Touch the Sky

Lil A's room is going to up really really high, or so she says!!! Now that the floor is done, the walls on the second story are going up - and it really does look very high - especially to our neighbors! The guys had a GREAT weekend - Big A, Big Moe, and PHillip worked a full day with help from Brandon and Carleton. It was a very productive day - lumber was loaded, and walls were framed. The weather finally cooled off so they weren't dying from the heat - just the lifting! Lil A is very excited and got to have some fun climbing up the ladder with Dad to see her new room. F & C came in town for the day and had an opportunity to see the project first hand. Big A was really happy with the progress and we are all re-energized about the project.

Once we finish framing the walls, the roof trusses will be ordered, and Big A will start sheathing. We still have stairs to frame, the 'bumpout' to frame (we are extending our living room) and of course we have to tie all this in to the existing house.

Meanwhile, we are still getting by in our one room. The kids are sleeping good - although many nights I wish Lil T had his own room so I wouldn't have to keep getting up with him so much - I hear every little squirm and squeak. Lil A is sleeping like a champ which helps keep everyone happy!

Hopefully we can keep the project moving so I will have lots of blogging to keep up with!

Where has the time gone????

Has it really been since Sept 15th that I last posted?????? AHAHAHH!!! Well, unfortunately not too much has been going on these last few weeks. Let's see....where did we last leave off? I think I am going to have to actually check my calendar.....the weekend of 9/20 Big A and Big Moe worked a half day and continued to work on those newly erected walls. Bro Wade graced us with his presence (at 9:00 in the morning on a Saturday!) and sort of helped, while drinking all our soda and crying about cutting his finger - not to mention he didn't actually have to swing a hammer since he used the palm-nailer!!! Ha-ha just had to get a few digs in for Uncle Wade -- it was a big help and we appreciate all the help we can get around here. No Brandon this weekend because it was Baby Ella's bday - the party was too cute and super fun. The next few weekends were uneventful - the project was essentially on hold waiting for the floor joists to be manufactured and shipped. Big A kept plenty busy with football and we just waited....

The weekend of 10/11 the floor joists finally arrived and Big A, Big Moe and Brandon got them up and installed. The second floor has officially begun!!! Hurrah!

Progress

After a long weekend, we have four walls framed up. Hurrah! It is really starting to take shape now. Big A, Big Moe, and Brandon worked during the week two nights and Big A worked all weekend. It was a very productive weekend for him while the kids and I had some fun at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center on Saturday and then running errands on Sunday. The weather here is so insanely hot, Big A cut it a little short on Sunday - he just couldn't take it anymore. Now that the walls are up, we spent some time outside in the space talking about the layout and how things will look when it is complete. Big A snapped chalk lines to show the size of the bedroom, closet, and bathroom and for the first time I started to really look forward to having the project complete. It is going to be so fantastic to have a space for everything. It is also going to be nice to have a bathroom we can both fit in at the same time. There is still A LOT of work to go - the hard part comes next - framing up the second story and tieing into our existing house.

Wall up

Big A, Big Moe, and Brandon worked Tues after working all day and got that one wall up - yeah! They got rained out, but at least it is starting to take shape. While we are getting by just fine inside the house, it is pretty tough on the nights Big A works after work - I had both kids screaming at the same time, and bath and dinner are hard to do without his help - although much thanks to Mimi for pitching in :). Of course as soon as he came in Little A was a perfect angel, so he was able to get her to bed without too much drama. It is going to be a very long few months.... There is no game this weekend so hopefully we can get a lot accomplished working as much as possible. I think Big Moe will be out on his boat enjoying some downtime so it will be up to us to keep the momentum going.

Floor Down, Walls to go!

Progress!!!! That big pile is all the dirt Big A moved with the bobcat. I don't know what we are going to do with it all - it is sitting right where the pool is going to go (one day a long long long long time from now....) We had an inspection on Wed to insure the framing was strapped down properly and we passed. There was one small strap that needed to be fixed and of course they don't sell that particular strap anywhere so we had it overnighted. Little A had fun helping by giving Daddy nails and shooing away the mosquitos! The guys worked last Thurs (9/4) and got the floor sheeted. It really made the footprint look bigger which was good :). Then they worked Saturday and got one of the walls framed -- BUT we lost one of our helpers (BRANDON!) part way through the day and couldn't get the wall standing (if you look closely you can see it in the picture). Big A had to go to the football game on Saturday evening so he cut the day a little short as well - GO GATORS! It was so super hot anyway, I was afraid Big Moe was going to have a heart attack so it is probably a good thing they didn't keep going. Everyone took Sunday off and they plan to get that wall up this week - hurrah! We have lots of decisions to make about windows and other details - I have been given my list of tasks to do - we'll see how much I can get accomplished in the next week....

