The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Remember how I ended my last blog entry with the words, I LOVE this? Well, not every day is total love. I keep telling myself that its going to get worse before it gets better. 


The Good:

• Progress 
• The cabinets are in and being housed in the warehouse until we are ready. Exciting!
• I chose and ordered  all the drawer pulls and knobs. I never thought THAT would be fun.
• I visited the stone warehouse and picked out a remnant piece for the master bath. There were so many cool pieces of stone to see!
• The pendant lights and an entry light have arrived. Industrial chic coolness.
• I bought all the tile for the entryway and love the petrified wood look. 
• I bought a cool little dresser that we will use for the powder room vanity with a vessel sink. (Dang, I better buy a sink)
• Our house is going to be electrically safe after all the new wiring that has been put in:)
• The creative freedom that Master Dave and Bruce are willing to give me when figuring out issues. Gotta LOVE that. They already can read the 'look' on my face when I am marinating on an idea.

The Bad:

• The continuing horrible electrical stuff that they keep finding. I am not an electrician by ANY means, but even I can see that what was done is BAD stuff. This could surely be listed in the 'good' category as well because it is being addressed.
• I encouraged Roger to meet with Jason, electrician and wiring extraordinaire, to go over the Sonos system stuff. Okay, let's just say that the quote went up from what I wanted...guy stuff.

The Ugly:

• That every single room in the entire house has been touched by this renovation. When I see Bruce heading downstairs with his saw I just need to take a deep breath. 
•  Our house is going back on the market after Christmas. Yay.
• When I have to talk through stuff from the project and my Rog just stares at my face.

You will see that the 'good' list is longer than the others. Bring on the inspectors and drywall. I am thankful for such wonderful craftsmen that I have on my team. Every visit they put up with my snarky comments and snort laugh. 

Bruce, seriously, put down the saw!

More pics next time.

Master Dave: part 8

The Rock: Part Eight

So, as Julie just wrote, she and Rog have been inundated with decisions about things which most of us don’t think about or take for granted—location of lights and switches, which way should the door swing, etc.  We were asking questions to avoid the “oops” moments later. 

For instance:  what are you doing for a vanity mirror? Julie wanted two mirrors, both centered over their respective sinks.  Lighting was going to be two sconces on either side of each mirror.  Following the plan, we would have ended up with room for three and a half sconces in order to maintain the centering and spacing. Solution was to plan on moving the vanities down the wall a bit, and building the wall a few inches longer to accommodate the move, not a big deal at all right now, but virtually impossible later. I think Bruce caught that one, but brainstorming leaves us all exhausted and wondering where the solution came from.

Probably the hardest thing for both Julie and Roger was to deal with the myriad of decisions Jason, our electrician from WER Electric (shameless plug), needed to fully customize each room for their particular needs—a difficult task considering they’ve never lived in the house.  “Is the couch going here…or here? ‘Cause I need to put a floor outlet in, and then there’s the lighting…and did you want one or two switches controlling these lights?  I can separate them, y’know.  Or did you want a remote, I can put it here…”  They both looked over at Bruce and I several times, and we just giggled, and shrugged.

We are officially in the rough-in stage, and we should be done with the framing, but we are not, so each trade can only go so far until we rush over, stick a wall up then sprint to the next place.  There were lots of time-consuming details associated with the structural beams, and have been playing catch up ever since.  I think today, the 15^th, we’ll have all the walls up and done.  The plumbers look to be done having located a new drain for the kitchen and completely new everything in the bathroom.  Jason’s guys have pulled more than 5000 feet of new wire in replacing everything upstairs and adding what I just head counted as 40 recessed cans—I’m probably off b y a few. The mechanical guys have a few details to complete, but…

We’re hoping to call for inspections tomorrow, but it’s snowing like crazy out there, so it’s hard to say who will show up and when.

NOTE: Inspections have been called for today, the 17^th BUT we were looking at the drywall in the bedroom and thought it a good idea to remove it—there were cracks and holes and hey, let’s just start off anew, do a little prep for the drywall sub, etc.  We immediately found the reason for the cracks: whoever installed the bay windows (and I’m going to hunt you down) decided that headers weren’t that important, so they cut part of the original 2 x 12 header at the door and cobbled in a 2 x 6 header across the window.  Then they “forgot” to nail it to a stud, so there’s essentially nothing holding up a five foot section of ceiling and roof except drywall.  And, I guess if you’re going to go to that kind of trouble, you should bury a junction box in the wall by taping it over and pretending it was never there.

