Renovation Updates

Home renovations are not fast.  At all.  I thought I already comprehended this, but then just to keep me on my toes, I realized they move even slower than I pictured.  

Regardless of how fast the progress is being made, it is at least being made.  Since it has been several months, I thought it was time for an update.

All of the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC is as complete as can be to this point.  We are waiting for the rough-in inspection.  It may have happened this past week or it may be coming up soon.  I'm not really sure, but that is the next step.  This means all the water lines are in.  The new wiring has been run everywhere.  Light fixture boxes are in place and all the outlet/switch boxes are in.  The ductwork is complete and the new HVAC units are in.  It took so many more months than I ever imagined, but it is great knowing it's in now.  I think it's also safe to say no more demo has to be done at this point.  Hallelujah!  After the rough in inspection, I'm under the impression the drywall can go up!  That step alone will help make everything feel much more complete.  The hardwood floors are expected to be patched in and completed soon too.

Distorted, panoramic view of the main living area, standing in the front door.

This will be the kitchen.  The area for the fridge is framed in and the end cap wall is framed.  The fridge had to be framed in for two reasons.  On one side the wall allows us to have a place for the thermostat and switches.  On the other side, the wall conceals a steel post that is supporting the steel beam that allowed the old kitchen walls to be removed.  The end cap wall on the other side of the kitchen allows for more switches and outlets.  This house ended up being a little trickier to re-wire because the exterior walls are all made of CMUs (i.e. cinderblocks).  It's quirky and I guess was a thing back in the 40s.  But it also means no outlets or switches can be added on exterior walls without having the wires run in conduits outside the walls - something we were not in favor of doing.

Upstairs fireplace.  Hubby is working on re-doing the brick surround.  Turns out laying brick isn't as easy as it looks.  Not really a good project to do with children around - a lot of inappropriate language may have been used.

Standing in the kitchen, looking out into the dining and living areas.

Standing in the kitchen, looking mostly into the dining area.  The knee wall that will surround the stairs is now framed in.  We debated having a railing, but decided a kneewall would help with the layout of the dining room.

The upstairs bath is completely gutted and just waiting to be redone at this point.  We're hoping to do all the tile work ourselves.

Our bedroom.  I cannot wait to have windows that look outside.  We currently have two windows in our bedroom...that look into creepy old window wells.  Ahh, basement life at it's finest.  But on the bright side, after four years of living in a basement apartment, it's easy to get excited about nearly everything!  Especially sunlight!

Also in our bedroom - trying to decide on paint color.  I'm leaning towards the middle color for our room and the bathroom, but a little nervous it will be too dark.  I'm also thinking the leftmost color is the winner for the rest of the upstairs.  I haven't even begun to debate the lower level.  

Bedroom #2.

Stairs!  It is so nice to finally have stairs!  For months we could only get to the lower level by going outside to a separate entrance!

Looking at the stairs from downstairs.  There will be a wide pass through hallway - somewhat wasted space, but oh well.

We decided to angle the doorway to this bedroom to open up the hallway to the area at the bottom of the stairs.  

Looking down the hallway towards the stairs.  A closet is at the end of the hallway.  The bedroom pictured above is to the left.

Laundry room!  After four years of NO washer and dryer, we will finally have a room devoted to just laundry!  It's probably safe to say my parents are more excited than we are.  They are saints who have been handling our laundry for the past four years!

  

Back out in the hallway, looking in the other direction.  

Bedroom #4.

Family room.  The shorter door frame was once the entrance to this room.  We removed some walls on the back porch/sunroom to allow the full size door to now be the entrance.  Once the drywall process starts, this will be completely closed off.  

A bit dark, but a panoramic view of the room.  

The entrance into the family room from the hallway was doubled in size.  Initially the hallway felt like a long, dark bowling alley.  By putting the bedroom wall at an angle and opening up this doorway, we feel like we've done all we can to reduce that issue.  I like that this room no longer feels so closed off.  The duct work ended up being rather complicated due to the lower level being a combination of cement slab and crawl space.  It had to come up through the floor in this corner of the family room and eventually there will be a wall enclosing it.  It felt like a big deal initially, but I think once it's done, we won't think about it that much.

The backporch/sunroom.  On the wall to the left of the door is the former opening.  On this side, Hubby plans to build a bench that opens to hold outdoor gear, with hooks and a shelf above.  There are no coat closets in the house - a "perk" of an older house!  This will be our way of compensating for the lack of closet space. 

 

Standing in the backdoor, looking into the backporch/sunroom.  You can see on the floor where the walls once were.

Back of the house.  The backporch roof had to be rebuilt.  For starters, it was done entirely wrong, but also to give it a steeper pitch to prevent water issues.  It is now a black metal roof.