Framed Floor

We are making some real progress now! After the bobcat expedition last week, we now have a BIG pile of dirt in our backyard. Little A had such a good time helping Daddy! Last Saturday, Big Moe came over and the real work finally got under way. Big A worked on putting beams along the existing house structure to get the tie- in correct and make sure it would attach properly. This pretty much took all day. Grueling work on his back up under the edge of the house trying to pound nails in the right location. He ended up doing a lot of pre-drilling because the old wood is so hard, the nails were bending. Grandma came to town and took Little A for the day which was a huge help to me. They had a great time (and so did I!). Sunday the guys worked a half day - we had to go to Little A's open house for school that afternoon, not to mention it is hotter than hell right now, so Big A was ready for a break. During the week Big Moe and Brandon came over a few evenings to keep the momentum going.

This weekend was Labor Day and Big A, Big Moe and Brandon worked most of the day on Saturday - it was rainy so they had to dodge the thunderstorms, but they got A LOT done (thanks to Brandon for sticking around Saturday afternoon!). It is finally starting to take shape. In fact, they didn't work on Sunday or Monday because they ran out of lumber. Big A did some minor work on Monday and now we are ready for the next phase which is putting sheeting over the floor joists. The codes require tons of strapping and bolting and nailing which has taken a lot of time in this early phase. Pretty soon we will have walls going up which is very exciting.

Life is still going fine in our cramped quarters. We struggle every day to stay organized and control the clutter. Little A is still sleeping well in her crib (poor girl!) and Little T napped through a great deal of pounding over the weekend, so I really can't complain. People keep asking me how long this project will take to complete. Right now, I just take things day by day and try to enjoy the process, and not think too hard about the end result. It will be done when it is done. It will probably take a lot longer than we think so to put a time limit on it at this point will only be frustrating. Big A is so lucky to have the skills to do something like this with his own two hands. We are also fortunate to have good help when he needs it. Big Moe has been very instrumental in getting started and he has provided lots of guidance in the initial layout.

Sheeting and walls to come next - Hurrah!!!!

Better than Disney

Little A. thought this was the greatest thing ever!!!!! Cheaper than Disney too:)

Filling the Holes

Well, I know it has been forever since I last posted, and because of that I have probably lost all of our readers.... but here it goes. Unfortunately, not all that much has happened which is why there hasn't been a lot to post about. Well, that isn't really true - a lot has happened but nothing very interesting to write about - and I have just been really lazy with posting :(. As you can see from the above photos, the masons made real progress and did in fact finally finish - they were primarily held up by rain. We had to have the holes inspected and then treated for termites. A big THANKS to Couch's Pest Control, who came out on short notice so we could have the treatment completed and our inspection passed, so that we could then have the concrete scheduled. Once the holes were filled, we had to have a tie-in survey done which took some time to get scheduled and completed. Then it had to be inspected. Once those things were finally done, the block was laid and the mason was out of here. During that time, Big A went lobstering in the keys for a week and when he got back we had a family reunion weekend at the beach so we were not able to get much done on the project (priorities!). The kids and I stayed with Mimi while the guys were lobstering and we all stayed in a condo at the beach, so there was a little break from our cluttered surroundings here. Last weekend, Big A cleaned up the yard with the help of Brandon and moved four tons of tree logs into a dump truck. We had lumber delivered for the first floor this week and now it really is GO TIME! Big A. rented a bobcat to clear away dirt in order to meet the required clearance under the house - he worked on that all evening. Tomorrow the real work will begin. Big Moe is coming over for some project management assistance and we look forward to some real progress. Little A. is very excited about her new room although we keep having to explain it won't be done tomorrow!

We are trying our best to stay comfortable in our little home. The kids are doing great and as long as everyone is sleeping I can't complain....

Potholes in my lawn

I know, I know, the purpose of a blog is to keep it updated.... well, here is the latest update. We now have holes in the back yard - yes, just holes. It takes A LOT to get a project like this out of the ground and we have already hit 4 roadblocks.

Roadblock #1: We had to verify existing conditions for the structural supports and get a signed/sealed drawing from our engineer. Of course, this took TIME which means the work had to stop. Our house is old which means it isn't up to current code standards. We have to take this into account going forward. The architect/engineer team was very responsive and got us what we needed as quickly as possible (thanks guys!)

