Week 13-14 (Dec 21 through Dec 28)

When we started designing the renovations back in June we decided we would spruce up the kitchen by painting the cabinets. We liked what we saw in our two walkthroughs (as well as the photos we looked at again and again during escrow) and therefore set aside only a minimal amount of money for kitchen improvements. Our final renovation decisions included a new Family Room, Front Porch, Air Conditioning, Siding, and improvements to a detached "cottage". Below is the floor plan showing the porch and sunroom additions as well as a key plan of the kitchen showing original photos.

Photo 1: Back of the kitchen

 

Photo 2: Side of the kitchen

 

Photo 3: Kitchen wall adjoining dining room

Photo 4: Dining room wall adjoining kitchen

After a few months of living at the house we found that we rarely used our dining room. We set a small table in the kitchen and ate almost all of a our meals in there. With two small children almost half of our dinner time is spent getting up and down for things we forgot and cleaning up spills! The exception to the kitchen "nook" dining has been two birthday parties we hosted because we needed more space.This became comical when we ate Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room and our three-year old son requested that we sing happy birthday because all former meals there were birthdays. We'd thus come to realize that our kitchen and dining rooms were too detached--both from one another and from the rest of the house--and that some modification was needed.

Unfortunately this realization came after we had burned through most of our contingency and reserve funds, so modifications had to be relatively inexpensive. We couldn't do new cabinets but the countertops cried out to be replaced; the laminate had de-laminated in several spots and was cracked and severely stained in others. Our "ultimate" kitchen design would have included taking over the small bathroom adjacent to the kitchen and making it a breakfast nook. In addition the wall between the kitchen and dining rooms would be removed.


We explored this option for several weeks. Around the same time however, a construction mishap (for lack of a better term) at the sunroom sapped most of our remaining reserve fund. Thus, our kitchen re-do would have to be shoestring. We opted to remove only the non-bearing wall between the kitchen and dining rooms and add an island coutnertop between them. The fridge and adjacent cabinets would be moved to the interior wall and we would paint the cabinets (as originally planned) to freshen them up.

The photos below show only a few days of work in this area, basically the removal of the wall. The impact already is amazing! We anticipate a couple more weeks to get things functional again, though it will likely be a month or more until we have things buttoned back up. Until then, we're eating breakfast in our hallway and dinner at my inlaws.

Photo in the same direction as "4" above.

 

Photo in the same direction as "3" above.

Weeks 10-12 (11/30 through 12/14)

These few weeks saw the substantial completion of the contractor's work, including--with much excitement on my part--the siding. Since Week 2 way back in October we have had Tyvek or plastic on substantial portions of our 2nd floor. I've been somewhat skeptical regarding the purported water-proofness of the Tyvek system (and less so of the plastic sheeting), especially after the entry room ceiling showed signs of leaking (after the new roof was added. The entry room is the one story portion on the right of the house; see below).

Siding completed on the front | Tyvek still on the side

Apparently water was getting in behind the roof flashing because the flashing was installed over the Tyvek. The new siding, installed on top of the flashing, has corrected the issue. Anyway, waterproofness caused only part of my anxiety over the last several months. Our house sits on top of a ridge. Being as such, we have pretty decent winds on a regular basis. And when wind gets behind Tyvek, especially if its not nailed super well, it produces an incredibly loud whipping sound. It's loud enough to have caused many sleep-deprived nights for Emili and I as well as our children (which in turn, makes for more sleepless nights for us!)

Siding mostly complete on the back | We still need to paint the addition siding!

Needless to say, we are incredibly happy to have the siding complete. Everyone is sleeping better. There appears to be no more leaking. And the visual impact of the new siding is striking (the old siding was a cracking and mold-stained wavy asbestos).

"Finished" front elevation with a (relatively) clean front yard

At this point the contractor has only very minor things to complete, including, as I'll detail in a later post, a fairly substantial construction mishap. Other than that, we're still awaiting the concrete floor in the entry room as well as a carpet / vinyl in the rental. We also have lots of painting to do and the weather in Charlottesville has been less than cooperative lately. Finally, last week we also decided to demo one interior wall in the house--the one between our kitchen and dining rooms. The initial impact has been amazing (more in a later post). Its currently causing a bit of a challenge in terms of eating at our house, but in the long run will be totally worth it.

Week 9 (11/23/09)

Being that this was Thanksgiving the contractor had a short week and worked mostly on punchlist items (cleanup type stuff related to the original scope of work). My parents came into town for the holiday and as soon as my dad arrived I put a paintbrush in his hand!

The four days off provided spectacular albiet chilly weather and my dad and I endured the difficult task of painting every nook and cranny between the exposed rafter tails. I love the look of open rafters but partway through painting them wondered about the sanity of their detailing. My neighbor had warned me they would be a painting nightmare and all told we spent a combined 20+ "holiday" hours on them. We did sneak in a few good runs (6 and 10 miles) and were able to catch the entire VT / UVA football game. So all in all it was a great few days.

As I'm writing this post a few weeks late, I can't believe how fortunate we actually were. Since Thanksgiving, Virginia has rarely had two consecutive days above 50 degrees; I've tried to paint the rest of the exterior as well as the porch columns, to no avail. The cold weather culminated in 24" of snow this past weekend! This change in the weather took a bit of adjusting for me...after living 7 years in Southern California I'd become accustomed to having 70 degrees and sun after a day or two of rain. I forgot that when winter comes on the East Coast, it usually doesn't leave for months. So to have a few extra able bodies around the house both to help paint as well as watch the kids (thanks mom!) was priceless. All of the "critical" painting got done and the exposed wood was sealed for the winter.