Courtyard

This week, the progress payments got bigger. As big as a car big. Not a down payment on a car, the whole car. Think, more than a Miata, but less than a Lexus big. Yes, when we pause too long, it takes our breath a bit, too.

We'd hoped that the foundation would pour today. That got delayed. The city inspector wanted a couple of elements of the steel (rebar and bolts, remember) adjusted. So, the foundation steel got addressed today, and there'll be a reinspection on Monday. That should still allow time before the holiday to strip the foundation forms and at least start some of the framing.


That bit of a pause gave us some time to appreciate the appearance of elements like our courtyard. This design feature grew from two desires. One was to preserve as much of the backyard as possible. The other was to reduce the amount of front yard occupied by driveway.

While we went through at least three significant space arrangements early on, the courtyard came fast. With our yard preservation goals, there were limited options in the front. The garage moved across the lot and what was the garage was apportioned to living space. That created an open space in front of the entry.

The final feel of the courtyard has concerned me. Some of these in our town on lots of our width have the sense of a box canyon. I want ours to feel spacious and inviting. To test things out, two years ago I painted marks on the driveway where the new garage would be. Then, I used lawn chairs and poles to get a feel for the space before we finalized the design. (Yes, I am a kinesthetic, even if I'd always believed I was a visual, but, this isn't an NLP lesson...)

With the forms in place this week, our meeting with John Hammerschmidt gave me another opportunity to size up the feel. And it does feel good. The stagger on the garage bays, along with the bay window feature on the front room, softens the depth of the courtyard. When complete, the entry is going to feel very private, with the door visible only straight on, and even that will be softened by the oak in the front.

Luckily this was only a short pause. Other things continue to move fast. Laura spent Monday finalizing cabinets for the kitchen and dog tack room. And from there, we're set to order all our appliances, and just in time! We're going with GE appliances, a mix of Monogram and Profile lines. By ordering before the 29th, GE offers an additional 2 years of in-home service on most of our order at no additional cost.

Oh, did I mention that, due to setbacks, we lost about 2 ft of depth in the great room? On reviewing the survey, the city required the front room to come back a bit. In turn, that will cannabalize a bit of the great room. I wasn't worried. Then, after our meeting with John this week, Laura tells me she's concerned the house isn't big enough! Ack! And we're about to pour concrete! Ack! Honey! The time to say that was more than a year ago! Ack!

Our Summer Place

With the Summer Solstice upon us, this is a perfect time to profile the house we're renting during the remodel. Affectionately, we're coming to call it "Our Summer Place".

We were really fortunate in renting this place. Back in March, Laura started searching diligently. She scoured Craig's List for places that accepted dogs. We put the word out to our network that we were looking. And magically, this place turned up through both channels on the same day.

The house itself is small. At 1100 sq. ft., it's about half the size of the house we own. It's cozy. Laura & I can't hide from each other. But it's what's outside the house that makes the place wonderful.

The dogs are in heaven. (Remember, this remodel is for our dogs...) The lot at the rental is almost 1/3 acre and has a perimeter fence, so they get to run in a much bigger space. And since the front fence is metal bars, they get to watch (and bark at) nearly everything that passes the place. Every day, they go tearing about, chasing each other like kids at a park. Since there are no screens on the front and back doors, and it's been warm, they get to go tearing through the house as well. Laura thinks they're campaigning to just stay here when we move back after the remodel is done.

And there's a bunch of storage. So much that we didn't need to rent a storage locker or one of those on-site trailers. There are, oh my, 8 fruit trees (that are now in season). Plus the back yard has a brick patio that's got as much area as the house itself.

The best part is that there's a magnificent oak tree that keeps at least 1/3 of that patio in shade all day long! The small house with a big patio on a big lot changes the perspective of scale. It makes the place feel far more spacious than the house we own. At least once a week we pinch ourselves to confirm such good fortune is not merely a dream.

Barefoot on the Job Site

It took me 45 minutes before I realized Laura wore open toed sandals for our job site visit this week. We got all the way through the visit, and were on our way out to the driveway before I caught that. Naughty Laura! (Gotta Love 'er.)

Our meeting with our builder, John Hammerschmidt, and the foreman, Sean was a day early this week. Laura & I have a weekend conference in Reno for our chocolate business. This week, we covered a bunch of infrastructure items:

• John confirmed that sprinklers will NOT be required by the city (yay!).
• We re-confirmed the window plans.
• and we discussed the need for a dry well for roof runoff since the new structure will cover 140% of the footprint of the original.

With the house as open as it's been, I found myself wondering this week why I was still carrying the keys for the old doors. Then I got a bright idea from shipbuilding tradition.

As a ship's keel is laid down, tradition is to seal coins into it for good fortune. My idea was to embed the former keys in the new concrete as it pours. As I shared the idea, I was wondering if John, Sean and Laura would wind up amused. Instead, they raised the bar. Between 'em, they came up with the idea that in addition to keys, we should go ahead and place some coins of our own!

After the foundation pours next week, and we place coins, we'll forever more be able to say the house has buried treasure!

Trenching

While not as dramatic as the past few weeks, it was easy to find signs of progress when I stopped by to check mail today.

The sewer trenches have been dug through the driveway. I was really encouraged that there are two - if one of the two lines backs up, we'll still have a functional bath and sink in the other wing.

Forms were up for the foundation for the master bath/closet, and at the back of the great room. Rebar for the foundation was on site in rod form. Pediments had been dug for joist supports in both areas as well.