Roadblock #2: We had a big tree removed from the back yard before we started demolition, and there were massive roots and half the stump still in the ground. We called our tree guy and he was able to have someone onsite SAME DAY - he took care of that root in the pouring rain after hours! Yeah - KEVIN WHITCOMB TREE SERVICE ROCKS!

Roadblock #3: A/C - our AC unit was in the way and had to be moved. This was also done within 24 hours - thanks Brian and ABC Air!

Roadblock #4: RAIN. Since everyone was so incredibly responsive and took care of all the above mentioned roadblocks, it has been raining every day so the mason can't get back over to install the rebar. Damn rain!

Hopefully tomorrow (Thurs 7/17) the masons will be back on track and the holes will be finished and the project will be moving again. Big A leaves for the keys in a week so we hope the foundation is done by the time he gets back and then he turns into a framing fool. Wish us luck!

Gone

The demolition is complete! Little A's room is now gone. Did I mention in my previous post that we are all 4 sharing one bedroom? She is still in her crib, with Little T. next to us in his bassinette (or in our bed....). So far it is working out okay. Big A worked all day on Saturday by himself trying to save siding and get a jump start on the complete tear down. He made good progress and in spite of almost electrocuting himself, managed to have a good day. Thanks to the help of Brandon & Phillip, Sunday was a great day - the three of them worked all day tearing apart sections of the room and hauling it to the dumptruck. By 5:30 the entire structure was gone and the room was sealed off. Big A saved some of the siding but was unable to salvage the tongue-and-groove planks in the ceiling. Apparently whoever did the construction glued the ceiling to the wood which created a big mess. The kids and I went to the pool and tried to stay cool - of course this project had to start in the dead of summer making life difficult for all of us!

Next: We decided to subcontract the block and foundation and we have a few questions to get answered before we are ready to go. We are hoping to have this work started Monday 7/7/08.

No Turning Back

We FINALLY got our permit from the city about 2 weeks ago. It was a long process but not too painful and now that we have it there are no more excuses - it's go time. In order to start demolition of Little A's room, we had to figure out where to put all of her stuff and where she was going to sleep. We decided to move her stuff in various locations throughout the house (mostly to a living room that is now a playroom/toyroom/place to throw miscellaneous crap) and move her crib into our room. Now the 4 of us are sleeping in what once was our bedroom. Oh well, the baby was in there anyway, and as long as he doesn't wake up Little A with his night feedings, we should be okay. So far, so good.

Once we got everyone resituated, the demolition began! Last weekend, Big A and his helper got to work and completely gutted the room. There truly is no turning back now.

This weekend the whole room will be completely demo'd. This room was not part of the original house and we think it was added on in the 70's. Big A plans to completely skin the exterior and save all of the wood siding and the tongue-and-groove planks in the ceiling. We will save the windows as well, although since we are in FL we can't reuse them in the addition since everything has to be up to code -damn hurricanes! Perhaps they can be sold on craigslist or ebay. We'll see......

Introduction

A little background: We are undertaking an addition and renovation project at our home in Dunedin FL and we are primarily doing it ourselves. This project is finally getting off the ground after being in the design stage for about six months and in the 'dream' stage for about 3 years. We are married with two kids and are slowly becoming everything we never thought we would be....but we hope this home project will ultimately provide a place of sanctuary and a unique identity in a sea of surburban sameness that defines our part of Florida.

A little about the project: Our home is a 1920's cottage, which is the type of home we desperately wanted to find when we moved back to FL after living in Seattle for 3 1/2 years. It had been renovated and was completely up to date and ready for us to move in 6 years ago when we bought the house. The renovation was nice, but we didn't do it ourselves and it isn't exactly what we wanted, so now we are ready to make some major changes, add some space, and make the house our permanent home. Phase one of the project is an addition which entails demolition of one bedroom to make way for a new two story addition to include a master suite, and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Phase two will be a renovation of the remaining interior space which will be reconfigured to take into account the new bedrooms. We hired an architect to help with the design because we really wanted to perserve the integrity of the original design and have an addition that fit with the rest of the house. Additionally, we were not afraid to take on some renovation to make the space 'work' in a sensible way. We are extremely happy with the design and the plans that have been prepared by our architect.

A little about us: 30 something married couple with a 3 year old daughter and 3 month old son. Big A. will perform the majority of the work himself (with a little help when necessary), while working full time, and on a tight budget. We also plan to live in the house while this is going on. We might be crazy. Hopefully we'll still be married by the time it's over. Enjoy the journey - we plan to!