Day 22

Oct 14th

The rains has subsided and everything is getting back to normal. The house survived the storm, foundation held (well, at least as much as the old foundation - there was some water leakage, but no more than other parts of the building where the water puddled), and we're ready to get moving again!!

The plastic stayed on the house throughout the windy storm.

Flooded areas have dried up, but we definitely need to use some piping during the heavy rains to keep the water away from the house.

BTW - take a good long look at the old shingled roof - this is the last time you will see it!!!

The tree in all it's glory! Looks like we'll need to have those branches trimmed in a little.

The wind was still whipping around a little on Wednesday evening.

The new sun tunnels are here, the sun tunnels are here!!

One of the nice things about putting a bathroom together yourself is that you can do a little thing called "blocking". Garth and I walked around the bathrooms while I described where all the towel/toilet and other hanging fixtures would go. He then had his guys "block" those areas, so that when we screw in the racks after the drywall is put on, we are screwing into solid wood (check out the picture below). Nice little feature, as we had issues with the towel rack coming off the wall in our last bathroom, as it was only held up by drywall.

Day 21

Oct 13th

On the 21st day, it rained, and rained, and rained, and then it rained some more....

Had a Good-news/Bad-news scenario today. First, the good news...Garth and guys did a great job securing the inside of the house from rain. They covered the holes and put plastic everywhere, so as far as we could tell, no water has entered the inside of the house!

As for the bad news (well we don't know if it is bad news yet - it might actually turn into good news), a large puddle has formed right where we have the root going through the foundation. I'm looking at this as a "glass half full" scenario as this is the perfect test for whether or not the treatment put around the root will actually stop water from leaking through the foundation.

During the installation of the foundation we had a little mishap where Karin put on the water sprinklers and a leak in line created a puddle near the root. The thing leaked like a sieve, causing me great concern. However, this happened 3 days before they were actually done prepping the root, so Garth talked me off the ledge. He also commented that there wouldn't be any scenarios where that area gets that much water anyway - I just laughed and said that actually, that's EXACTLY where the water puddles. Well...here we are, swimming in puddles. I'll be going under the house this weekend to see how the tree root prep worked and if in fact we did not get any water under the house. Cross your fingers.

As for the rain - it's supposed to subside by Thursday with clear skies for the following week, so we will get our new roof and the interior construction should be able to continue with little delay.

Here's a shot of our family room w/o the linoleum. I thought I'd take a shot with a real camera (as opposed to the iPhone image taken last night).

Looks like they completed removing all the linoleum in the kitchen as well!

Shot of the plastic draping over the side of the house by the new master bedroom. So far the winds have not blown it all of the house!

Never to let time waste, while it rained outside, Garth had the team put on the tar coating required at the bottom of all showers.

There's the plastic covering - so far, so good.

And here is the huge puddle of water - right above where the root enters the foundation. This will be an outstanding test of the root treatment. Question troubling me right now - what if it didn't work? Then what?

Here come the guys to try and divert the water away from the house. Karin was over earlier in the day, saw the puddling and immediately called Garth. The guys arrived shortly there after.

Day 20

Oct 12th - Start of Week 5 !

Well, unfortunately I worked late again tonight and did not get over to the house until after 8pm, so it was too dark to take a lot of pictures (not to mention, I didn't have my camera). However, I was able to grab a couple of images with my iPhone.

The only room in the house that has a working light is the kitchen, and it just so happens that that's were they did the most visible work today - in removing the linoleum from the family room and start of the kitchen. The rest of their time I think was focused on plugging up the holes and getting plastic on the roof in preparation for the upcoming storm - it's supposed to be a doosie!

If the storm would have held off just one more week we would have had the new roof on. We have to slow down construction now as we cannot do anything until the inspectors come in and they don't want you putting up new drywall until the roof is on....so you get the picture.

Here's a close-up shot of the demolition on the kitchen floor.


They got started on the kitcen floor, but obviously ran out of time or energy to finish it up today.



Last week we had a shot of ugly linolium here in our family room (that originally lay under our carpeting). Some day soon this will all be beautiful new hardwood flooring.

Day 19 - End of Week 4

Oct 9th

Nineteen days into the project and all the plumbing infrastructure, heating and electrical work is complete and ready for inspection next week. Unfortunately, the rain couldn't hold off just one more week, so we are going to have to postpone the new roof for an additional week (let's hope it's only a week).

I took off work a little early today to pick up the last bunch of plumbing fixtures that was finally delivered. I also met with Garth to finalize and order the tile as well as go over the door swing layout (which way we wanted the doors to open) as well as blocking for the bathroom accessories (i.e., where he's going to put some wood behind the drywall, so when we affix the the towel racks, etc., it all gets fastened to wood instead of just weak drywall). It's amazing all the little things you have to think about when doing a remodel - I should have started a count on how many different decisions (big and small) we had to make through this process.

