The sheet rock has been finished (I thought it was never going to happen), the rooms have been painted, the trim is up and the tile installation has begun. The trim now needs painting and touch-ups need to be done. We are hoping that the plumber, electrician and HVAC folks will be back this week. The carpet is to be put down on July 3rd in the new part and July 7th in the existing part. So we aren't that far from being done. The real trick will be to see what happens first, the baby is born or the house is done. Both are a mystery at this point. Enjoy the photos below and remember to click on any of them that you want a larger view of.

Last Friday the wallpaper in the kitchen was removed and the kitchen was painted light blue (no one wanted to mess with wallpaper so this one was contracted out to professionals)

While the professionals were working on the kitchen the guys (Sam, Tom and Brad) were painting the ceilings and priming the walls

Papaw (Sam) primes the bathroom

Tom primes the closet

Once the primer is up it is time to move on to the color. Painter Ben helps out (to avoid getting paint on his clothes he paints in his underwear and house shoes) in Dad's room with Bordeaux (dark red) paint.

The almost finished product. Touch-ups and trim is all that is left of painting. This room took almost 3 gallons of paint.

Karin's new office is green.

The laundry room is white with a beautiful blue tile.

The new bathroom (Brad's bathroom) is blue. The slate tile is almost complete. Once the plumber comes to set in the tub and do the faucets the tile men can finish installing the rest of the tile and putting the enhancer on it which will actually darken the tile a bit and pull out all of the natural stone colors.

The main room is a light brown called Swoosh. The openings from the new to the old part of the house have been cut and plastic is over the openings to keep the cool air on the old side of the house for now.

View of the new openings from the kitchen.

Ok. I'm behind on updating the house blog but there hasn't been a whole lot going on last week. The mason's did finish up everything and we now have a full bricked addition and a new brick, over sized mailbox (SLH sends and receives lots of big mail). The sheet rock people haven't finished yet but we did see them twice last week and are told they will finish up Monday (today). I have attached a few photos of the sheet rock progress so far.

On another note it appears that the baby will be here before the house is finished. We'll post the baby's website once she has arrived and it is up and running.

This week has seemed rather slow on progress with the exception of the masonry work and we finally got a "lovely" dumpster in our yard. The chimney is complete and most of the house has been bricked. They will be finished with the house in just a couple more days and then they will make us a new mailbox. After that they are finished.

We were told that the sheet rock workers were going to start working last week and we would paint this week. Apparently the sheet rockers got behind on their previous job which put us behind. They didn't start working until today. We now have ceilings but no walls. They did say they will be here tomorrow to finish up but the builder thinks they won't finish until Tuesday. Right now I'm not holding my breath. We'll just wait and see what happens.

The tile guy came last week to do the tile but since the sheet rock wasn't up in the new bathroom he couldn't do the tub top and decided that doing the existing bathrooms should wait until he is able to do the tub top at the same time. Hopefully he can come next week to do the tub top, the existing bathrooms and the entry area from the garage (old laundry room).

The painter went ahead and came Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to take down the wallpaper in our existing bathrooms. Once the wallpaper was down he got the walls ready and painted the bathrooms and the baby's room. He wasn't able to finish in two days as he thought. He had already scheduled a job for Thursday and Friday (today) so he had to reschedule to come back to our house on Monday to finish up.

I'll post photos of the paint jobs after everything is finished (paint and tile). Below are updates of the new addition.

The chimney is complete and the dumpster is ready to be loaded.

Progress on the backside of the addition at the end of the day today, Friday.

Progress on the side of the house at the end of the day today, Friday.

We have sheet rock on the ceilings of each new room.

Another ceiling view.

