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.