Something New

Hello again and happy new year! 

It is time to let you know what has been happening on our “new” old house. We’re excited because yesterday the new windows were delivered and the contractors will start to install them this week. They have been busy so that means the new addition is built and under roof—in fact all of the roof is finished. The soffit, fascia and gutters are in place, too.

New shingles being install on the existing roof.

The addition which is in the location of the old sun porch will house a laundry room and a mudroom kind of entryway on the first floor. The second floor will house the master bathroom. Also we are adding a small bump out on the kitchen wall. This is where our breakfast nook will be built. Here are some drawings to help illustrate the changes.

This drawing shows the laundry room and entryway. There will be 

doors from the entryway into the kitchen and the family room (to the left). 

The kitchen nook will have two side-by-side double hung windows.

The master bath will be housed in the second floor of the addition.

Pouring the foundation for the addition.

Framing the first floor of the addition and the kitchen bump out.

The roof being built over the new construction.

We also have a new set of exterior steps to the basement. The old ones were in the wrong place and in poor condition so we had a precast concrete set complete with metal doors put in. That meant digging a large hole and cutting a doorway into the stone foundation. They have amazing saws to do that kind of thing now—very cool.

Bob and Zady inspecting where the doorway
will be cut through the old foundation.

This unit was installed in one piece.

The guys have also been working on the front porch—pouring new footers and constructing a new floor—the roof will stay minus the old shingles.

The old porch floor had to go. The house looks strange 

all wrapped in Tyvek—windows and all.

We had a bit of a mix up on our window order, but it was caught in time and has been remedied. Also two rain storms filled our basement with water. Having an open foundation and no gutters contributed to the problem. Hopefully there will be no more shop vacuuming the basement. Thanks to Denny for lending the sump pump which we used to empty the shop vac canister. 

It feels good to get past the holidays as our plates were full trying to stay up to speed with the house and participate in the usual Advent and Christmas activities. We’re starting to feel like we’re keeping far enough ahead of the contractors that we can go at a more relaxed pace. Still, every day we are working on some component of the house, but we are enjoying the adventure most days.

Once the windows are installed, the siding and trim will be installed on the exterior. We can’t wait to post pictures of that—we are very excited about the colors. We’ll have that in our next installment. It is fun sharing our progress. Let us know if you are reading our blog.

Until later,

ChrisAnn