Looking out a bedroom window at the metal porch roof.

This outdoor storage area was technically here to begin with.  However, it was not built with footers, and thus would not be able to support the weight of the concrete porch above.  Now it has proper footers, is the correct height, and as an added bonus when all of that was dugout a new water supply line was run at the proper depth!

Side view of outdoor storage area.  The large window you can see on the upstairs will become french doors.

Front and side porch.  It feels so good to have this concrete poured!  Now the construction of the porch roof can begin, meaning soon the whole house can get it's new roof!  

The full view of the front of the house.  I'm so excited to see how the porch roof will change the appearance.  Right now the house looks so small and unassuming from the street.  I never want a big house, but I think the addition of the porch roof will help make the house be noticed.

Exterior paint options.  We love the grey in the middle, but the porch is going to have cedar posts, so we feel that a deep greyish green will complement the wood and give a warm, inviting appearance.  The bottom green turned out to be far too light.  Picking colors is so difficult when your spouse is colorblind.  It involves a lot of one sided conversations.  I want his opinions, but colors kind of scare him.  Mostly, he just lets me know what looks horrid to him.  It's somewhat humorous how different we see colors.

That's where we are at this point!  Our initial closing date was a week ago.  Clearly, it's no where near ready for us to move in.  We're hoping progress can be made a little quicker now that it's mostly just putting it back together!  

Building Permit Is Up!

Warning, this update is going to go from the least exciting development to the most exciting development.  So, stick with me.  It gets a little better than the first series of photographs.

Since we are buying our house through Community Housing Partners, part of our contract includes 110 hours of work at the house.  We were recently given two more small projects to help us get in our hours of sweat equity.  The first was cleaning up the bits of wood, plaster, drywall, trash, and plastic in the area where the floors and joists have been completely removed.  A concrete slab is going to be poured in this area and before that can happen it needed to be cleaned up.  Today my dad and I hauled out many bags of debris.  Again, not the most exciting job, but it needs to be done for the next step to occur.  Eventually this area will be the landing at the bottom of the stairs, the downstairs hallway, and Tochterchen's bedroom.  There's a little girl in our house that is really looking forward to seeing her bedroom look like more than a demolition zone.

Before

After

Before

After - I have to admit, as I was leaving today I wasn't sure we had made much of a difference.  I enjoy looking at the before and after pictures as I post, because clearly the after looks much better!

Our other project was to remove a closet and wall that were right inside the back entrance.  We are pretty sure this area was once a porch, that was later enclosed, and eventually divided into a tight entry and a bizarre, pointless room.  We asked if we could remove the wall to open up the entry area, creating a mudroom/sunroom of sorts.  I don't think this area will be heated/cooled, so it may be more of a three seasons/sun porch.  It has a wall of windows and is on the south side of the house.  I envision a lot of plants out here, maybe a some comfortable porch furniture.

Before - standing in the backdoor, looking into the house.

Before - standing in the bizarre, pointless little room.  The only idea I had for this room was a craft room...which I was ALL for until I realized it's probably not going to be heated.  

Little cutie VERY excited to help with demo work!

It's not very often you're allowed to destroy things.  Here's our girl removing the shelf brackets in the closet.

Getting a lesson from Daddy about how to remove the drywall.

There's nothing more fun than hammering holes in the wall and not getting in trouble for it!

Good bye drywall!

Already looking better!

After - goodbye wall!  This was taken in the same spot as the before picture, standing in the doorway.  We LOVE how much more open it is!

After - standing in the previous separate room.  We love wide open spaces!

And last but not least, today I noticed the building permit was posted in the front window!  Before this week, the only permits were for demolition.  I was beyond excited to see things will start moving forward soon!  I struggle so much with patience and renovating a house is really going to push me to strive for more patience.  I am so excited to have a little more space, storage space, a washer and dryer, full size appliances, a yard, two bathrooms, central heat and air, windows that are more than single paned glass (think frost on the inside on cold mornings), a dehumidifier running constantly, and the list goes on.  As exciting as the future is, we keep having reminders to be thankful for where we are right now.  Our apartment is not perfect, but it has really been perfect for this season of life.  I am trying to rein in my excitement and not allow it to create impatience and dissatisfaction for right now.  Our life is exactly what we hope for - peaceful, simple, and filled to the brim with love.

A final photo - the front elevation!  It will be so exciting to see this little beauty take shape!

Slowly, but surely

From my understanding, it can be a lot more complicated to renovate a home than to build an entirely new one.  You never know what to expect in an old home and sometimes it's easier to start from scratch than to modify something that already exists.  Add to that, all the permits and additional structural evaluations and inspections...and well, you get a slow process.  

