Laurie's World

Today was all about getting that steel beam installed…once again I was not home much, but for that I am glad becasue I heard it was a little NOISY!! You can see it below…perched on those little scraps of 2x4s…that is where the crane set itNow they have to get it attached/bolted to the house…it has to slide over and set right into the rim joist between the floors

Here is Brooklyn…I have had requests for proof that the children are still alive…so here is one of them anyway

You can just catch a glimpse of the Watson’s house through the new indow…

And here is what we look like roofless…

This is what the house looks like from the new sunroom—without any ceiling or roof. The patio doors are still… there…not for long though. They are ready for the steel beam to get set up there today…As it turns out, neither Troy or I was home to see it happen….but when we came home it was there…

I felt like I was in jail when I used the sink…but that 2×4 shoring is all that is holding the second floor up there where it belongs…

This is the view from the old dining area into the new kitchen area…once again…some very critical shoring

Yikes…i am going to be in trouble…I can not get my camera to work…so i have no pictures (yet) of what happened here today. I will try again in the am. Yes…today was demo day…to say the least. I am stuck for words on how to descibe what it is like to have the back of the house missing and no roof. We are "out there and luvin’ it". It will be very cold in the am (and tomorrow is band day, so we will be up and out by 7:20 am)

The guys (and more) showed up a bit after 9am. This surprised me as I was thinking they would be here super early for a long day of work…but maybe since they needed to come inside the house now, they think they can not come as early. Dunno….anyway, they started to rip and saw and tear at the siding…but then i had to leave as Rachael had an ortho appt and then I had to go to work. By the time I popped by at 2 to see how it was going, the back of the house was gone…and really most of the mess was cleaned up…these guys really tidy up as they go along. HmmmI wonder if that is how they operate at home…somehow I doubt it. They plastic’d off at the hall to the garage and at the opening between the dining room and living room to keep the dust out of the rest of the house…but we will see how that goes. When those walls go down, there won’t be anything to tape plastic to…so not sure how they will keep the mess down then.

Vicki B came by to check ot out and she says she already can’t remember what it used to look likeHow cool is that??

I will work hard on getting pictures…even if I have to borrow a camera…

L

The request for pictures will be honored!! I will get out the camera again tomorrow!

No post for Friday as there was no work done on Friday…but I will have a LOT to say on Monday as apparently that is "demo day".

Word is they will be getting all ready to set the steel beam on Tuesday…Too bad I might miss some of the craziness as I will be out of the house from 11:15 to 3:15I am OK with this, due to the fact that we punched two holes in the stub walls in the dining room to see what is in there as it impacts our cabinets design–and lordy what a mess!! Drywall is really such a hideous product…So I will be just fine with coming home and hopefully they will have cleaned up after themselves and I won’t have to see it all over the place.

Went floor, door and hot tub (shhh) shopping today…wore poor Troy out!

Tomorrow should be a day of rest for me, but I suspect not so much

til then…

So lots happened today (or at least I think so!). The best part of the day was when the steel beam arrived. It is very big and I have complete faith in its ability to hold up the 2nd floor of the house (phew!). I do not have a photo yet…It was much easier to capture it on video…and as you can tell, I have not gotten around to figuring out how to get one of those up here yet…anyway, the welder who was coming to work on it was here well before the beam was…but he got busy after it arrived. The driver took the beam off the truck with a forklift. It was no ordinary forklift I might say. They set it down on the side of the property in the grass and the welder did his thing to it down there. He had to leave without being sone as he has to manufacture something to attach to it…I guess he will be back tomorrow to finish. It is still sitting down there…but I am not worried about anyone stealing it…

The guys will be installing it the day the trusses come as I think they are going to use the boom truck that comes with the trusses to lift it up and lay it close to where they are going to install it. Not sure how they will get it up in position—I suppose they will have a lift (or two).

Lots to do before that happens, mainly they still have to put up all the shoring inside the house to hold it (the house) up while they take out the load bearing wall.

While Doug and Dion were waiting for the beam to arrive, they started to frame out the floors for the dormers in Rachael and Jackie’s rooms. Hmmm…they are bigger than I thought they would be…They are exactly the size they are supposed to be (6’x5′), but it just looks bigger then that when it is hanging over my head. I am not crazy…Troy says they seem bbigger to him also!