The major change in my last post and this week is the hard work the masons have done. As you can see below the fireplace/chimney is almost complete. I figure one more day and they should have it done. The building inspector came on Tuesday and said that we have to brick up some of the door for the "crawlspace" or we have to put up a concrete floor, sheet rock, etc under there. The masons will close a bit more off as we are only allowed a 4 foot opening and not a garage door size opening. This will keep us from putting Brad's boat under the house but hopefully everything else will still go under there. Today our builder, Tom, cut out the old doorway going to the old laundry room and took out the wall. He isn't going to take out the laundry wall and the rest of the kitchen wall until the sheet rock gets put up in the new addition to prevent a ton of dust coming through. We are still waiting on the electrical inspector to come check everything out and then the sheet rock can go up. The electrical inspector was supposed to be here yesterday but no sign of him yet. If the inspector can get here we can get the insulation and the sheet rock up this week and hopefully start painting next week. Everything seems to be moving along good. We'll keep you posted with new photos and updates.

at the end of day 1 of the chimney

day 3 of the chimney/fireplace

day 3 of the chimney/fireplace (the little black door on the side of the chimney is a place where you get the ashes out from the outside. there is a trap door in the fireplace that you push the ashes to and it falls down to a little shelf where you access it from the outside of the house)

the kitchen wall before Tom touched it

the kitchen wall after Tom took the door out and part of the wall - the room is now opened up completely to show the old laundry room which will not just be an entry way. The light switches will be moved by the electrician to be on the small part of wall where right above the existing outlet (a small wall will remain to keep the roof from falling in)

Nothing major to report. Today the masons laid more brick (see below) and I picked up the tile for the Ben's bathroom, the new bath and the laundry room. Next Friday the tole guy will come to do the existing bathrooms and the top of the new tub. After the tile is down on the new tub the plumber will come back and install the tub. Hopefully next week we will also have an inspector come ok the plumbing and electrical so the inside of the house can move forward. As always, I'll keep everyone posted on any new developments .

the brick progress at the end of today (just this side was worked on today)

Today the masons came and did a lot more work. The electricians also came and from the looks of it they are either finished or are pretty close to being finished. New photos are below. Click on images for much larger viewing

the view of the brick at the end of today

oh! ah! electrical wires and plumbing - not much to look at but so nice to have.

Last week the plumber came and took care of everything except setting the tub in. I had the tile guy come to tell me how much we needed to order and he actually came the same time the plumber came. The tile guy and the plumber both agreed that it would look best if we had the top part of the tub box tiled before the tub was set in. So we picked a tile and ordered it. As soon as it arrives the tile guy will come back to put new tile in the master bath, the kids' bath and then the new tub box top. After that the plumber can come back and set the tub in.

This week has already been a little more interesting. Monday about 8:30am the mason arrived to find no brick, no mortar and no sand. About 9am the mortar and sand arrived. About 10am the brick arrived. Around 11am the mason came to tell me the wrong mortar was delivered and they were going home.

Today the mason arrived at 8:30am and brought a couple of bags of mortar so he could go ahead and get started. I left just before 10am to do some errands and the wrong mortar was still here and no signs of the correct mortar. When I returned a couple of hours later I found that the correct (we hope) mortar was delivered. Below are photos of today's progress.

Also today the Heating and Air people came and began working. It doesn't look like they are done so we should see them tomorrow. Also tomorrow the electrician will come back to do the wiring (he came yesterday just to see where we want all the outlets).

piles of brick waiting to be used (a total of 13440 brick were purchased)

the brick that got laid by the end of the day today

Over the weekend we had a storm Friday night and Sunday night. Part of the covering for the roof was blown off but it wasn't fixed today because the roofers are coming tomorrow (or so I'm told).

Today the framers finished up. The exterior doors and windows are in. They decided not to cut out the walls leading to the kitchen and laundry room but did take out everything but the sheet rock. The only thing I'm not so sure about is that they framed up doorways and it was mine and Brad's understanding that there weren't going to be door ways right there. Below are some photos you can see of the inside and outside of the addition. The framers were very nice and it looks like they did a great job!

I'm told the plumber and electrician are coming this week but I don't know when. I have someone coming on Wednesday am to look at the bathroom and laundry room to tell me how much tile we will need so I can order that and get the tile installation scheduled. The tile guy will also be putting in new tile in the master bathroom as we are fixing it up as well.

Hopefully the mason will be back soon to let us know how much brick to order. Once we get the brick delivered we can put the gates back on the fence and give the dog her freedom to use the bathroom on her own without us standing beside her holding the leash.

Here you can see the doorways they created that will go from the current laundry room and kitchen to the addition. The plumber will have to remove the existing plumbing from the laundry room before anything else can be done on that way and the wall to the right is the kitchen. We aren't sure if the doorways will stay like this as this is not what we had originally discussed but this is what we have for right now.