We feel so fortunate that we are getting a renovated older home, but we are not in charge of navigating the logistics of any of it.  Community Housing Partners takes care of all of that, as a part of the affordable housing program we are participating in.  We still get to have some input and we'll get to help with choosing finishes, but the important work is handled by professionals (you know, the parts that have a lot more to do with making sure the building is safe and all the proper things are supported and/or up-to-date).  Our new home needs such extensive renovations to convert it into a single family home, that I wouldn't have the slightest idea of where to start!

It has been a quiet several weeks over at the new house.  We were caught up in a whirlwind of illnesses and trying to catch up on work that was put of as a result of said illnesses.  It was probably for the best that nothing was happening - we really didn't have the time or energy to put in any work hours at the house.  

However, this week, a major point of progress took place!  The steel beam went up in the main living area!  This beam was needed to replace the load bearing wall that once confined the kitchen.  It is set into the rafters, so once the ceiling drywall is repaired, you will not be able to see it.  It went in on Tuesday/Wednesday and the remaining kitchen walls came out!  Woohoo!  The main living area is entirely opened up now!

In the basement, towards the front of the home, the floor joists had to be removed to properly enclose the crawlspace underneath.  It is possible that this area will end up having a concrete slab beneath it instead of encapsulated crawl space.  We have not heard from our agent/contractor which method they decided to use.  Either way, the moisture issues under this part of the home will be resolved and some of the walls will be re-positioned.  This shows the wall dividing Tochterchen's room and the hallway.  It's not easy at age six to imagine your very own room when it has no walls, floors, or ceilings.  But thankfully, our ever optimistic little lady is excited none-the-less!  

We should learn more next week about where things are with all the work permits, which will allow things to start moving forward for real.  I'm under the impression that all the plans are decided, we are just in the sometimes lengthy and messy process of securing all the needed work permits before work can begin.  

It's a good thing I love a good project!

It's That Time Again...

Time is flying past, much faster than I would like most days.  It's strange how slow it passes when we are children and how quick it becomes once we have children of our own.  This past year is no exception - didn't we just finish putting away last year's holiday decorations?  I'm almost certain the summer went by in the blink of an eye!  And here we are again, with the next Christmas season upon us.  

This year marks the fifth year of our Advent bag tradition.  The kids expect it now (in a joyous way) and I enjoy planning activities for us to do together.  I have left a lot of the art projects out now that they are both in school (SO many beautiful pieces of artwork created there!) and create so much art on their own (seriously, our hallways is covered in art projects, all in various stages of completion).  I'm partially doing this because I tend to set myself up for failure in this department.  I never make it through that many pre-planned art projects in one month.  I tried to make this year's activities more about doing things together and being together.  Most of the creating activities are to prepare gifts for friends and family.

And so, without further ado, here is this year's list of Advent activities:

1 - Make cranberry and orange garlands for the tree.

2 - Visit the town Christmas parade.

3 - Make a gingerbread house.  We have tried to make these from scratch and it has never worked for us.  This year my mother-in-law picked one up for us at Micheal's when they were 75% off.  Cheaper, easier, and hopefully less tears for all involved.

4 - Make St. Nicholas cookies.  Planning ahead here and making the gingerbread cookies for St. Nicholas's day on the weekend, when we have more time at home.  We usually make a few large cookies in the shape of St. Nicholas himself and then a variety of other gingerbread cutouts.

5 - Hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and a Christmas movie.

6 - Celebrate St. Nicholas's Day!  We write letters to St. Nic, read all of our St. Nic books, leave out carrots for his horse and cookies for him, and leave out our shoes for him to fill.  During the night, he will come and leave a small gift in each child's shoes and a return letter, reminding them to share their light and love to all throughout the season. 

7 - Make cinnamon applesauce ornaments.  It's a pretty simple recipe - mix loads of cinnamon with a little applesauce until a workable dough forms.  Add a little Elmer's glue to help it hold.  Cut out shapes and bake at a low temperature (maybe 250?) for two hours.  We use some on the tree and the rest to make a mobile for each kid in their room.  The smell of these ornaments while baking is HEAVENLY.

8 - Make grandparent gifts.  Sorry, it's a secret!  

9 - Make a snowman shaped pizza and watch a family movie!  I'm hoping to find the original cartoon version of The Grinch.

10 - Cookie baking day!  We are planning to give teachers and friends cookies as gifts this year, seeing as they are a meaningful, but affordable gift.  I'm keeping this day completely clear on our calendar to allow us the full day for baking.  The plan is to make two or three types of press cookies, sugar cookies, and possibly some fudge.

11 - Visit the live Nativity.

12 - Make Christmas popsicle stick puppets.  My kids love making stick puppets.  For a while we had them all over the apartment.  We have all the needed supplies - large popsicle sticks, paper, markers, sequins, buttons, maybe even googly eyes, etc.  I have a few ideas to show them to get them started, but I think they will take this one and run with it.  We may turn some into gift tags or ornaments.