OH YEAH! Can’t forget to talk about the cabinets. Debi came by today to "measure" the space to get working on the cabinet design. OK, she was here for a long time…it would appear that we have lots of piccadilos…BUT she is awesome and says she is determined get us a design we will love. She is going to move quickly…she thinks she will have the first draft to us by tomorrow, so we can review and tweak. She thinks we will be ready to place the order in 4-5 days. The cabinets will take 4-4 1/2 weeks to come, so the timing will work for this is we stay focused.

The weather has been very cooperative this week…I hope it holds!!

Today was all about working on the entrance. Doug and Dion got it all framed up and sheeted. So now I can walk out there and feel the space so much better. The plan is to reuse the front door and half round window, so they have framed it as such as well as cut the opening for the window.

A concrete guy came by and basically overwhelmed me entirely with the prospect of dealing with the concrete for the walkway to the entrance, the BBQ area and the back patio. Seems odd doesn’t it?? If something was going to push me over the edge it really should not be something like a patio…but this guy made it COMPLICATED!! SO I wandered off and left poor Troy to deal with it…We clearly need to have another opinion…

The steel beam was supposed to get delivered today, but we did not see one arrive…so who knows!

OK–so yesterday i said something about having real walls…now I want to take that back–TODAY we have REAL walls! Doug and Dion were here from 7:30 to 3 today and they got a lot done. They got the sheeting on the floor of the entrance area, framing and sheeting for the kitchen area as well as the sheeting on the walls in the sunroom. They also waterproofed the foundation. (You can see it is painted white in the pictures) That was actually interesting…it was this super thick goopy white stuff they painted the outside of the foundation walls with. All the better to keep the moisture out with I say—WaHahaha—that would be my big bad wolf imitation

Here is the view from "inside" my new kitchen looking out my "windows"

I went out there and "played" in my new kitchen after they were gone…marked the floor where my imaginary sink and cabinets will be…Admiring what a lovely view I will have when I am doing the dishes—correction—when the children are doing the dishes. I may have some trouble getting used to allowing other people to touch stuff in my new kitchen…but I am sure I will get over it.

This is the view from the current dining room into the new kitchen…looks kinda cool…

And the sunroom is all sheeted now…

These are the windows that are going away and this will be the access from the current family room to the new sunroom.

For those who are wondering why the walls do not connect yet…that is because they can’t connect them until the roof is off…and they will be taking the roof off in a week or so

Spoke with the folks over at Pacific Crest Cabinets today–they seem nice…Debi is coming here on Thursday morning to measure and discuss. Apparently she has some concerns about making the corner apron front sink work—sigh–I am not letting this go. I know it is possible and I am going to make this work! If I have to go over to Katarina’s and dig around under her sink to see how she did it, I will!! Debi says 4 weeks for delivery, so if we can get this going, I will be in good shape.

Hired Troy Services today to do the plumbing, electrical and HVAC. No relation to my Troy of course–and the name had no impact in my decision–the fellow’s name is Jim…I am sure you will hear me talk about him again! He is VERY talkative–so I am going to make sure it is not a time and materials gigBut he has asked me twice to have Troy (my Troy) stop giving me those cute pills–so I may have to avoid him when he is here…

What else??? What else?? I think I forgot to mention that we bought our other fridge on Sunday…pretty exciting stuff eh? We are going with the Samsung Quattro Fridge–has four doors (thus the "quattro")–all with their own temperature control…just want to be able to make sure that Rick and Eugenie can get cold wine quickly when they are here

Working hard tonight on narrowing down the choices for roofing/siding/windows as these all need to happen in tandem–SIGH–so much to do.

Until tomorrow…

So the highlight of my day was when Doug and Dion tilted up that first wall of the sunroom—with its four big beautiful window openings–but I am getting ahead of myself…

So let me go back to the beginning of the day when the guys showed up and started banging away finishing up the floor joists on the entrance area…it was about 8:30am, so not too bad. Below is how this looks now…seems like a lot of fuss for 4 feet, but it will really make a world of difference to the inside I think…

BTW the rotten beam is all going to be replaced anyway due to the hip on the roof having to be shifted because we are extending the front out by two feet and not the side, so the angle will be different therefore the whole thing gets redone anyway…so no biggie there. Just throwing throwing this out there in case anyone is losing sleep thinking I had some real problems here…

They worked away for a couple of hours getting everything lined up and then the inspector came by. I think he was over 7 feet tall. He basically finished up with Doug before I could even get out there, and the only comment he had was that the guys were wondering when i was going to open the pool for them…Hmmm…may not happen! He also very chatty about the Dec storm…so apparently we have nothing holding us back from full on framing now!

