So, this weekend was productive as it relates to progress on the house. Matt was in North Myrtle Beach for a networking golf event, so I was in charge of house stuff. Luckily, I was in town, because I caught a couple of what would have been "big" problems. 1. The were going to put doors between the kitchen and den.... not in the plans. There isn't even supposed to be a wall in that location. 2. They were going to keep the size of the master bed room instead of make it a foot longer in one direction. That may seem small, but not as it relates to furniture placement. Earlier last week we thought we might have a roof today and as you will see in the following images that is not the case! Patience is a virtue and we learn a little more about that every day.

This picture shows the house on Thursday afternoon. There is no roof on it - obviously. The roof is what you see laying across the front porch!

This is standing in the house looking up. It rained later in the afternoon that this was taken. I freaked out about it, but it turned out not to be the end of the world.

This shot was taken from inside the same day. A little hard to see because of all of the sunlight pouring in. Taken from the back of the house.

This was taken this evening. Different from Thursday. They've removed the aluminum siding as well as the original wood siding that was behind it. Also, they've removed all of the old windows and added the studs around where the new front door will go.

This was taken in the future stair case. It's the only place in the house where I can see blue sky when I look up.

Here is a shot taken from right inside the front door. The fireplace on the left will be removed later and bookcases will take the place. People question getting rid of a fireplace, but this one would need replacing. Unfortunately, a new masonry fireplace is not in the budget!! Matt is standing in what will be the kitchen.

This is taken from the master looking into what will be the master bath. You can see that the floor for the 2nd floor has been installed above.

Well that concludes the tour for now. I hope that we'll have some drastically different images soon!

D is for DEMO

The picture above shows a view from the front door, the fire place would be on your left in this picutre. Luckily, we didn't have any pad surprises when the walls came down.


Below - this is the fireplace and looking into the bathroom from the den. They don't build them like they used to!

So last week, progress was made. From the outside it doesn't look like anything has happenend, but they've taken down the plaster walls and ceiling. I looks like a skeleton at this point. Here are some shots of the progress. It only took 2 days and one dumpster to get to this point. We're having a soggy couple of days here in the queen city, but when we can get a couple of clear days in a row, they will remove the roof and start framing the 2nd story!!

PERMIT

So Kevin went to the permit office Wednesday and they told him to come back Thursday, which is typical government workers, but we won't go into that. He went yesterday and I told him to call me afterward if the news was good, bad or ugly.

He called around 10ish with a colorful rant on how he feels about the people at the office. So, of course, I assume that we don't have the doggone thing yet again. At the end of my 2 cents about the situation I ask what do I need to do so we can get the permit? He calmly says, "well, I guess you don't have to do anything since I have it in my hand." I was elated!!!

So yesterday, the only visible sign of progress was putting the permit in the front window. Doesn't sound like much, but to us it was a huge step. We're finally going to have progress and we're so excited! The dumpster will arrive on Monday morning and the first half of the week will be spent doing demo. The 2nd half nothing will happen because Kevin's guys have another job late in the week and through the weekend. A week from Monday they will start framing and we'll see how it goes from there!

PROGRESS

So, something was accomplished at the house today and it wasn't much, but something is better than nothing!! Took a few shots of the "damage."



But first, this is a picture of the garage doors that we built... Not sure why I took the picture from the street, but you get the idea.

We don't have a dumpster quite yet, so here's the pile of junk that they've ripped out of the house.

Finally, here is an interior shot. Today they took down the baseboards, all of the mouldings around the windows, and all of the doors and door frames.

Kevin is heading down to the permit office tomorrow to see what's going on. I hope that he can leave with the permit in hand. The next best thing would be that he could get a dumpster out to the house so the guys can start taking down the plaster!

Finally Go Time?

