Day 78 - Dry Wall

Right when we were leaving this morning (6:45am), I noticed a flat bed truck drive by, heading east, with a huge load of dry wall on it. I knew this week they were supposed to deliver the dry wall, but I didn't think anything of it. Then, as we were pulling out of the drive way, the same truck sped past the house, going west.

As we caught up with the truck after our u-turn, they too, performed another u-turn and started heading east again. They pulled over and stopped to check addresses presumably. Andi and I both stopped (in separate cars) and thought that maybe they were looking for our house. Well, we just assumed they would eventually find their way.

They must have found their way, because when we came home, there were walls! Dust too. There are little white foot prints all over the house and dust every where. I imagine the dust will only increase after they mud and sand. However, right now it's looking like it's shaping up rather quickly. Who knows what will happen tomorrow, if anything.
Here's the back door/mudroom.




















The new eating area.














Looking east towards drive way. This will be the majority of cabinets, sink, stove and island.

Living Room Pictures

Here are pics from our painting project on Friday. The light and table are going at some point; we need an area rug, new throw pillows, install the cellular shades; move some furniture and not all the pictures are hung. But, for the most part, everything is done now.

Day 76

We got installation earlier this week (Wednesday) and, well, that's it. I've been told drywall should be expected next week. I guess with the crazy amount of rain that we've gotten in the last week that we got gutters before the drops began to fall. I'm getting anxious for this to get done.

Last week I got it in my head that I was going to get the living room painted and done. We taped at night and during naps (we aren't all that great at painting, taping is necessary and we do it in excess). Friday the boys spent the day with my parents and I painted. Brian came home early and we were pretty much done by bed time. The furniture has been rearranged and it looks awesome. We are so pleased. Tonight we hung the new curtains and I love it. It won't be completely done until we can move the table into the new kitchen and move (or sell) the hutch (haven't made a decision yet on that one), purchase a new area rug, and hang pictures. Most of that won't be done until the kitchen is done.

Day 71

Oh my God...are we ever going to finish this? Our timeline was three months. In nineteen days we will be at day 90; that's three months in my book.

While not having a kitchen hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought (we've only eaten out twice as a result of not having a kitchen!) I'm getting really tired of not parking the cars in the garage, crappy backyard, walking through plastic every time we go outside or downstairs, cleaning food out of the bathtub after washing dishes, using plastic silverware and paper plates, not knowing if people are going to be working or not, oh the list could go on and on...

I just want my house back.

On the flip side of all of this, there are a few things that I have enjoyed about this process. Whatever they did during the sump pump/water drama last week caused our sump pump to become almost totally silent (which it's supposed to be). We actually were getting a little concerned because we hadn't heard it go off and it's rained for almost four days straight. Upon inspection, it was working exactly like it should! The other little perk has been in our basement washtub. There was something weird with the pipes and faucet. Whenever we ran the water everything would shake and it would spit the water out in spurts. We tried bleeding the lines and never worked. Since the water was rarely run it was a problem that had not been addressed. I was rinsing something a week or so ago and realized there was no shaking. It was working like you'd expect it to. The plumber had been here but I have no idea what he did or what he was working on. Whatever it was impacted our possessed pipes going to the washtub.

Gotta keep looking for the positives!

Day 67 - Less drama

Not too much to update here, other than they broke through the basement and it's finally dry. They broke through the floor and connected the new basement to another drain tile in the old basement. This time they were able to drain everything and as soon as they did it, the sump pump started filling up and working overtime. Even with all of the rain we've had this weekend, the basement has managed to stay dry.

Now all they need to do is plug the hole.


















On Thursday, the siding people came over and....yup, you guessed it, they sided. Looks nice doesn't it? Everything blended so well together.

Day 65 - More drama

Today they came over and put up the gutters. Those are no fun and I don't know if you really want to see pictures of gutters. I also noticed (only this morning) they put up part of the ventilation duct for the stove. However, the whole thing isn't complete, it's only partially installed. They also cleaned up the pile of rubble and pumped out some more water from the new basement.

That leads us to the drama. For a long time Andi and I have been asking about the basement water. On no more than four separate occasions from four separate people, they all basically said "it's because you don't have gutters." Even the people who put up the gutters said that to Andi. I guess I didn't realize the importance of gutters. Still, we were both skeptical.

Then we get home last night and there's a message on the machine from Rick (from the OAR group.) "It's Rick, just wanted to let you know that we were there today, and we were testing your sump pump, pouring water into it. So if you see water around don't worry. There's something not right about your drain tile. It doesn't seem to be working correctly. We'll be there tomorrow to look some more."

(In George Costanza voice) AH-HA! We knew it. We knew something was wrong, but nobody wanted to believe us. Well, the contract we signed indicated a sump pump to be installed in the new basement anyway. We'll see what happens. Look for an update.

It is Day 64...

Before...should have thought to take the picture before we started painting.
New color! North Hampton Putty
Still playing around with odds and ends to decorate with but I think a new toilet is in order...don't you Brian?

7-10 days our new counter top will be in and can be installed with our new sink.

New back door

Bathroom window is ready to be covered up.

Hanging out in the new closet

A lot has been going on and today we had the electrical inspection. Tomorrow is the rough plumbing inspection and once we get the go ahead installation drywalling can start!