A simple treat was the view of sunset in the rafters I caught just before leaving. It struck me that it has been probably 50 years since that wood saw that much daylight. And it struck me that with this solid remodel, it'll be 50 years or more before they see daylight again when we're done.

Reformation Begins

Excitement this week came beyond the work on the house itself.

This week, demo reached about 95% complete. All signs (including the debris) of the fomer slabs in the garage and dining room are already gone and off the site. They were both here just four days ago! The fireplaces, too, are gone. The brick planter that was in front of the garage was demo'd just this morning.

Earth has been moved to make room for the new foundations. The spots for the new bedroom, great room and garage have been excavated. During our visit, the crew was digging the footings for the foundation along the back side of the house.


The new master bath and closet are showing up as well. The foundation footings there uncovered the former septic tank (the house has been on city sewer since before we bought it in 1996).

All that was proceeding as expected.

For grins, I gave our builder, John Hammerschmidt, a gift. Remember our demo party? Remember the wall with the "guess the completion" calendar? I made a four foot wide print out of that and gave it to John, emphasizing that while that wall was now gone, we did have evidence of his prediction that we'd be in by Christmas. John took it well. He turned and showed the print out to Jorge who was doing the survey work for the foundations. John explained his prediction, and noted that it would be one of the reasons why he'd be continuing to press Jorge to keep things moving on schedule!

The other unusual thing was a little less fun.

Since the demolition permit was signed off, I'd latched onto it for records. I was on my way back to the office when my mobile rang. John was calling, as the city wanted to see the signed demo permit before issuing the building permit! I turned around at the next exit.

Since I was already meeting John at the city building, I went in with him. The demo permit evidence was satisfactory. John started looking at the plans, and immediately noticed that they were stamped "must have sprinklers". Uh Oh.

The city passed a code ordinance effective March 1st that all new construction must have fire sprinklers. "New Construction" was defined as any increase of more than 50% (we're adding about 40% total under roof to the prior footprint). Our permits were submitted in late February. The city hadn't mentioned this sprinkler requirement in an earlier review that completed after March 1st. The same ordinance also required underground power, but the plans did not bear that requirement. Hmmm.

Oh, and the inspector who'd stamped the plans was out Friday.

Next week, more fun! Not only will we get clear on the plans and building permit, but we're expecting trenching for drainage and forms and rebar to get placed for the new foundations.

Concrete Progress

Boy, go away for a weekend and the house just falls apart.

Laura & I were out showing the dogs over the weekend. Right before we'd left, we'd met with our builder, John, on site. All the concrete was in place on Friday at noontime.

Back from the trip on Monday, I stopped by to pick up mail and view progress. Wow! All the patio concrete, from the back and east sides, was out. The garage slab was in pieces. The dining room slab was still intact, as was the planter in front of the garage, and the remainder of the fireplaces.

At this pace, demo will complete pretty soon, and the new form will start taking shape. It was fun standing near where the new door to our master bedroom will be, and taking these pictures to continue getting tuned in to that coming attraction:

The Spa Treatment

It's just occurred to me: our house is getting a spa treatment.

Stripping things down to the bare studs like this is a cleansing. Changing out the fixtures is kind of like body work. And the new sewer we're putting in, well, that would be the high colonic, wouldn't it? (yes, I can hear you groan)

With things stripped away, it's getting easier to "see" the future structure. This picture is taken from what will be the kitchen window, looking back across the family room towards the laundry (well, dog tack, really, because we are doing this for our dogs, right?) room. The tangerine at the left of the frame will remain, and will be right about the corner of the new structure. That's our builder, John Hammerschmidt at the right of the frame. And yes, he did have the choice to be in or out of the shot. Don't you agree it gives you a sense of his personality and why we like working with him?

Today, John confirmed that the garage wall by the front, brick planter had been rotten. Really, this is good news. An early floorplan had considered keeping the garage slab and wall, but our final plan already included that demo. Lucky us! No change in scope with this discovery!

All the stucco is off. The garage and patio slabs are still in place, as is the brick for the fireplaces and the planter that was in front of the garage. All that concrete demo will occur next week. Also, the city has <ahem> asked for us to survey the property and determine boundaries. Honestly, I think that's neat, since we'll be getting boundary markers at our property corners.

To round things out for this week, here's a view from the same new kitchen window spot looking out to the back yard:

Pictures like these two are making it really easy for us to get a much more tangible sense of the new house. That's the house we started dreaming about 12 years ago when we moved in, the one that's been clearly in our imaginators and on paper for the past two years.

Month One

With big demolition happening now, progress is seeming to accelerate. Two days ago, there were walls and two rooms here. In the foreground of this picture (produced with software from autostitch.net) is what was our dining room; further on was the kitchen. In the background, the frame of the garage is still up, but the roof is off.

Just last month, we held our pre-demo party in these rooms. Take a look at the slideshow to get a sense of the work and progress over this month. Soon, we'll be partying again in the great room spanning kitchen, dining and family rooms which will fill this space. And our dogs will be enjoying their fabulous tack room which will be right about where you see the near side of the former garage.



Laura & I hope you'll continue to follow our progress here, and join us for the next celebration in this home when we move back in.

...DEMO!!!

The house got a little breezy today. Exterior walls were opened on three sides. This picture is looking into the office, taken from outside, in the side yard.

Gulp. This demo stuff goes fast. On Friday, the house could still be locked. Not any more. The sides and back are open through the studs. The dining room window and door have been extracted, as has the bay window in the kitchen.