Well, it isn't the first time we've heard it, but word from Kevin is that some of his guys will be there first thing in the am to start DEMO. I will believe it when I see it, but can't help but to be excited!!! We still do not have a permit, and the friendly folks at the City are taking their sweet time issuing it. We applied on April 22nd and they have 5 to 10 business days to let us know something. It's been more than 5, but not quite 10. Kevin is going over to the permit office on Wednesday if we don't hear anything tomorrow. In the meantime, I didn't think I would ever be so happy to hear that people were going to tear up our house!

Not much else to report other than...

1. Matt and I finished the garage doors. They look good and there weren't any injuries or melt downs. Label it as a success.

2. We've been shopping. We picked out and purchased all of the door interior and exterior and all of the windows. Big stuff, but not terribly fun. On the fun side, I bought great marble tile for the bathroom floor today - love it!

3. Courtney has helped me start picking paint colors - yes, it's wildly premature, but still fun!

Hopefully a status update and pictures of mass destruction tomorrow!

Accepted to Review

What does that even mean, "accepted to review"? Who really knows... We didn't until today. This morning we got our drawings back from the structural engineer and the architect and Kevin went back to the permit office. They accepted the drawings and application for permit and they will review them and get back to us in 5-10 days. I suppose that is a step in the right direction. In Kevin's experience, once you get to this point, it's only a matter of time before the permit is issued. That said, he feels comfortable going ahead and getting a dumpster. That is good news!! I can't remember the last time I got excited about a dumpster, but I am. A dumpster in the driveway means that they're going to start tearing up the house! Originally, we were thinking it might be Monday or Tuesday, but the guys that would demo are pretty busy early next week. Time will tell when we start, but I think it's coming!

Meanwhile, we will continue our garage project this weekend! Also, Lowe's is having 20% off on all of their special order doors and windows, so we're trying to get all of that stuff ordered by Monday when the sale ends!

Things might finally be starting to happen. This project is a good lesson in patience for me. We're learning to fly by the seat of our pants. We are so fortunate that we're in the position to be renovating a home, so these "problems" come with the territory. When all is said and done, we will look back on these times as an adventure!

Meeting the Neighbors

So I think I'm going to have to do 2 separate posts because I haven't done anything in so long....

The permitting process is longer and significantly more detailed than we thought. In our heads, Kevin was going to run down to the office and pick up a permit like he'd pick up a pack of cigarettes. This is not the case. He was denied last time. We're in the process of trying to get everything together so we can try again. In the meantime, Matt and I have decided that we would tackle putting a garage door on the garage. We're not quite sure why there isn't a garage door, but there isn't. Again, nothing is as easy as we think... We head to Lowe's pick a garage door off the shelf, have Lowe's go measure and assume they'll put it up and done deal. Where is the fun in that?? Not enough work or fun in the previously mentioned plan. After the folks at Lowe's come to measure they realize that we need a custom door. We have come to learn that custom = $$$$$. Needless to say $$$$ is not in the budget, so we decided we'll build our own door. We've decided on barn style door that will swing out. We headed to Lowe's to buy supplies on Sunday morning with high hopes of getting a lot finished by the end of the day.

We got to the house and realized we had all of the tools we would need, but forgot an extension cord. We are resourceful and decided we would move the work bench to the front porch. It was a good plan, but also an invitation to the neighbors to stop by. Naturally, since the house was on the market for almost a year and a half and uninhabited, they're ready to know what's up. First, we met Jim. He's great, has lived next door since the 70s. He knows all and tells most. Then we met Nelson - great guy. His yard is fabulous and he was excited to learn we were "going up." These 2 encounters took up about 2+ hours, which didn't help with our project. We were really excited to meet the neighbors, so it worked out for the best. The most interesting things we learned meeting the neighbors (mainly Jim) were....

1. We bought our house from the original owners. This wouldn't be that cool if our house was built last year, but it was built in 1939!! That's really cool!!

2. Trash and recycling are taken Tuesday morning - that's an important fact!

3. There's some land clause that says we can't add a second floor... let's hope the permitting people are in the dark on this!!!!