is up.  More pictures to come of those updates! 

The Attack of the Squirrel: A Florida Room Remodel

David recently completed a remodel of a Florida room at my grandparent's house.  The room was once actually an outside porch, but the previous homeowners enclosed it.  Unfortunately, whoever did the work didn't exactly do the most high quality job, and parts of the textured ceiling looked bad.

Also, a squirrel took up residence inside the wall.  The squirrel would run loudly through the wall at night.  Then the squirrel got brave, and actually dug a hole in the wall and would STICK ITS HEAD through the hole and look into the room.  That was the last straw for my grandma.  She decided something had to be done. 

This is the room from the outside.  It has four large sliding glass doors, one of which was shattered internally from an unfortunate incident with a rock and a lawn mover several years ago.  The squirrel would run across that cable and come in through a hole she had made in the boxing.

The whole end of the wall was torn out.  Inside, David found...... a squirrel skeleton..... and some baby squirrels.  David reframed the wall to have three windows instead of the four sliding doors.

The windows were installed, and the outside was wrapped and re-sided.

Here's the inside view.

New sheetrock went on the new wall.
My grandparents decided they were tired of the brick color showing, so they decided to paint the entire room, brick and all.  They chose this BRIGHT shade of pink.  :-)

We were a little scared of the color at first, but it actually goes well with the furniture, and my grandparents love it.  Also, the new end wall is MUCH better insulated than it was before, so the temperature stays a lot more stable.  They are really enjoying their new room!

House Update: Insulation

I know it has been a while since I've put up any pictures.  Things have been happening at the house, but the changes have been mostly inside the walls (wiring, plumbing, etc.) so the changes haven't been really obvious in pictures.  I was waiting around for a "big" change. 

Also, unfortunately the framer made some mistakes that caused the house not to pass inspection the first time.  He cut some serious corners with the housewrap, and left out some bracing that he certainly knew he needed.  When the house did not pass, he failed to show up to fix the problems.  David ended up fixing them all himself, which delayed us 2 weeks because he had to do the work on his own, while the framer could have done it quickly in one day with his crew.  We have yet to hear from this framer as to his explanation for not showing up to do the work, but it cost him his job of doing the siding in the future.  This framer has always done excellent work for David in the past, so we were shocked and extremely disappointed by his behavior.  Unfortunately, problems like this are all too common in the construction industry!  Luckily, David was able to fix all the problems and the house passed inspection easily the second time.

With the framing passed and the wiring/plumbing finished, it was time to start on the walls.  The insulation was completed last week, and we immediately started with sheetrock.  Right now, the sheetrock is up, and is being mudded.  I will put up pictures when they have finished the final coat of mud and it has been sanded. 

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the insultation stage:

Here's one insulated wall (the back of the laundry room, with the back of the electrical panel showing) with all the sheetrock mud just waiting for those walls to go up!

Part of the cathedral ceiling in the living room.

Part of the bonus room.....

.... and the other end of the bonus room.

In addition, David framed up the wall for the kitchen island....

... and sheetrock was delivered and stacked up all over the house! 

It looks a LOT different now!  More pictures of the completed sheetrock coming soon!!

House Update: Windows, wiring, plumbing, and hvac

We're now in the slow part of building.  Things are happening, but they are mostly inside the house and are not really obvious from the outside.

The windows are in now.



The back french door is in, but the transom above has not arrived yet.

This is the triple window in the breakfast area.

Most of the wiring is finished.  David and his friend Kevin did the wiring themselves.  Here you can see some of the recessed lights in the tray ceiling in the master bedroom.

One bathtub is in.

This will be a tile shower in the master bathroom.  David will do the tile.  We had a fixed shower head put in on the left, and a wand on the right.

The front door is in, but the sidelights have not arrived yet.

Most of the ductwork is in for the heating and air.  We used A&R to do the install.

That's it for now!  Lots of work has been done, even though it's not obvious from the road.  Soon we will be ready for insulation, and then sheetrock.  Thanks for stopping by!