Ductwork is In! Drywall is Up!

               

The Ductwork isnt really a Pretty thing - and the Drywall isnt all that exciting to photograph either. But both of these are big steps! Much more like a house now - with rooms and everything!

This one to the right is looking from the bedroom past the closet (just out of view on the right) and into the bathroom. Vanity & sink, etc. goes there in the middle, and the toilet 'nook' is over to the right under the window. The shower is out of view to the left, but you can see the light coming in from the (barely visible) skylight.



To the left is a view of the upstairs living area. out the triangle window is the chimney, which has been extended several feet. Again you can barely see the skylight in the ceiling. The storage closet to the right will become a real closet if this room ever becomes a bedroom.




     Thats all for now!!

Kitchen Windows

The windows were FINALLY delivered Monday morning. By the time I got home from work Blake had installed every single one. I guess the waiting made for some serious motivation.

<< The sink goes under the center window, the stove to the right of the small one on the far right.

^^ Dishwashin' View

The center window is fixed, and the ones on either side crank open. We used a similar design upstairs in the Master Bedroom. Pictures coming soon.

Upstairs Downstairs

It turned out to be pretty hard to actually get a good photo of what we've been doing most recently, but you can now go all the way from the basement to the upstairs without going outside the house! Big advancement!


We have no guestroom anymore - the stairs took up alot of the old room, and we tore down the exterior wall between the old guestroom and the addition. There will be a wall with transoms on the far side of the steps, and the room with the big windows will be our dining room.






The dining room will connect at the point below into the kitchen, and then the kitchen/back door will go out to a covered screen porch for eating (left).We will put ceiling fans on the roof out there, and are considering building removeable panels with screens so that if there are no bugs we can take the screens out sometimes.

The Roof Over Our Heads

 ..............Before................                               ................During.....................                  

Galvalume Metal Roof Lookin Good So Far.....

note the Biltmore Estate in the center, in front of the mtns

   The view to   
   the Left is
   what we'll see
   off of our Master Bedroom  Patio, accessed through French Doors (the left-side hole pictured above); and through the windows (the 3 right-side holes above), opposite the closet.

Skylights all look out on treetops. One in the Master bedroom (over the closets, not the bed); one in the second bedroom in the vaulted ceiling (pictured here), and one in the upstairs living space. All 3 will have light fixtures inserted into their walls so that they can serve as lights at night as well.

 

To the Right is the view from where the bed will sit, through the closets (opposite big windows), and into the Master Bathroom. No doors in the Master Bedroom so the light can move from the bathroom, skylights, windows and french doors throughout the space.

This final view is from the Master Bedroom looking back out, past the stairs (which come up on the right side), through the upstairs living area/future bedroom, into the forward bedroom, which will have vaulted ceilings.

~A Resemblance~

Bedroom Sunset

It's Really Happening!!

 This is what it looks like with half a roof on our house - that's cellulose insulation, which will be bagged up and re-used when the time comes. We are attempting to re-use the Southern yellow heartwood pine that makes up the roofing for hardwood floors on the second floor, but they might be falling apart too much.













But the 100+ year old rafters are in great condition and are going to make wonderful stair treads and/or trim material.

 ^^ The floor of our new bedroom


<< That's our new bedroom.  

If you look closely on the left side of the picture you can see the big opening in that wall facing our back yard. That will be french doors leading out to a small private cantilevered porch.

The view from our bedroom.  Yeah, that's Mount Pisgah you see!

for some comparison.....

pinnin down the DETAILS

version 1                                             version 2                                                                 version 3

Ive been waiting to post any of our pictures or blueprints, because we make pretty significant changes every time we revisit the process. But in the spirit of pinning down the details in order to get things really moving, Im going to start to post - with the caveat that this is still a work in progress.
In order to portray how nit picky this is becoming, I'm sharing three drawings Blake sent me today. These are the kinds of choices we now have in front of us before we can pin down window orders and move forward. All of this also has to be decided so that we can apply for permits.

Im leaning toward version 2, but I like 1 also... Once we determine these details, we will finalize our 3D renderings and blueprints and turn them in.

Ta Daaaa

had to chip away bricks to get pipe in

 Just in time for the first 60 degree day of the year!!!

now

before

HOORAY!!!!      Blake did an amazing job with the tile - and I think it looks great.         


More later - the trim isnt done yet, so I want to wait until its all done to show the big picture.
                        

It Begins

The Wall Comes Down.

Note the exposed area where the wall between our living and 'dining' room once was. The house seems much bigger already! Im pretty sure I hear an echo when I talk.


Left: from the front door

Right: from the kitchen

I came home from work last Wednesday, and found a very clean construction site and no wall! I love the feeling of being in here now. Very exciting. Blake always warns of the too typical remodeling homeowner dilemma: the beginning steps are very fast and noticeable, very instantaneously gratifying; the latter steps are insatiably slow and detail-oriented. I can imagine the frustration.


Up Next: The Chimney
We have torn out the hearth and Blake reinforced the floor from the basement so that it is truly flat. The framework is done - so hopefully by the end of this weekend the picture from this angle will be very different.

The framing is set so that a 37"ish flat screen TV can fit in between the studs in the top section. We are battling with our plan here: We have never, never had a stationary TV in our living area - which is a good thing, but also results in us dragging our heavy old tube out every time we want to watch a movie. . . So we are ready to make the change, but still don't want the boob tube to be the focal point. The general ideal is to somehow have a facade of some sort (canvass art?, something lightweight--) that can drop down behind the framing like a 'trap door' when we want to watch. But the logistics are complicated, especially when you take into account the heat from the wood stove. So this is still a work in progress. But our tiles are in and hopefully we can make some progress over the weekend.