13 - Tochterchen's choice.  Tochterchen asked for a day where she can come up with her own Christmas craft.  She's quite the creative little one and loves leading artistic endeavors.  I'm excited to see what she come up with.  She will make a great teacher one day if she keeps this passion.

14 - Make gingerbread pancakes for breakfast!

15 - Drive around town to see the lights!  We usually make a mug of mac and cheese for the kids to eat as dinner while we spend the evening driving around viewing lights.  The kids always say this is their favorite activity.

16 - Make Christmas soaps.  We've done this for at least four years now.  I don't actually know how to make soap, but I purchase organic melt and pour soap and essential oils.  The kids help chop the block of soap into smaller pieces, we melt it over medium heat, and add our desired scents.  Sometimes we add dried rosemary or lavender, but sometimes we don't because the herbs tend to settle at the top only.  We pour the melted soap into (Christmas) jello molds I found at the thrift store.  This activity is another of our top favorites.

17 - Family fun day!  The hope is to take the kids ice skating in Roanoke (first time skating for both!) and then go to a hockey game.  We'll have to see if the weather cooperates and I'm still trying to find coupons to help lower the ticket cost.  When I tried to purchase online the added fees were outrageous - over $5 in fees for $11 and $8.50 tickets?  Ugh.

18 - Make Christmas candles.  Last year for Christmas Tochterchen gave me the supplies for making candles together.  We still have a ton of wax and scents, so I think we are going to use these as gifts for others also!

19 - Make salt dough mittens.  This is a day I'm baby-sitting, so this could easily all fall through.  But if I can pull it off, I thought this would be a cute project to do with the other kids also.  Besides, there HAS to be a handprint activity every year.  Moms love to look back on how small their little hands once were.  I almost teared up seeing Tochterchen's itty bitty two year old handprint ornament going up on the tree.  How was she ever that small?  She's now the same height as her brother - a whooping 50" and has bigger feet than him! 

20 - Make pinecone birdfeeders.  Another favorite around here.  Cover pinecones in peanut butter and roll them in birdseed.  Attach a string and hang them from the trees.  The kids love to share the Christmas spirit with our backyard wildlife also.

21 - Family fun day!  No one else in the house knows it (shhh!) but I purchased two hours of bowling and a pizza on Groupon.  I think we'll make it an afternoon activity, rather than evening, but who knows.

22 - Hot chocolate and a Christmas movie.  Looking for a good Christmas movie for the whole family - any suggestions?

23 - Make s'mores in the fireplace with Mimi and Papa!

24 - Open one (pre-selected) early gift.  We bought a new family game for the kids and I thought we could enjoy a little family game time before on this day. 

25 - CHRISTMAS!!!

This is the first year Mannchen can read the tags in each bag, so I guess I have added accountability.  In the past, when the day has gotten away from us, I just make up something easy (hot chocolate!  movie!) and let go of the plan.  I have all the busy crafting days carefully planned around babysitting and other activities.  It's all written in my planner and supplies have been pre-purchased!  It will be interesting to see how it goes this year!  

Blessings to all for a joyous Advent and Christmas season!  Do you have any Advent traditions or plans for this year?

A Walk in the Woods

Thankfully, the kids have semi-regular early release days.  All too often I don't take advantage of the extra hours to our afternoon.  However, for the past two early releases, I have been trying to make the most of our time.  This week we spent the afternoon hiking on a familiar trail near my parents' house.  

There is an abandoned coal mine just off the trail.  Along the trail you can see lots coal - small pea size "gravel", small chunks, and in the hill side you can even see large pieces of coal.  I loved how the roots of a tree grew over this large piece.

October is definitely over in this area of Virginia.  Most of the trees have lost all their leaves and I'm hoping that the frosty mornings are here to stay.  

Jumping for joy over long afternoons together.  Can every day be an early release day?  Please?

My kids have never liked to move quickly.  Walking and hiking with them when they were little was painfully slow.  Now that they are older, overall hikes move much quicker, but hiking can still be slow moving.  I try so hard to be mindful of how important it is for them to have the time to take in the details of the world.  Our hike was by no means a long one in mileage, but we were out in the woods for about three hours.  We went way off the beaten path to explore and we took the long way to the abandoned mine.  I think they spent 45 minutes playing on and around this makeshift bridge.  They cleared a lot of leaves that had collected in the area and played with the simple innocence of childhood.  I have to bite my tongue in moments like this - I'm always a bit eager to move on to next thing.  Continually, my children remind me life is not lived in the results.  Life is lived in the process.  Slow down.  Don't rush.  Just be.