Second floor floorboards

By last Saturday, we were able to walk on our second floor. Pretty wild. You can see that the turret is taking shape and the house is starting to show what it will look like finished. Next week, rough plumbing starts and rough electrical already has. Really an amazing transformation...Look - you can see Neal and the boys standing on what will be the second floor landing from the stairs.

Tile selections

No pictures today - but I did visit the site. Tomorrow we will have stairs - to nowhere since the second floor isn't framed yet. Progress is a bit slower now - lots of work getting done, but it's highly incremental. The first floor boards for the second floor were installed over Benjamin's room this week and the guys are putting in the shear walls where necessary. Oh - many windows were removed as well so the house is well air conditioned right now.

Over the weekend, Neal and I were given almost a full day by my parents so that we could shop for tile. This is necessary for the kitchen and bathrooms (3). We knew what we wanted for the master bathroom - greenish slate tiles (made of porcelain for easier maintenance) on the floor and cream on the walls. Rustic. We found what we wanted. We also found accent tiles to tie the room together.

The real discovery was walking through the tile shop and looking down and discovering the most interesting tile for the kitchen floor. It has six patterns of cobalt blue and yellow that is antiqued - very french and fits the house. We decided on subway tile for the other two bathrooms with glass trim. Clean and inexpensive.

But having found cool tile for the kitchen (and I've been asked if we are going to ambient heat that area - something I wasn't considering, but perhaps should as we love it in the master bath), we wanted to do the backsplash. We found that our first tile shop didn't have something that caught our eye. Because the kitchen doesn't have any eye level windows, I wanted to bring some light into the kitchen - with a mural behind the stove. The tile shop directed us to another that had the things we wanted - on travertine which has the rustic look we like. So we put together our mural, added some whimsical tiles of hot air balloons and set off on our way - 5 hours after starting. But at least it's done!

Pictures coming on Friday.

First framing and ordering more stuff

One of the practices we're trying to do with the re-model is have a schedule of dependencies so that we know the materials arrive when the professionals are supposed to use them. An example is that it was recommended that we select and purchase our plumbing fixtures before rough in so that the plumber knows exactly what to do - how long to make pipes for the best connection. So - today we ordered fixtures. Going to order the bathtub and toilet too. Now that we are all using low-flow toilets, there's quite a bit of opinion out there about the best one - Toto Ultramax wins handsdown. So, we'll be getting that for the master bath. Amazing how strongly people (plumbers and bloggers) feel about that. :-)

Today we visited the site to see the start of framing. Our massive skylight has grown and now unveils 80% of the house. It's really quite a sensation to see the sky from virtually every room. There's something to camping, isn't there? We're just happy it's not rainy season and hoping we don't get unseasonable rain. They've started putting up what I think are called floor joists for the second floor - you can see them over the kids rooms.




So far, they're saving our precious handprints in the nursey. I don't have a lot of hope (and I do have good pictures), but just maybe they'll survive the project.

Mom and Dad Gropper came with me and walked through the open house. You can see them in the dining room staring out into the family room. We do have nice trees and blue skies. I'm thankful for both. I suspect that over the next week or two, the house will begin to take shape and that will be very exciting. Stay tuned.

Demolition

Creation is coupled with destruction...in order to add onto the house, we have to demolish part of it. Because we really like the flow of the existing floorplant, we minimized changes to the first floor. We're expanding the living room and creating a foyer - hence the turret and the front entry change. The only other change is that the garage is about 4 feet lower than the house and the stairs to it were inside the house - consuming valuable space adjacent to the kitchen. By moving the stairs into the garage itself, we are able to create both a breakfast nook and a laundry room/Costco closet/spare fridge on the same level as the house and adjacent to the kitchen. Although the whole plan is great - this particular improvement in space use really makes me happy.



So - in the pictures you can see the giant skylight in our living room - it's roofless. And the ditch is the former home of the stairs. If you look in the windows you can see Neal and the boys in the bay window (say goodbye to it - the entire wall is going away).




Tomorrow- creation resumes and the framing begins on the new foundation. Ordered windows (Semco) and roofing materials (FireFree Quarry Slate) at as well as the new garage doors (roll-up carriage doors, insulated steel with paint-grade redwood outside). Need to order plumbing fixtures next as well as the front door. Perhaps tomorrow!

Forms

Forms are the nice word for the trenches dug to hold the rebar and concrete that supports the entire house. We're native Northeasterners, so the whole concept of earthquakes is disproportionately scary. And the city insists on Richter 8+ quality foundation - so these are deep and fully reinforced. And that makes us very happy.

Our design called for very little expansion of the footprint of the house - only the turret, front entry and garage creep forward. Here you can see the forms for the turret and the front entry. The chimney is going to slide forward and get out of the way of the front door (thankfully - it's been in the way for years).

2 years to start the remodel

Never been one to rush into things...so we started the process of considering the remodel of our Peninsula 3:2 by finding an architect and creating plans. The house started as a perfectly lovely 3 bedroom, 2 bath on a great lot (for the Peninsula). But with two boys and two careers and a family that lives mostly on the other coast, we wanted more space to work and host.

Then we fell in love with what we designed and wanted to build it. So, after two years of refining the plan, we decided to start building. Which actually means, start digging and demolishing. The end goal is a French Country Eclectic two story home that can accomodate our growing family, our extended family (when they visit) and our lifestyle for the foreseeable future. The first step was to demolish the front steps and reinforce the foundation under the existing house. Our terrific General Contractor (Golden Gate Contractors) had guys under the house chipping away at our rat proof (read: cement) foundation until the forms were dug and ready to pour - the day before we moved out.




Here are the first photos of demolition.