rough ins

Mom's house was a hive of activity yesterday as rough plumbing and ductwork were installed in preparation for an inspection on Monday. All the heating ducts are insulated (the insulation looked like big black plastic sleeves with white, fuzzy lining that the ducts slid into).

Parts of the living room and the dining nook were cleared out and the trim was removed in preparation for a temporary wall that will protect the rest of the house from the demolition. We brought in a card table in place of the dining table; we're hoping part of the dining nook will still be accessible!

Today, Steve Stoelk (our contractor), Mom and I headed to IKEA to finalize the design of the kitchen in the addition. IKEA is having a sale, and we wanted to see if their price was competitive with one of Steve's regular cabinet guys.

I had already designed the kitchen online; it was so much fun to look at the products and tweak the design. The price is so much better than anywhere else that we were able to include a cooktop and a COOL sink faucet and several closet built ins and still come in UNDER the kitchen cabinet budget. I think it even impressed Steve! It made up for the stupid kitchen design program we had to work with and the busy atmosphere at IKEA.

joists

Every title I think of is a yucky play on words, so I'll just keep it simple. This week the garage door & window were taken out and the plumbing was removed from the wall.

Also, the framers came in and added the floor joists.

The excavator came back to backfill around the foundation.

To get ready for the framing next week (and the destruction of the two walls of Mom's house), Mom had to start clearing out the bookcases on the half wall. Now it's all clear and looks great. I will post pics of that later. 

She is sorting through boxes from the garage (we have to be able to park 3 cars in the garage!) and showed me some games & other stuff; flannelboard stories that I remember from childhood--FAGG-O (a bingo game Mom made for us) and The White Witch (a flannelboard story). Seeing her work on this time-consuming task makes me determined not to put off my purging....

foundation revealed

The day after they poured the foundation, the crew came back to remove the forms. The foundation was revealed! Tanner was interested and had to touch it several times to see if it was hard. I told him that the cement needed to "cure" for several days before they could start framing. "So if I break into the middle of the cement, it will still be gooey?" he asked. Hard to explain how something hard needs to harden some more...

 The view from the back porch.

 The view from the driveway. The cutout in the front of the pic will be the new back porch & back door.

 The view from Mom's garden.

Here is Mom's laundry closet with the shelves in and the painting completed.

washer dryer update

Here's a look at the hall closet where Mom's new washer/dryer have been placed. New shelves have been added and it's been painted. Just waiting for the paint to cure so that Mom can put her linens on the shelves. It looks good!

foundation!

It was touch and go whether the foundation would be poured today. The builder couldn't get hold of the county inspector to confirm the time he was coming out to check the forms. But luckily, he came out, passed the forms and two cement trucks and a pumper truck arrived. The actual pouring of the foundation seemed to go smoothly--

smoothing out the foundation walls

pouring footings--that is just heavy cardboard used as a form!

Here's a better pic of the porta potty! 

It is weird to have to go through the front door to get into the house. I think this is the most that the front door has ever been used since Mom and Milt moved into the house!

fall leaves

This fall we have not had the big burst of color--when all the trees change at the same time, but two of the trees in our yard have just turned. They are so pretty...

next step-foundation!

It's official! A permit is posted.

Last night the foundation crew came and set up the perimeter forms. This morning they returned to finish setting up all the forms. Next step, pouring the foundation!

A true sign that Mom's house is officially a building site--a porta potty!

Even Tanner watched with interest the setting up of the foundation forms.