No Turning Back Now

We are committed. Or, maybe I need to say 'we SHOULD be committed!'. The Baker Stone guys came Monday and removed the stone from the front of the house. It was amazing how quickly the whole thing happened. An example of how having the right tools for the job, and some really strong guys, really makes a difference. They had all of the stone removed by lunch time. Here are a few photos of the process.

This is Bubby. He was the first of the crew to arrive. This man can perform magic with a hammer and chisel.

When Sam (the head of the crew in the white shirt) and the others arrived, things moved along really quickly.

Eventually, the guys brought out the big guns using a small hand held jack hammer to remove the more difficult stones. The sound and vibration in the house sent the cats right under the bed to take cover..........and this is only the beginning! We found it truly amazing how these guys pick up these stones like they are a bag of groceries. We are glad to let them do this part of the job.

All of the stone is being stacked on pallets in the front yard. It will all be reused to extend the height of the chimney and added with some new stone to build the new porch.

The house is now naked on the front and of course it will now RAIN!!!!! I will be covering the exposed part of the house with plastic by Thursday morning. Starting next week the house will lose an arm - the old garage. stay tuned for that. We cannot wait for that old porch to be gone too!

This weekend we will lose our kitchen for about 4 months. Everything will be moved to the basement, including the fridge. What an adventure!

The Big Shift

Definition: Shift (Oxford English Dictionary) Only appropriate definitions shown.

1. A movement to do something, a beginning 7a. Hist. A woman’s loose-fitting undergarment, orig. worn also by men; a slip, a chamise b. A woman’s loose straight unwaisted dress 9. A group of people working for a specific period of time, usu. One equivalent to a days work; a period worked by such a group of people 11. The action or an instance of shifting; a transfer, a transition; (a) change, a move. And the definitions go on and on and on and on…………

It's time to catch all of you up on what has been happening with our house project for the last couple of weeks. As you can tell from the title of this post, there has been a lot of moving going on and some of it while wearing a dress :o) Lets just clear all of that up right now.

Here are photos of us shifting our things for storage:

The guest room is now the storage room

The dining room gate-leg table has now been moved into Rowan's office as our temporary eating space. You can see we have also moved many of our plants here too. We think it makes a nice cozy little eating spot where we can look out over the backyard and try to forget about the chaos taking place just outside this room.

We have also moved all of the irises and lillies from the front beds of the house. We are storing them in big containers in the backyard during the construction.

Now that shifting should not be confused with this shifting:

I know you must be laughing right now :o) but I do wear my grandmother's old shift sometimes while I am packing (I have even been seen wearing it out front when I am grilling which makes Rowan run and hide). It has been so bloody hot here the last 2 weeks (mid 90's to over 100) that it is the coolest thing I can wear. Gram would be so proud of me!

Here are some photos of what some of the remodel will look like. We have taken masking tape and drawn out on the walls where the entry for the new dining room will be, and where the french doors to the new porch will be. You just need to visualize.

Part of the dining room entry is shown below (that whole wall will be knocked out). Shelves will be added in the rectangle on the left. The window will go away and that wall knocked out too.

The blue tape is the new french doors that will open out to the new stone porch. The existing front door will go away and be moved to the far right end of the orange room in the previous photo. The ceilings will also be removed and we will have new vaulted ceilings with skylights.

And of course the cats have been a tremendous help!

We are not only shifting the contents of our house, but also food and all the ingredients that go along with making it. We have packed away most of the kitchen utensils and cooking pots, etc. except for the basics. We will spend this last week of having our kitchen appliances (stove/oven) by cooking up a storm and filling the freezer with staples to get us through the next few months until we have our kitchen back. We will be cooking by microwave, toaster oven and a camp stove starting Sept. 7 in our temporary kitchen in the basement. We have also moved the gas grill to the back garage so we can do the grilling in the back yard. So, here are a few photos of what is being cooked up for storage in the freezer.

Goolash. A fall and winter staple in our house. My mom's delicious recipe.

Grandmas shift is also frequently found at the butchers block in the kitchen. Still witnessing delicious things being made in the kitchen.

The mince ingredients for shepherd's pie.

And, you just must see the most FABULOUS brandy wine tomato from our garden. A gift from the heavens. Nothing like a fresh sliced tomato to make our hearts go a-pitter-patter. DELICIOUS! Most of our garden was sacrificed last weekend due to construction preparation, so we have pickled all of the beets, pulled all of the sweet candy onions and yanked most of the tomato plants.

Look for update from the stone removal on the front of the house tomorrow :o)

Finishing Phase 1

We have been working hard to finish the first phase of our construction so we can maybe have a couple of weeks without dust on and in everything in the house. Ugh! Hopefully we will begin Phase 2 of this project starting the first week of September. Rowan went off to the UK/Wales last Tuesday, Aug. 11 for a family get together and I remain here to finish up the window installation, painting, cleaning up and starting to pack everything in the living room, dining room and kitchen. When Rowan returns on the 26th, we will move everything for storage.

We were able to get everything cleaned up and moved back into the master bedroom before Rowan went off to the UK. We repainted the entire bedroom as it was the easiest way to get rid of the plaster dust. You can see the wonderful light that comes in now from the new double awning window. Rowan and Fergus couldn't wait to have a nap once the bed was in place.