Doug and Dion got busy with the walls of the sunroom…they framed it out and lifted it up….had to call in my guy (Troy) to help them lift it up. They did not ask me–which is kinda weird–‘cuz anyone who knows us knows I am stronger than TroyThe one little hiccup today was Andrew discovered when they started to rip off the siding that our home currently has 2×4 outer wall framing NOT 2×6 (whiich is today’s code requirement-and also what the plans were drawn to require) SO we have to fur the walls (Hey—who knows what that means?–maybe I won’t tell you until tomorrow to keep you tuning in!!)

So this is how the place looks now…The room feels great…bigger than I thought it would…There are going to be 4 3×5 windows across the back and 4 2×2 skylights across the top. So this room will have lots of sun–thus the sunroom title.They are going to be cranking through the rest of the walls in a couple of days.

Apparently the beam is coming on Wednesday. It needs some welding when it gets here so that will take a day or so. The trusses won’t come until Monday or maybe Tuesday, so the plan is to wait until the trusses come and use that delivery boom truck to help install the beam in stead of renting another crane or something…sounds logical to me! BUT that is when they rip off the roof, back walls etc–so that is when it gets REALLY exciting!

SO…today was jackhammer day (again!) Andrew and crew showed up by 7:15 am and started to jack hammer by 7:30—now this seems awfully early you say?? Yes indeed…but I do happen to know that the sound is WAY worse inside the house than outside..so I let them go ahead. Who am I to stand in the way of a group of hardworking guys? Andrew tried hard to get our underfloor inspection for this afternoon, but since our inspector (Randy) is out of the office Fri and Monday, the fellow covering his projects is a little busy. So we have to wait until Monday for that, but it is still the plan to have the access holes cut and the floor joists all framed today to be ready for morning inspection on Monday. I was out of the house by shortly after 8, so missed most of the noise…Troy did not say it was too horrible, but then again I did not ask the specific question

The floors did indeed get their joists though…so NOW this helps the "visualizing impaired" (that would be me–and I do not mean vision impaired–VISUALLY impaired means I can not see things that are not there like some people can). SO now I feel closer to having real rooms "out there"…soon they will be "in here"…

I got Doug and Drew to pose for pictures today, so scroll down for that. I think I may be driving them a bit crazy with my camera and videoing…but they don’t say too muchI did ask Drew today if he makes the guys wear hearing protection when they are jack hammering (even though I know the answer is no-‘cuz I can see with my own eyes they are not wearing anything) And he paused for a second and then said (like he could not hear me) pardon?? So I guess I gotta let that one go…But I did tell him it was the mum in me that worries about things like that!

I worked hard on my cabinet design today! Gotta get that going by mid next week.

Also…it has been mentioned that Brooklyn’s "comments" are the highlight of this blog–so I better step it up!! (Let’s see what response this gets from her)

This is Andrew–although apparently only his Mum calls him that (according to Doug) So I am trying to get in the "Drew" habit

And this is Doug (Douglas to his Mum)

Hi…today is Thursday and I was not home much today to see what was happening. BUT, I think Adrew and crew had a fair amount of trouble getting the access holes cut between the new and old crawl space. They are supposed to be cutting 2’x2′ holes in three places through the existing foundation wall so that we have can acces to, and run plumbing, electrical etc through to the new areas. The initial plan was to "score" the concrete from both sides with concrete saws and then it should be able to be popped out–sounds simple right…well this only works if you can actually cut the concrete from both sides which quickly became an imposiibility when they realized how much smoke, debris and toxic air the saws created as they sliced through the concrete. There was absolutely no way they would be able to SAFELY operate the saws down in the crawl…so that left them with cutting from one side (the outside) only and the saws did not have big enough blades to cut all the way through the 8" foundation. They tried a few different tools, but the consensus at the end of the day was they needed more jack hammers…SO…that makes tomorrow another VERY noisy day…Oh well…I won’t be home to have to listen to it!