Operation Bigger House: It's Starting to Look Like a House

I'm way overdue for this update since it's been three weeks since the last one. That means we are six weeks into our project, and it's really starting to look like a house.

These are my most recent pictures (and I need to take some newer ones).


From the approximate location of the tree.



You can see that the addition is becoming a part of the house now. Last week they finished the roof and put in the windows and doors, so it actually looks even more like a house than this pictures shows.

The single square window you see will be over the bathtub. There will be a bathtub, that holds water, deep enough for me, and there will be a second hot water heater to fill that sucker up to the rim.

I cannot wait to sit in a bathtub again. The tub in the pink bathroom was dead to me. There wasn't enough hot water to fill it up, and what I did put in there slowly leaked down the drain before I was finished soaking. It worked well enough for the kids, but I gave up on having a bath in there a long time ago.

The double windows are in what we affectionately refer to as "the nook." It will be a sitting area of some sort, though we haven't decided yet which furniture will go in that space. These windows were previously in the back wall of the kids' bedroom.


From the edge of the patio


The doorway you see in this picture (with the gangplank) is a french door that will open onto a deck. The deck will connect to the existing patio, or something. We have a team of designers working on that situation. We do not currently utilize our backyard space to it's full potential, so we are trying to make it more livable. The main issue is that we don't have direct access from the house to the backyard, but that will change with our new french doors.





Looking into the basement


The small window you see in this picture has actually been moved closer to the old part of the house. Due to an oversight on our part, it was originally cut into the wall of what will be my walk-in closet. We discussed and discussed, with each other and our consultant, Pop the Pop, and decided to just go ahead and ask them to move it. It is now located in the new laundry room - which is where I really wanted it to be all along.  This window was previously in the pink bathroom.

The basement wall is finished and there is a double-door in place. That means that there is also now a hole in the existing basement wall to connect the old part to the new part!


View of the bedroom from the hallway


This is the view of our bedroom from the new hallway. To the right of "the nook," you can see part of the master bathroom, including the shower.

The hole to connect the new hallway to the old part of the house isn't finished yet. They did cut it and frame the new hall way through the kids' bedroom last week, but it's covered with plywood for now. The kids' bedroom will be Ella's new bedroom when this is all finished, and it sacrificed two windows and about 4 feet of space to the addition. Still, it's a very decent sized bedroom.



View of the bedroom from the "nook"



This is the view from "the nook." You can see the old wall of the house, and those pieces of plywood are where the windows were previously. From this perspective, Dave's closet is on the right, then the hallway, the laundry room, and my closet is on the left. I can see the opening for the door to my closet, but you might not be able to since you are not intimate with this project (as I am).

Watching the framing of this addition has been really cool. I could see it in my head before, just from studying the floor plan, but seeing the walls go up was like watching that floor plan go from one-dimensional to three-dimensional in Auto-CAD. So neat.


View of the yard from the future site of my bed.


And this is the view from our bed - or rather, where our bed will be, eventually.

You can see Jewel E. Cat walking the gangplank in this picture. She is so much trouble. This entire project she has supervised the men all day long and she has conducted a full inspection every evening when they leave. Before the roof was framed, she followed us from room to room, walking on top of the walls while we did our inspection.

Last week, that fun all came to and end when they finished the roof. I assume she picked out a good location, from a high vantage point, like she has done every day - in the rafters. And I assume that the noise from the nail guns above her was just too much because she lost her composure and could not get up the nerve to jump down again. I ended up climbing a ladder, coaxing her close enough so that I could grab her by the scruff of the neck, and dropping her between the 2x4s. Dave was holding the ladder for me, and all I had to say was, "Move!" He knew what was about to happen. I couldn't carry her down with me because she was a veritable buzz saw, all legs and claws, so I just lowered her as far as I could and released. She landed on all four, like a good cat should do, and high-tailed it out of there. I was happy to see her serenely lounging on the porch all the next day.

Since these pictures were taken, there has been plumbing, electrical, and heating and air work done inside the addition. Our old pink bathroom was gutted down to the studs (the day the whole family go the evil stomach virus), and the hall was framed out in the kids' old bedroom. I'll get more pictures this week of all that good stuff. The kids have embraced their temporary home in The Big Room, and I just try not to look in there when I pass by. It's a disaster, but we are so lucky to have a room big enough to hold a full sized mattress, a crib mattress, two chairs with matching ottomans, two end tables, a dining room table, a china cabinet, a sideboard, an old cabinet sewing machine, a play kitchen, a dollhouse, a McDonald's drive-thru, and two Little Tykes coupes, so I'm not complaining too much.