Like I was saying

During our "intermission," I thought I'd provide you with a visual of what I was talking about. The part about having a neatnik husband who mops up all of the construction dust.

Day 5 - And now there will be a brief intermission ...

Guys were back first thing this morning to frame the wall and pocket doors leading to the new family room/playroom .... and they did exactly that. So that's it? Yes, and? No, really - that's it. Bit of a backlog down at the permit issuing office, so we now must wait .... once that's all sorted out, it's on to excavation!

This is OK by us as we need to regroup and deal with some of the piles of stuff that we haphazardly placed in various locations around the house. Gotta reorganize the storage pod, make some room, move out some more stuff and get a jump start on the next round. Nobody likes to pack up entire rooms full of stuff at 10pm on a weeknight, right?

I hired a model for today's shots of the soon-to-be "pocket doors" leading to the family room - she was very cooperative, and even selected a cast that matched her outfit! Great accessorizing!

Note: that window and back wall are coming down, too - we're adding 4 feet in back

Look at that wave! Catalog-ready!

Day 4 - Beam me up, Scottie

Today, they put a structural beam in the ceiling where that living room wall was. In case you are wondering, this is to help keep the house from falling down. Sounds important! It's an exposed beam that we'll try to pretty up in the finishing stages. Opens things up so much. We now get light front to back, and it will totally change the shape and size of our living room. Tomorrow they will frame where the "pocket doors" go, leading to the new family room/playroom, which open up directly into the living room.

Oh, and see that fine white dust on the floor? No, we did not accidentally drop a box of baby powder. That is genuine plaster dust and it found it's way ALL over the house, settling nicely onto all surfaces. Luckily, I have a husband who is even more of a neatnik than me (it's true!). So, while I headed out to a meeting, he set the kids up with a DVD and proceeded to wipe down and mop EVERY surface in the house. Yep, I'm keeping him!

Here's another view from our kitchen, looking down the hall toward the expanded living room. The plan right now is that we're going to close off that archway to make the living room less "holey."

Day 3 ... All's quiet. Well, sort of.

So, not much was supposed to happen today. The first full dumpster was picked up (yawn, I know, but the kids were riveted).

I snapped a few more pix of the house - strange to see it without the garage!

Driveway to nowhere ...

Hey, there wasn't a door there before! That would have been handy, though.

Electrician came by to shut off power along the living room wall they are taking down. Uneventful, you say? Hmm. Well, when the kids and I were moving more stuff down to the basement this afternoon, we noticed some of the lights didn't turn on. But, off we rushed to baseball. Can't be bothered by a little nuisance like that! It was only when we got home at around 8pm that we realized there was no hot water. Oops. No power to the furnace. Who would have thought that the power running along our first floor living room wall was connected to the line to the furnace? Not us. And apparently, not the electrician! Quick text to Bob the builder, and one hour later the electrician was here and voila, hot water for morning showers. Phew.

First bit of drama, easily fixed. Let's hope that pattern continues ...

Here's that wall - tomorrow it's getting a steel beam across the top so those studs can come down

Day 2

I guess there's no turning back now! Where's our garage???

Last night, we got an email from our builder at about 5pm saying he wanted to start "taking that wall down" in between the living room and our existing playroom. He plans to get the dumpster out of here tomorrow, so this makes "sense" - however, what it really meant was we had one night to clear out three bookcases full of books, games, toys, stereo equipment, DVR, TV, a computer armoire (with computer, printer, etc), mounds of Legos, etc.

Here's how it looked last night

Here's how it looked this morning - subtle message, huh?

Here's how it looks this evening!

Day 1

Off comes the siding!

Hey! A skylight! Down comes the garage ....

Garage roof almost off .... done for the day

The "Before"

Here's a "Before"shot of our house:

From the back:

Oh, and here's "us" (Red Sox 17, Rangers 5):

Here's where a lot of our stuff needs to go during the project (fyi, we get to use our INDOOR bathroom during construction, thankfully!):

Let's do this.

So, we're renovating our house. And I'm gonna blog about it. Oh, and did I mention that we (that's me, Tim, Nolan and Carys) are going to live in it during construction?

Today is Day 1 ... anyone have a guess when it's going to be done? I think it's going to be a crazy ride this summer.

Time will tell - here's to a houseful of workers, power tools, dust, debris, boxes, and general mayhem.