Outside work is done!

The first round of fellas have completed their outside work on the family room:

If you look at my earlier post, you will get the before and after effect. This is before the guttering was put up — that turned out nice too.  They did a good job with the siding — you’d never know that there was ever a breezeway originally attaching the two buildings.

The flagstone patio (not shown) is a bit worse for wear, but it needs reset anyway — we didn’t know what we were doing at the time.

Not sure how my hollyhocks or Joe Pye fared being tromped on and such, but I saved hollyhock seed and have a Joe in the front that I need to move to the back anyway. Besides…I’ve been toying with the idea of putting a smallish spirea bush in the corner there…

Spring should be interesting…

And here is what happened to my kitchen window:

The vaulted roof line just clipped it, but according to the contractor, he will come up with something creative to handle a pass through type of thing

Anyway — now it is the plumber’s turn to install the radiant floor heating — I am really curious as to how that will be accomplished.

Went to the carpet place today to get a very rough estimate, go over the wood laminate selection I made earlier — I think I am staying with it — and also to look at DuraCeramic tile for the entryway and laundry/bathroom. I still hate shopping, but so far all the salespeople have been helpful and not at all pushy.

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NP: FlashForward, but I am not paying close attention. I think V will be taking the place of that. And of course there is Fringe — I’ve been missing my weekly dose of Walter.

Where’s Sophie? On the couch where she can lick the TV tray. Ew. Leave it, Sophie!!

I hate shopping

One of the necessary side trips on our remodel project journey is shopping for the peripherals.

Since waving the magic wand is not an option, like  – presto! change-o! — Mrs. Mumsflowers,  you are the proud owner of a complete family room – I now have to make decisions.

And one of the decisions is how to furnish the family room.

You’d think I’d be excited.

Well — no. And the pressure is on, in hopes of having the project finished down to the lampshades by Thanksgiving. And I am trying not to, but find it necessary to, contemplate any cost overruns that will likely occur.

However, should everything run like clockwork from here on out — wouldn’t it be nice to have a chair or two to sit on whilst admiring the completed family room/laundry/bathroom?

DH and I bought our first sofa and chair set over thirty years ago and once they were used up, managed on hand-me-downs the last twenty years. Getting something brand-spanking new once again had been unthinkable until now.

So yesterday, DH and I made run to R-town to meet up with H, who piled us all in her car so we could…ew, shop. I remember saying I wasn’t buying. Just shopping.

But first — we fortified ourselves for the task before us by stopping at Cracker Barrel for lunch. That was a very good move. I think I could live quite a while on their cornbread alone.

Borders detoured us for a few minutes, but then it was full steam ahead for SleepyCountry and whatever might be found there.

A very nice salesman, and in this case that is not an oxymoron, met us at the door and we began the chase.

Looked at two of their complete living room sets with a free widescreen TV thrown in. Nope.

Looked at their futons, as we were thinking that direction but had never seen one in the wild. Nope. Not ever.

Looked at overstuffed sleeper sofas. One of those behemoths would take up way too much space. Nope.

Do you have any smaller sleepers?

Yes we do — waaay over there.

It was love at first sight! Take a look:

It sits really well, as the seat in not overly long. It is not a microfiber, but more of a tweedy textured fabric. It has a queen-sized mattress but since all the bulkiness is absent from this model, it is small. The salesman opened it up, H and I tried it out, trying to imagine how it would work for Mom and Dad should I ever get them convinced to stay over during a visit. Bingo!

I then looked ten feet away and found this:

It’s called a club chair. The fabric pattern — well, look at it — is just too cool — and happens to go perfectly with the sofa! Again — not overstuffed — and sized right for the room. Too cute, huh? Wish we had room for the matching ottoman…

So next came the recliner search for DH and golly, were we on a roll. I couldn’t find a picture of it, but imagine a smallish yet comfortable Lazy Boy with an amber colored tweedy fabric — and you have it.

Do I buy or continue shopping? Well, you know how I hate shopping… If I can end the misery early and still be in budget, I am all for it.

We bought.

