Days 66-68 - Lay it down

Time to tile! A bit of a challenge coming up with our tile choices - we wanted to try to stay within our tile allowance, by balancing out a slightly more expensive tile in the bathroom with a slightly less expensive tile in the mudroom. Would have worked, too, except that the bathroom square footage (especially when you add the shower walls and ceiling) come to more than the mudroom. Ah well, we came close!

Lusvi and Carlos and Leo are laying down the tile. Last week, they put down the Durock (the cement board that goes underneath the tile), and started on the laundry closet, shower and bathroom floor.

Laundry closet on 2nd floor

Durock in bathroom

"Stacked" 12 x 24 tiles in shower - with corner bench 

Lusvi finishing up bathroom floor 

While Lusvi was tiling on Saturday, Byron and Ervin were working as well - putting in trim and doors on second floor.

Closet in Carys' room

Love the shadows from the big window

Starting to look like a real house!

Days 65-68 - Back on the roof, back underground

It was a really full week ... in addition to all the siding, they finished up that piece of roof that was left uncovered while they rebuilt the chimney. Plus, the gutter guys were out on Thursday, putting in the gutters and downspouts. I honestly never thought about why a house needs them before - but having lived through several torrential rainstorms without them, I now know how important these things are.

Roof done, back to trim - Byron is on it

Gutter guys

Also on Thursday, the garage door was installed;

Garage door delivery - thanks, Puppy!

New garage door in

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the excavator was back - digging out a deeper exit at cellar door in back, as well as digging up part of the driveway to adjust the grade for the garage.

Careful over there! Watch that corner!

The noise from the digger on Saturday was pretty impressive:

And so was the mess ...

Days 63-67 - Sideways

OK, so what's with the long breaks between blog posts lately? I know, I know. Let me just say that last week was totally consumed by paint color selection. This is embarrassingly ridiculous. I have not sweat many of the bigger decisions of this project - and yet, I was completely stressed out by trying to choose interior paint colors. I just don't trust that I have any skills in this area - and even though paint color can always be changed, let's be realistic here. After going through all this work this summer, do we really think I am going to impulsively repaint any of these rooms? Nope.

The good news is ... a) we have finalized our paint colors, and b) we are at the point in this project when they are painting the walls! That is awesome - we appear to be getting really close to wrapping this thing up! But I digress. More on paint and painting later.

Last week, Byron and the guys put the Hardie siding on the kitchen side of the house. This was the second of two "old sides" (the part of the house that did not get renovated). They replaced the trim around the windows, added trim around the corners of the house, and started rebuilding the deck/stairs off the kitchen door.

Hi Byron!

Outside view

Siding is up

Steps in progress

And another shot of the back, showing the completed soffit and siding, tying in the old roof line with the new roof line - well done, guys!

Days 60-62 - On the side

While the plaster is drying inside, Bob's guys have been busy outside the house. Byron and Ervin finished stripping the old shingles off the remaining two sides of the house, and they demoed the old deck and stairs by the kitchen door.

Back, stripped down

Hello, Byron! Replacing the window sill ...

Halfway there

Done!

Here's the before shot of the side:

Watch those steps

No sweat for Byron!

And here they are in the front yard? (on the way to the dumpster!)

Byron and Ervin stripping the shingles

Now this side is ready for the Hardie plank

Meanwhile, they've also been painting all the trim on the exterior, which often means balancing at the top of a very tall ladder while holding a paint brush in one hand ....

Help! No fear of heights here!

Days 59 and 60 - We got plastered!

Well, the walls, that is.

Alberto and a crew of about 7 plasterers showed up first thing Wednesday morning. Now, it's just not every day that your living room is filled with a bunch of guys wearing stilts, plastering the walls, and speaking only in Italian. I felt obliged to text a few of my single friends, just to let them know ...

Alberto is a super nice guy - I really enjoyed chatting with him about Italy. Turns out he is from a town very close to Terracina, the town where my grandmother came from. He and his guys did a great job, and plastered the whole house in two days.

Taping and prepping walls (I love it when they smile for my pictures!)

They hit the seams first

Finishing up living room/family room area

On Thursday, they were back and headed upstairs to do the second floor. Before they started, Byron took down the temporary door that was separating our living space from the new hall and bedrooms. I love to see it all open now - the longer hallway makes it feel so much bigger already. But we will miss living in our little "bubble." We are now all as one - old house, renovated space, new addition.

The "wall" comes down!

Here's the hallway, opened up and plastered

Master bedroom 

And for those of you who were asking for some video of the plastering goings-on (and you know who you are), here you go:

Days 58 and 59 - Shedding more skin

OK, so who came up with the idea that we were going to just paint the two old sides of the house to match the swanky new siding? It was a good idea in theory - save us a few bucks in this project - which does make a difference. But as the construction continues, and we look at the condition of the old shingles, and rotting window trim, and consider the cost or painting those two sides ... it just doesn't make good financial sense.

So this is one of those "scope creep" items. You know it happens ... you start out with your scope, think you have it all defined, but then ... it changes.

See ya, old shingles:

Carys felt a little sentimental saying goodbye to the yellow

At the same time, two guys have been working on painting exterior trim

Back soffit getting redone, too

Days 56-59 - Chim-chimney

One thing we knew was going to have to happen with this renovation was that the chimney needed to be higher. The roof went up, and there's some sort of 10-3 rule in building code about the chimney having to be 3 feet higher than any other structure within 10 feet of it.

So, up it went (well, first, it came down). Not quite as straightforward as that, though - masons are not that easy to come by, and certainly not cheap. Bob was getting some quotes in - but the price and time frame left much to be desired. Then he found Kevin (yay, Bob!), who did an amazing job. Bricklaying is painstaking, laborious work, and I don't think I ever really appreciated it before. I certainly do now - there's a lot of chimney to see now, so we're glad it came out so well.

Kevin's crew on the staging on Saturday morning - check out the bucket pulley!

Kevin on the staging - new chimney going up ...

And up ....

Done!

Days 54 and 55 - Rock on

Thursday and Friday were all about hanging sheetrock. The crew showed up early, left late and worked nonstop. It is incredibly hard work - and, surprise surprise, messy. Oh, the dust! When I say it was "shovelable" I mean it.

They started upstairs, and by the end of the first day, they were pretty much done with the second floor. I guess sheetrock is also called "blue board", aptly named as it is a dark grayish blue color.

Master bedroom, looking into the bathroom

Here are the scraps from working upstairs, hoisted out the big window onto the ground below:

On Friday, they tackled downstairs. I got a chance to see them work - they wear stilts to hang the boards on the ceilings and tops of walls:

He even posed for me ...

At around lunchtime, I peeked out from behind the plastic barrier in the kitchen and snapped this shot - ugh, time for the snow shovels!

By the end of the day, once the dust settled (well, it's still settling!) ... the boards were hung and we had walls and ceilings. Looking like a house now (albeit a dark blue one!)!

Hi Mom! Can I walk on the floor yet?

Annoyed Mom is making me wear shoes!