We are in the middle of an extreme heat wave here in Southern Indiana. It has been between 92 and 110 degrees for the past 3 weeks. Some days it is so humid you can't even go outside. It makes it CRAZY hot when we have to knock a window out and there is a big hole in the side of the house. We try to isolate that room and close it off to the rest of the house so we can keep the AC running. All of this makes for a very early start to our day too as we try to have the old window out and the new one in before 1pm.

Here are a few photos of us finishing up the remaining windows.

Steve does some amazing acrobatics while running the circular saw (kids, don't try this at home!). Here he is cutting the cedar siding so the cedar window trim can be installed. I think we need to enter him in America's Got Talent. Maybe I could even be his assistant in my sexy bib overalls. :o)

Steve and Rowan giving it some heave-ho to get the window up on the scaffold.

........and into the new hole.

The last window to be changed in this phase is the bathroom. This is the only window we did not need to cut a bigger hole and add a new header for (all the other windows are bigger than the original windows). We saved the easiest one for last.

Trimming that nasty plaster. Achoooooo!

We had to get really creative about building a scaffold over the new air conditioner so we could get to the window just above there. We came up with cinder blocks, saw horses, some 2x4's, an old door, some shims here and there and a bunch of screws. Works perfectly. Glad my mom isn't here to stress about seeing us stand on it :o)

Here is the FABULOUS bathroom window. We found this retro pressed glass for the window that we special ordered. It is exactly the same glass that my grandparents had in their old french doors in their bungalow house in California. When I saw it, I just HAD to have it. It's called florex.

A close-up of the florex glass

Here is the finished product. I decided to repaint the entire bathroom too since it has been 9 years and it was ready for some new paint.

I'm so happy this Phase 1 window/closet job is done that I could just go ride a hog! :o)

Stay tuned for more on getting ready for destruction coming soon...............

The Plans

Sorry it has taken me so long since the last post. All this construction work is making it hard to have the strength to blog when I finally get a moment in the evening.

So, here is the before and (planned) after pictures for our house:

The house as it is now

Planned after drawing- including the new stone screened porch and dining room

We are adding lots of new windows/skylights for extra light and warmth in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky and will shine directly in the windows (it snows here). The eves on the roof will be extra deep (18 inches) for added shade in the summer months when the sun is higher in the sky to keep the house naturally cooler. The new windows will be double hung so they will open from the bottom and top for air flow in the mornings and evenings to keep the house naturally cool. We added a new duel-fuel Train HVAC system (made in the USA) last fall that is both gas and electric. It has a brain that switches back and forth to use the most efficient fuel depending on the temp outside (we are already saving money with it). We will use closed cell expandable foam insulation in our new vaulted ceilings, nearly 100% efficient. There will be ceiling fans throughout the house to keep the air moving. The limestone for the porch will come from less than 50 miles away. None of that Drywall from China. Ours comes from local gypsum mines in Shoals, Indiana. We will use local red oak (a renewable resource) for the new dining room floor to match the rest of the house. We are very lucky to have had a LEED certified architect (and also our good friend) Kris do the drawings for us.

Fingers crossed, our finished product will come out performing and looking as great as the drawings.

Steve and I continue to work on the back of the house. We have been busy replacing windows and finishing up the pocket door installation. We hope to be moving back into the master bedroom the first week of August. The cats would love that more than anyone!

Here is a photo of our current bedroom in the basement. Two single foam beds on the floor. It's kinda like camping in a dark, cool cave (about 68-70 degrees. Great at this time of year when it is 90+ outside). We keep trying to look at the positive side of living through this :o)

Giant holes are being cut in the walls in the bedrooms to install new larger windows. We are excited about more light in the house and are looking forward to adding an extra window in the master bedroom.

A video of Steve cutting a hole for a new window. Notice the shop-vac hose he is holding between his legs to catch some of the plaster dust from the saw. I thought he was going to smack me when I took this picture of him in that wonderful position. He has seen the blog, so he knows how hilarious it will be. At least he isn't giving me any plumber butt too! :o)

So, you can imagine after hearing that noise in the video, how much fun our cats are having when they think the sky is constantly falling. Here is how Lulu deals with it. Not a bad idea as it also keeps the dust off of her.

Here are the new master bedroom windows. We are keeping with the original 1953 trim work and then building out new sills (there were none before), so we have salvaged what original trim we can and then will have more milled at Indiana Lumber (yes, we still do have a mill that can actually fabricate stuff for you). We are using the original douglas fir and pine. LET THERE BE LIGHT!

Here are a few photos of Rowan and I putting the room back together. She is taking down the ceiling fan to clean the thick sheet rock/plaster dust off of it. Notice how her face is covered in dust. I'm not sure, but I think the look on her face is not one of delight :o)

Jenni is painting the newly textured wall. We re-painted the entire bedroom just to freshen it up after 10 years.

We have also had to do some extended patching of our VCT (vinyl composition tile) floor in- between the kitchen and Rowan's office, where the new pocket door is being installed. We will do more of this once the kitchen is expanded too.

OK, so this is just a picture of me and a big giant fiberglass rooster. We found this really bizarre fiberglass figure manufacturing shed out in the country the other day when we went out for a drive after being at the gym, and I just HAD to pull over and take some pictures because it was so surreal. I mean how many times in your life do you come across this stuff? Comic relief............that's what it is, and what we need right about now :o)

It was like a petrified zoo!

I want the rooster to put in our front yard!

Go here to see why I am attracted to these kinds of things:

http://mythmuseum.wordpress.com/

I used to hang out at these places when I lived in the SF Bay Area. The little things that make life interesting.

More soon (I promise!)........