Day 26

Oct 20th

Not too much going on today. Insulation is going in everywhere. Here's another view of the master bathroom - looking at the shower.

It's a little bit of a bummer as this room used to have vaulted ceilings and tons of light from all the windows we used to have. However, our old master bedroom was even darker, so we're trying to put it all in perspective. :-) It will look lighter once we get the ceilings in and painted.

Looking at the wall and door to the master bath.

Day 25

Oct 19th

Monday - the start of another week - and a slow start at that. It rained again today, so we are REALLY happy that the roof was completed on Friday. Garth also came over on Sunday to put the plastic bubbles on the sun tunnels, so that we didn't get rain in the house (he called us, we didn't call him!).

Unfortunately we had a picky inspector today, so it turns out that after his "3 HOUR" inspection, Garth didn't pass - the inspector wanted a few other things completed before he passed us. Garth will make the small modifications tomorrow morning and the inspector will come out again in the afternoon. Lost some progress though, so hopefully Garth and the team will be able to crank again after passing.

Although there were a number of smaller things done in the house today, the only major item worthy of a picture was the removal of the stucco around the circuit breaker box. PG&E came out to review their wires (to make sure we had enough juice coming to the house) and ok'd our intentions to update the box to 200AMPs. It's currently at 100AMPs, so we need more power to use our new A/C. Now our electrician will work with PG&E next week to put in a more powerful box.

As there were no images from the house of any worthiness today - I thought I'd add some pictures taken over the weekend. Here are "my girls" on the deck of our apt.

The kids playing soccer in the grassy area of the apt complex (taken from our deck).

The kids room in the apt.

Our lovely apt. This is pretty much it. The kids room is behind the wall on the left. Our bedroom is to the right - and that's it! 2 bedroom, 2 bath. It works for now, but we're happy it's going to be a short stay.

We do have a washer and dryer in the apt (small room at the end of the kitchen), so that was a nice addition!

Day 24 - End of Week 5

Friday, Oct 16th

We have a new roof! Amazing! Wednesday the old roof was still on, Thursday I came home to see the roofing paper applied, Friday - all done, the roof is on!

Quick view from the back side.

Notice a little more light in that hallway now? The sun tunnel is not yet completely installed, but you can see how it's going to help light up that hallway.

Here you can see the sun tunnel hole on the left of the roof. It's going to look like a little pimple when the plastic top is installed on Monday. For now, it's a gaping hole into our house!!

Here's what it looks like from the inside. It's located right in front of the kids bathroom door.

Here's a shot looking down our nice long and now wider hallway (standing outside the master bedroom door).

Looking to my left from the same spot, you see the entrance to the master bedroom.

Here's a shot of our 2nd sun tunnel, which is located in our master bathroom (I'm standing in the tub area for this image).

Next week Garth will start the the insulation and drywalling! The house is going to go through its next major transformation while that is being worked. I suspect things will slow down pretty significantly after that, as we'll be waiting on cabinets and countertops. Then I think it kicks into gear again as the tiling, painting, hardwood floors and carpeting gets put in, closing with the finishing touches (faucets, lighting, etc.). Another 6+ weeks, but its moving!

Day 23

Oct 15th

Not a lot of exciting stuff happening today other than the work on the roof. As you will shortly see, we are getting a new roof in just 2 DAYS!!! The house across the street got a new roof just a few months ago, it took them 1.5 weeks to put it on - our roofers are doing it in 2 days!

As I mentioned yesterday, take a look at the shingles, cause that was the last day you were going to see them. When I came home today, this is what a saw, the house was completely covered with the new roofing paper. Not a single shingle was left behind - literally! I walked around the house - they did such a good job in clean-up, I could not find pieces of shingle anywhere.

Just to show you how impressive this is actually, Garth had the inspector come you twice in one day. First they had to completely remove the old roof. Then the inspector comes out to take a look for dry-rout and other issues (Garth had already repaired a small amount of dry-rout in one corner). They then had to put up wood paneling all around (as we when from a shake roof to asphalt, which required paneling), and then the roofing paper. Finally, the inspector comes out again to review. The did this all IN 1 DAY!

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.