While my blog was sleeping…

…things were happening outside!!!

Yep, the breezeway, aka the airlock, was torn off a week ago and this is a picture of the concrete footing that were poured earlier this week. Yippie!

You would not believe the mud dabber wasp nests underneath the aluminum siding. It was a wasp condo!

All reconnected again! This took one day. The fellas must have worked themselves into a frazzle.

It is sooo weird to look out my kitchen window into the family room instead of seeing the corner of the family room and the driveway. And the kitchen itself sounds different. More solid sounding, or something.

This is all so very exciting…tomorrow either they will be working outside to get that back in shape or they will be inside, building the laundry/bathroom.

Did I mention I was excited?! Whee!

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NP: Everybody Hates Chris — because the news was preempted by some sport something…

Where’s Sophie? On the back of the couch — on neighborhood watch. As far as I can tell, she has been perfectly fine with all the banging, hammering, sawing going on. She didn’t pay any attention to it over the noon hour when I was home — no reaction at all. I sure hope that’s the way she is when I am gone. Not sure how she will react when the kitchen window is removed…

Totally like watching: Stargate Universe. Sort of a Lost on Battlestar Gallactica… catching it on hulu.

This Old Family Room Part 2

DH’s demolition of the family room was coming right along.

Then we uncovered this:

The floor previously had carpet on it, which was yanked up years ago. All that was showing was some sort of veneer wood stuff and tar paper under that.

So during his demo’ing, DH pried off the veneer and hollered at me to come look. Imagine our surprise at seeing this lovely hardwood floor underneath!

All it would need would be some sanding and refinishing…

This is how it looks now.

Go ahead and cry.

I did.

Unfortunately the floor had to come up and being the good old wood flooring of long ago, it did not come up without a fight — and is no longer usable.

There are a few crawl space issues that need addressed and plumbing to be redone sadly at the expense of the original floor. And as we suspected, at least one floor joist has to be replaced or repaired.

On a brighter note, we did learn that we do indeed have a concrete foundation supporting the family room — we had been uncertain of that. So all our concrete man has to do is remove a sidewalk and pour additional foundation work for the new part connecting to the main house.

So anyway — this afternoon I spent some time at our local flooring place and looked over the laminate selections. It still irks me that I’ll be replacing the original floor with something that is just a picture of the real thing.

This Old Family Room

Well, it has finally begun. While the final plans are still a bit up in the air, the demolition has started and we are moving forward on getting our family room done.

I feel faint.

Here are some before pictures:

The lay of the land: This is looking from the main part of the house, through the “air-lock” breezeway and into the family-room-to-be. The white doorway leads to the garage. The other door? Well…it doesn’t lead anywhere. The garage wall is behind it. Rather odd. Anyway, the bathroom and laundry room will be where you see those pipes sticking out.

Here’s a different angle after the demo was started. DH started tearing down the ceiling and ended up with this pile of insulation. It is is about half the size it was. DH is hauling it up a ladder and spreading it above the garage ceiling. It is a filthy job.

Yep, up the ladder and in there. Ugh.

Haven’t heard anything lately from the contractor/plumber/concrete guys, but they can’t really do anything until this yucky part is done.

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NP: The local news commenting on the fire in California…

Where’s Sophie?: In the living room, chewing on her nylabone…gotta remember to get her a wish-bone or two…

Lest you believe

…I had a perfect day yesterday — I managed to spill part of a root beer float and then sat on it whilst getting in my car.

The indignity of it all.

However my ice cream cone — that I did not drop a bit of whatsoever — was mighty tasty.
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AND THEN — went to a Starlight Radio concert in B-town. It was at a nature preserve. Did I think for one minute that it was an OUTDOOR venue and LAWN CHAIRS might be nice to sit on?

Oh no.

So I stood during the concert-where-everyone-else-was-seated, hoping that I didn’t put the musicians off any…

…until DH went back home, grabbed the chairs, and came back — an eighteen mile round trip.
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Today however was putt-putting right along — really busy at work and the time went fairly fast. Got home after work and told Soph we were going for an uptown walkie, when I saw the answering machine blinking.

