Eat My Dust!

Well, these days you can't even walk into the project without becoming a big ole' dust ball! The inside walls are being framed up and I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised at how everything is looking. Mark may actually know what he's doing after all! Not that I ever had a doubt ;-)

The biggest accomplishment over the past few weeks (in my opinion), are the temporary stairs! Oh the luxury of modern day conveniences... I feel so spoiled.

So, not much that shows up well in photos, but a lot of progress has been made. Rooms are coming together, closest spaces being added. Plumbing and HVAC started yesterday and will be working through next week or so.

Not much left now! Only, electrical, insulation, sheetrock, painting, siding, flooring, cabinets, plumbing fixtures, lighting and appliances.

OK, time for a glass of wine. Oh wait... it's not 5:00 yet!

My stairs!!!

Mud Room (or dust room for now)

Front of house, now enclosed

Movin' Right Along!

The Master Suite is now framed in.

Not sure about the master deck angle above the garage?!?! We're thinking of squaring it off at the top now. Stay tuned!!

The roof is on and the shingles were installed this week.
Windows have been delivered...

These two windows will frame our view from the dining room.

Door on left will enter into kitchen

Master Suite from the back...

The inside just looks like a bunch of two by fours right now... 

I guess that's it!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!

We'll see you in 2012!!!

What once was BLUE is no longer that HUE!!

The permit was approved! The city inspector passed our permit with flying colors...
We hired a crew to do the remaining demo, and Jason came down and started framing.
Wow... what a difference 2 weeks can make! The house is no longer blue!
I'll just cut to the chase and show the pics! They actually say it all...

And we have no roof in the living room any more! It's pretty cold in there right now!

So, now we pray for no snow until the roof is back on (although I hear it's coming next week).

Next on the list... windows, roofing and siding!

Catch you on the next update!

Construction Loan- APPROVED, City Permit- STILL WAITING

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted.  Not too much to report on the construction side of things.
After much anticipation (not to mention hoop jumping) we closed on the short-term loan October 2nd, which will take us through the building process until we close (again) on the FINAL loan!

It's taken some time to get the final drawings from the architect and now we're just waiting for the permit to be approved. The city inspector is on vacation, so hopefully next week we'll have the permit in hand and ready to rock-and-roll!

Dad and Connie came over a couple of weeks ago. Dad and Mark spent about 4 days ripping out drywall. They got a LOT accomplished.

Shortly thereafter, we found a lovely note on our door from the city, letting us know we needed a permit to do any more work on the house. We submitted about 2 1/2 weeks ago and are now in WAIT mode before anything else can proceed.

Mark has  the demo crew and everyone lined up at the starting gate and we're all waiting to be able to pull the trigger on the gun.

Once that happens... everything should be under way with much more exciting things to report!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Enjoy your families and friends.  I'm truly thankful for mine!

With Gratitude until the next post...

4th of July weekend

I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend along with their indepencence!
What a gorgeous one! But I'm EXHAUSTED! We were able to spend the entire weekend working at the house. Dad and Connie came out and we spent all day Sat/Sun/Mon working.
Let's see....
Outside we: cut the lilac bushes back from the deck so they're not a wild mess anymore. Cut back all of the dead branches off the apple trees. Wow, they look so much better! The deck got a power-wash and is ready for a new set of stain. We saved a few pine trees that some nasty vines were choking. The entrance to the drive was cut back so we can now see when exiting (very important!) and the driveway was blown clean. Oh, and of course... the lawn was mowed.

Inside: The last bit of carpeting left in the house came out, trim was taken off all of the doors, paneling taken off walls, tiles came up off of the floor and all of the electrical outlets were taken off (that was my job....BORING!). The oven and refrigerator got a good cleaning and may actually be repurposed now!

Thor came up last night and will work on more demo this week... that'll be GREAT!

All of the quotes from the subcontractors are FINALLY in, so we need to crunch the numbers and see where we're at...

It's coming along!!!

Bank approved... waiting for numbers...

Haven't posted in awhile. We're pulling numbers for the loan. We've been approved through underwriting. Next step is to submit all of the bids and get the appraisal!

We've had some great help from friends, co-workers and family along the way.

For any of them stopping by to read the blog... THANK YOU!!!!
We truly appreciate everything you have done.

Now, let's get that money and get to business!!!!!!

Dumpster!

Well, today the dumpster was delivered! That means the bathtub, kitchen sink and matress that are in the yard can now be thrown away... Yay!
Sometimes it's the little things...

Running Water!

We finally got a plumber out to fix the last leaky pipe! The water is up and running and the upstairs bathroom is completely functional! Great news, because tomorrow we have someone coming out to look at the basement bathroom and we can start ripping that apart and getting it repaired.

It will be so nice to be out at the house and not have to drive somewhere to go to the bathroom! (Guys are so lucky...)

So, this is what we'll have to live with for awhile. Looks like heaven to me right now!

Month One- The Official "Before" Pictures

The garbage is gone!
The first couple of weeks were spent just removing garbage from the home and getting rid of most of the old carpeting. Wow! What a difference it's already made.
OK, in keeping an open mind... I'm posting the "before" pictures.
We have an idea of where we want it to go, but we're still in a bit of shock! There's so much to do.

Front of house

Basement fireplace and entrance into bathroom

Basement shower... EWWWW!

Current "entrance" to house

Laundry room

Stairs to basement

Kitchen

More kitchen

living room with fireplace

So... ALL of this will change... but the one thing that will stay the same...

THE VIEW!!

Will update as soon as we know our next steps!

Week One- Introduction

A brief history of how we found our way into the Renovated Life.

My fiance and I had been eyeing a piece of property that was for sale a few miles from where we lived.  We loved the land, but at it's initial list price, was a bit outside our budget for a remodel. A couple of months later, the house became a short sale and a month after that the price was drastically reduced.  It was a long shot it would be accepted, we knew, but at that price, we could afford (barely) our current home and also the mortgage on what could become a home to renovate into our "dream home". We put in an offer. At this point, the story takes a strange series of twists, turns, ups, downs and loop de loops.  Instead of boring you with the details, I will just say that after 6 months of strong negotiations with banks, Realtors, appraisers, MORE banks and on the rare occasion, my finance (sorry honey), we finally closed on our new project and what would become, our new lifestyle... The Renovated Life.