We did have one disappointment this week. We were hoping to get a nice skylight into our master bath. Unfortunately, the location and layout of the skylight did not work with the roof structure, so we had to settle for a sun tunnel instead. We'll still get some nice natural light into the master bath area, but it won't be exactly how we imagined it - oh well, this is how it goes with remodels.

As I approached the house today I found Garth (right) and Tony the roofer checking out the roof top and talking strategy on getting ready for the rain.

Not the posing types, I grabbed this picture of them while talked over their strategy.

Carpet was removed from all the rooms today with the exception of the living room. Here's a shot of our family room w/o carpet. As noted earlier in the blog, we found hardwood in all the other parts of the house with the exception of the one area we wanted it - the family room. Here, we have really ugly linoleum. Garth also noted some unevenness in the floor (which would be an issue for our planned hardwood), so he'll have to see what we have here after they rip off the linoleum on Monday.

Unfortunately, the previous renovators glued down the linoleum in the kitchen (floor on right side of picture), which is going to cause significant issues in putting in the new tile. Since we are not redoing the kitchen (other than the floor), they are going to have to figure out how to remove the linoleum w/o damaging the cabinet kickboards. Garth's not sure yet how they are going to handle this one, so we'll see what happens (ooohhhh, drama in the story line!).

Closet where our old furnace used to be. They've boarded up the hole where the duct used to run out into the crawl space. This area will get new hardwood when it's installed. Note however the gas pipe on the left - they're still going to have to figure out what to do with that.

New recess lights are prepped for the family room above the couch and dining areas.

The recently discovered hardwood floors in the bedrooms.

Another look into the kids new bathroom. With the piping and lighting structure in place, you can start to get a better idea of the future bathroom.

Ceiling fan in the master bath with a recess light next to it.

Now here's something you don't see every day! One of the heating guys is working late to finish up some duct work in the attic.

Day 18

Oct 8th

Not seeing as many changes lately as they are just finishing up a lot of the infrastructure work (plumbing, heating, electricity). However, here's a nice shot of or new master shower.

Ah...Karin's daydreaming and can't wait to get in it for real!

Little bummer - that sliding glass door is not working well at all. The door "professional" will be coming out on Monday to fix it up. I had to give Garth a hard time, cause he was complaining that he didn't like putting in these types of vinyl doors, but I pointed out that we have larger ones in the living & family rooms and they just "glide" and lock beautifully (after some 7+ years of use to boot!). I later caught him testing them out while I was on the phone with PG&E. :-)

Karin's checking out the soon to be closet storage area (which once housed our furnace) and trying to figure out what we're going to do with these deep shelves. I'm loving the view down the hallway - seeing how nice and open it is now that Garth took out the door jams and opened it up to the ceiling.

Top of this picture is one of the furnace 'returns' (not vents), followed by a row of recess lights. The return is right in front of our master closet door.

Another shot of The Beast in the attic! They did a lot more work on piping today.

Another view of all the duct work.

Karin returns to the master bath area for some more daydreaming - now standing in front of where her sink/vanity will be.

Karin wants to see The Beast! Access through our closet ceiling.

Karin's chatting with Gio, the heating guy.

Here's the front hallway closet. We're getting all new doors throughout the house, so every door is going! Above the closet is where the old return was for our old furnace - they've blocked it up in prep for new drywall.

Thursday night is also baseball practice for Jake. I unfortunately had to work late again, so could not get there to help coach, but had just enough time to shoot some pictures of the house before it got too dark and then get over to the park to watch the last hour of his practice.

Little chat with his buddy who just got a base hit.

Fall baseball in California - beautiful!

Day 17

Oct 7th

Ok...since I missed out on taking pics yesterday - I made up for it today!

Today I met with the electrician at 7:30am to finalize some lighting questions. There were at least 12 guys at the house by 8am, with crews from the electrician, building contractor & heating contractors. It was starting to look like an episode of "Extreme Home Makeover" - accept we weren't getting a new home for free. :-)

Standing in the master bathroom shower again - looking at our newly installed windows.

Here's the pony wall that will go between the toilet and corner tub.

Full length view of the master bath - not the shower plumbing on the left, pipes on the back....Garth says all the plumbing is DONE!

Out with the old furnace!

Paper and stucco fencing is already up on the house - will be inspected tomorrow.

There it is! The extension in all its glory! Looks pretty nice!

That new little window in the back there goes to into the kids shower-bath area.

The old furnace closet - soon to be more storage space right off the kitchen!

What the heck is THAT hanging out of the ceiling?! :-)

By the end of the week I suspect we will see the new sun tunnel installed here to lighten up the hallway.

Some final infrastructure work on the kids bathroom.

Here's a shot of a new recess light with the new heating ducts being strapped to the ceiling above (I was wondering how they were going to do that).

Another strange tentacle hanging from the ceiling.

View of the master bedroom with sliding glass door and windows installed.

I stuck the camera through the ceiling joists to grab this picture of the new furnace. Check out the size of that monster! So where's the light switch to that new attic light??

Wow - lot of ducts going around up there.

Another angle of THE BEAST.

Corner windows above the soon to be installed corner tub!