house update

It's been awhile since I posted updates on the remodel mainly because progress has been steadily at the pace of a turtle. We've had sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much rain, but still, lots of the work is indoors, so that excuse is pretty much lame.

The main change to the front of the house is the dormer. Before, the house had a Cape-Cod look with 3 dormers. We combined the 3 into one, which really gave us more space upstairs plus I like this look so much.

It's hard to see from this photo, but I got my cedar shakes. They are so pretty. The lumber guy tried to talk us into hardee shakes (the same cast material as the siding), but I wasn't going for it. I wanted cedar all the way.

Also hard to see from this photo is the metal roof on the dormer. Boy, we went round and round on that decision. Lots of talk about standing seam vs. screw on.... Lots of money difference between the two as well. We ended up going with screw on because we found a roofer who would guarantee it not to leak. There's advantages to the standing seam, but for us, it just wasn't worth the cost. If you have any questions about it, I'm competently educated on the matter so feel free to ask in the comments section below.


This is the left side of the house. We changed the windows in the kitchen (the row of 4 on the left) and added some in the laundry room (the 2 on the right). In all, I'm very happy with our window exchange. Originally, we didn't think we'd have to replace the windows, but so many of them had broken seals and likely the ones without the broken seals were soon to follow, so we took the plunge with these casement windows by Sun. They offered a huge deal, and we were happy to help them out with a sale.


This is the right side of the house. See how we bumped out the master bath and added a window (actually we added 2 windows, but the other isn't visible from this angle).

You can also see the painting in progress here and the beautiful maple tree (I'm right, right? It is maple?).


This was also taken from the right side of the house. Just another view that shows the back porch and the area we added next to the garage. The wood door you see and small window are the mud-room and a bathroom that's extremely accessible to the outdoors. I think that will come in handy for sure!


Another rear-view shot. The smaller windows in the corner of the house and garage are the breakfast area. We're going to have a banquette there. Already, I'm loving the light in there.


The last outdoor shot, I wanted to show you our paint colors and stonework. So happy to replace plastic lattice and concrete blocks with this stone. Who cares if it's fake stick-on stone? It's better than plastic lattice, right?

Don't rain on my parade, okay. I like the look.


This photo is of the breakfast area into the kitchen. I totally spooked G when I took this photo. He was listening to his iPod and cleaning and all of a sudden, there I was with the flash going off. LOVE scaring him!


Here's my kitchen after the plugs on the chimney were moved to the appropriate place. Man, you wouldn't think you have to sit on top of bricklayers and tell them where to put each brick, but apparently with ours, I had to. They were there to fix the fireplace (remember the drywall-stuck-to-mortar-mold-issue?). They took off all the drywall and added another layer of brick to even it up a bit. To keep with code, we had to put outlets in the wall (silly government rules), since it was part of the kitchen, so I told them to put these outlets the same height as the others in the room. Seems logical, right? Well, not so much. When we came back on Saturday to check out their work, they had placed the outlets two full bricks higher than the other outlets in the room. Oh my! It looked so odd. Luckily, they came back on Sunday and fixed it, so I could sleep that night and not worry about it any more.


I finally like my entry. Instead of the solid door, I have light coming in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plus, the walls/columns are equi-distance from the front door. My mind is so symmetrical, that having an off-center door, just isn't a good thing.


Here's another shot of the dining and entry way. You can see the wall is gone, so the area looks so much more open. I'm loving it already!

At the end of the hall, in between the kitchen and dining room, is my laundry room. Ah....so much light! We have some real interesting tile planned for here. I can't wait to show you!


Now to the master bath. You can see the two windows we added. The clawfoot tub will sit in between them. Then on the right where the purple board is, will be our shower.


Another shot of where the tub will sit. Right now it's in a crate in the garage, just waiting for it's new home.


A shot of the sink area in the master bath. We'll have his & her's sinks on opposite sides. Then, the toilet will be behind the doorway that you see there.

Friends...Let me tell you. If you want a happy marriage, you need a toilet behind a door in your master bath. Just trust me.


Now a shot of what you see when you enter the bath from the master bedroom. Straight ahead is the closet. To the left is the tub and shower. To the right are the sinks and toilet.


I'm omitting showing you the bedrooms, because frankly at this stage, they just look boring. So, onto the upstairs guest bath (the hall bath upstairs was too dark to photograph).

Here's the sink area. I have something special going here. Oh, and the tile. Just wait till you see the tile. This was the only real area I splurged with tile and it's the perfect spot to do it in. It's the guest bath, so it will look nice and impress the guests. AND, it's the smallest bathroom in the house, so it justified the per-foot-price.


The black hole on the right is where the shower will be and next to the window is the sink area you see above.


This room was a bedroom with 2 dormers. Opening it up made it big enough to become a TV and game room. I can tell this will be one of the most used rooms in the house.


The only thing I don't like about the room is there's only one way to arrange the furniture and it looks like I'm going to have to get a sectional. I don't necessarily mind sectionals, but I don't like being forced into getting one either. Oh well. Lots of people have it much worse than I, right?


This is one of my favorite areas of the house. Before this landing at the top of the stairs was a very narrow walkway with an attic on the left. We decided to knock out the wall and open it up a bit and make the space more usable. You can see the exposed chimney and a support post in front of it (boy would I have liked it so much better if we didn't have that, but it would have cost a whole lot more money to remove it, plus we would have had to cut a hole in the side of the house to bring it in.). Anyway, a book case will go in the in-between spot and a desk to the right with 2 places to sit.


To the left of the chimney will be a bookcase and magazine rack. I'm super-excited about that.


Well, I've shown you the most interesting places in the house so far. Let me know what you think.