“This is so-and-so. We need to schedule your house appraisal.”

Now doesn’t this look nice?

I knew this was coming — we are refinancing our house with the idea of getting it paid for before we <insert hysterical laughter> retire.

I was hoping for just one of those “drive by” kind of appraisals — silliness sometimes reigns in my head — but I guess it should be done properly.

So how in the world am I suppose to get this place put together for a decent first impression? We always have the “lived in look” downstairs, which doesn’t bother me much — but the upstairs! Egads! It’s basically storage and stuff strewn about — not the two bedroom area it should be.

…and the basement. That has to be DH’s realm…

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Did I mention that we are also getting ready to go on vacation?

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NP: The tv weatherman, two fans and the air conditioner

What’s Soph doing? Pushing around her food cube. You should see her — she could do quite well in soccer.

Mood-o-meter: exasperated

The rains came down

Been terribly wet in this neck of the woods all spring. So when the rain came last Friday, well — so much of the same thing all over again, that my main interest was: would the ceiling upstairs stop leaking since we had the chimney replaced?

It poured while I was at work, and over the noon hour I hurried home, and with Sophie in tow — went upstairs, holding my breath.

NO PUDDLE! Whee!

Back at work, I kept track of the radar in the afternoon, and as I was leaving for home I knew that we were going to be in for it again. DH was busy mowing the lawn — yay, he was home before me! After he’d finished, he mentioned going across the river to the restaurant for supper.

I doubted that it was a real good idea, given the kind of weather we were about to get, but hunger can do weird things to my mind…

So off we went. Got the first parking spot next to the door — and got hit by a few raindrops as we went in. The hostess always gives us a hard time and laughed at our state of dampness. I told her I had expected her to come out to our car with an umbrella — she laughed again and showed us to a booth.

It kept getting darker and darker and rain came down first vertically then horizontally…

The weather radio went off in the restaurant, but it was hard to hear what the message was. Our waitress was getting fidgety…

We packed up our takehomeatray, paid the bill and waited in the entryway for a chance to run to the car.

And waited and waited.

It was absolutely pouring and blowing something fierce.

Then we looked out the window toward the road.

There was a flash flood coming down the hill and across the parking lot entrance. It was a thing to behold. I’ve never been so close to watch water rise that fast.

We decided we’d better get out while we could, so we dashed to the car, “forded” the stream and made it home.

Sigh.

The ceiling went back to leaking — now I am wondering if we are suffering a lack of step flashing between the back dormer and roof.

The basement was leaking in three newish places.

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NP: Antiques Roadshow

Temperature in the car as I left work today: 139 degrees. Onehundredthirtynine.

Sophie? Well, she must know how hot it is outside, because she is not even hinting at going for a walkie.

Mood-o-meter: It has been a long week already.

Up on the housetop: The finale

…ta da!

…and it’s ready for its close up, Mr. DeMille:

There you have it.

So one project done. Next: the family room.

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NP: House, the air conditioner, the fan

Mood-o-meter: Been a rough day. Bleah.

Chimney, Day 3

The latest:

Looks like we have two mini-stacks on top:

On a sad note: Couldn’t bear to take a picture, but Joe Pye has been obliterated, stomped on, and smashed.

Anyway — the chimney should be all done on Monday.
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NP: Nothing. Must be Friday night. But will Hulu Burn Notice later…

It’s baack…

…the chimney, that is:

See it? Just peeking over the roof line? It’s still wrapped up with something. I am hoping for the unveiling tomorrow.

And you may just wonder how the chimney people got onto that roof…well:

A lot of scaffolding goes a long way.

And look what my zoom lens can do:

You thought I risked life and limb for that shot, huh?

Here’s where I gasp a bit:

My hollyhocks are “jailed” and Joe Pye is in there somewhere.

Oh well. More pictures tomorrow!

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Also “jailed”: Sophie. She just got a “too bad” time out in her crate.

On the telly: PBS In Wisconsin

Mood-o-meter: fuzzy and worn out.