Here are the windows and skylights on one side of the playroom.

The other wall in the playroom will have doors leading to the new porch (the stationary door doesn't have windows all the way down because we will put in a pet door to allow the dog and cat to go in and out on their own), the big hole is for the fireplace and there is a window on that wall as well. Lots of light for this room!!

Toy closet on the left and bathroom beside it (Brad's nice big soaker tub - no shower)

Beside the bathroom is the laundry and the doorways leading to the existing house.

Outside view at the end of today.

Below are some photos from today. They got the walls up and the roof on. Monday they will cut out the existing kitchen and laundry room walls that will connect the addition with the existing house. This means no more laundry will be done at our house until the addition is finished. That should make things interesting to say the least.

This was mid-morning when the trusses were going up. As you can see there was a threat of rain but it just blew through without a drop.


The trusses are up and 1/2 the roof is on.


By the end of the day the roof was completely on.

The framers have one more day of work on Monday where they will put in the windows, doors and skylights along with cutting the existing kitchen/laundry walls down. After that we wait for the roofers to come put shingles on, the plumber to do his thing, the electrician to do his thing, the heat/air guy to do his thing, etc. Check back Monday night for the next update.

It started raining this afternoon but it looks like the framers still were able to get some walls up. According to weather.com the rain should stop during the night so hopefully we will see more progress tomorrow. I went ahead and went out in the rain to take some photos from today's progress. Enjoy! Don't forget for a larger view of any photo just click on it and get it super sized.

The first window on the left will be Brad's room, the next window will be in the play room, the next large opening will be the fireplace and the last large opening will be for French doors going to the new deck.

The window on the left will be my office and the window on the right will be another window in Brad's room.


The three windows down this side are all in the playroom. I only wanted one window in my office so that I will have lots of wall space for shelves, cabinets, organizational things, etc.

I'm a little behind updating. They finished the foundation last week and the framers started yesterday. They ran out of lumber and the delivery of more lumber arrived after they had quit for the day. They start their day around 6:45am (no need for an alarm clock at our house unless you need to be up before then) and end at 3pm. Between the dog waking us up by barking when they arrive and them actually hammering on our house we are out of bed by 7am at the latest. They are currently making great progress and as I type the trusses are being driven to the back yard. Tonights photos should be pretty neat but below are some photos to catch you up on what's already done.

the foundation is finished


foundation view from the inside


the end of the framers' work on day 1 of framing

Here are some photos from the end of today (Friday). The rain managed to hold off and if it can hold off for a little while tomorrow they will finish the foundation. There is only one area left open, if you look closely you can see through the opening and see my butterfly bushes (which won't be there much longer). As you can see from the photos below we will have quite a bit of "crawl space." In fact there will be enough for a small garage door to be placed and we will be able to store the boat, lawn mower, etc.

View looking from the side.


View from straight back of the addition.

For a larger view, click on the photo above to see what the final addition should look like. It shows our existing kitchen and where the walls will be knocked out to go in to the new part of the house. There will be a new laundry room, bathroom (for Brad), toy closet, playroom, and two bedrooms. One bedroom will become "Brad's room" and the other will be my office. Each bedroom will have a good size walk-in closet for all of our stuff. I'm also asking for building in shelves on the side of one wall in the playroom next to my office for kids items (books, tv/playstation, etc). The toy closet will be lots of shelves and maybe even cubby holes for easy placement of kids stuff. The idea for the addition is to make us all much more clutter free and everything to have a place it calls home. Another change you will see is that the existing deck will be a little bigger and the steps will go straight to the backyard and not off to the side.

(side note - you can click on any photo to view a LARGE version of each photo)

On Monday all the concrete block and materials were delivered.

Thursday the workers came out and started working on the foundation. Hopefully they will be finished with that part soon since the weather people say it is going to rain all day today and tomorrow. The lumber should be delivered Monday and the framers will be here shortly there after.

Stacks of concrete blocks in our yard for 4 days.

The first corner is placed Thursday am.


The view at the end of the day.


Another view at the end of the day. The opening will be big enough for a single garage door so we can store Brad's boat, the lawn mower, bikes, etc.