We’ll try to fix that this morning, before the inspector shows up—it’s a gray area for the inspector as it’s nothing we’ve touched or done, and therefore not subject to his review, but it’s not right and we all know it. And it’ll give us a chance to dismember the other bird’s nest right next to the framing gaffe.  It’s a big one!

Master Dave: part 7

The Rock: Framing part 1 

The hardest part about the framing requirements based on the design will be coming up this week: lifting each portion of each header up and into the ceiling. The second hardest part was getting them into the house! 
Lumber was delivered on Tuesday: 2 x 4’s were stacked in the garage, and the beam materials were left outside until we hauled them in on Wednesday. With snow looming on the weather reports, we were pressed to get everything inside. When our hard working hand, Mike, called in sick, the two old men looked at each other and said, “Nope.” We commandeered my son, Cameron, and Julie’s youngest, Audie, for some muscle! 
Each beam consists of three individual LVL (laminated veneer lumber). They are all 16” tall by 1 ¾” thick, heavy and unwieldy. Beam one is going in the kitchen and is 24’ long—the three components went in the front door and were leaned against the soon-to-be-removed kitchen wall. The dining room header is 18’ long, and they slid through the garage entry and found a home against the chimney chase. The bedroom beam is 28’ long and presented a problem: in addition to being the longest and heaviest, it had to go through the front bedroom window, in and through the house, out the back door, then back in as it cleared a bathroom wall before the trio found a home. Happily done before noon! 
We started on the middle wall between the kitchen and living room as it’s the only one we have final engineering for. We built temporary walls to support the ceiling and rafters above, then we cut out the kitchen wall. We marked our lines for where the new beam would go and started cutting the joists back. We also cut a hole in the drywall in the entry—we’ll push each LVL up and through before threading it back onto the post in the opposite wall. It’ll be heavier than it will be complicated, and we hope to have them all installed, and all the framing walls in, by the end of next week. We’ll see!

Hey, what's that under there? UNDER WEAR?!

Am I a decent decision maker? You betcha. But by the end of last week I was tapped out and couldn't even decide what shoes to wear. To say that things are picking up speed on the project is an understatement. The demolition was exciting, but now walls are taking form, wires being pulled and plumbing plumbed. 
    The feat of placing the enormous beams was a whopper of day for the guys. With the hands of a couple young bucks (my Audie and Dave's son Cameron) the triple beams were lifted into place. The new structural beams were deemed necessary after a structural engineer inspected the roof and found not-to-code issues that made me worried about a big storm coming and the roof crashing in! We are good to go and safe.

You can see one of the beams on the floor waiting it's turn.  The plastic on the ceiling covers where the kitchen beam went in and supports the roof were the wall used to be.

     The framing has begun with new discoveries. A board with 'built in 1969' and a name was found. Pretty cool!  Dave and I are compiling a time capsule with objects from this project  to hide behind the kick plate in the kitchen. Some day after Rog and I are long gone some new homeowner will renovate my kitchen and find all the things that have made this house special. Speaking of things that make this house special...the eggs were deemed to be wood pecker eggs after Audie (who LOVES birds) found the patched hole in the siding where mama woodpecker worked very diligently to make a  place for her nest only to get the shaft when it was patched with her 6 eggs inside. Just glad they aren't snake eggs! Last week's discovery made me giggle and laugh when the picture and commentary came via text from Dave.  Picture this: at some time during this house's history a rather sizable guy was reframing the garage entry and ran out of insulation. What to do? Well, I guess rather than make a run to the hardware store I'll just take off my tightie whities and stuff them in the hole. See photos :

BIG dude. Size 44

Stuff them right in the crack. (That was a funny!)

The electricians have been pulling new wires throughout the entire top level after finding old wiring that was to scary to reuse. The canned lights were being placed and Jason, Mr. Electrician, was hammering me with decisions. "Julie, where does this switch go? How many cans here? Where does your TV hang? How many plugs in the floor? " Holy cow. Decisions were made and all the cans are in.

You can see the start of the island. 

Let there be light.

The basement is all painted and new doors are hung. Thanks to son #2, Cooper, for coming and spending the day helping dad. Rog and I still have the bathroom downstairs to tackle. Tile is our next project before we can set the new AWESOME vanity.

This is the original doorbell cover that I am
keeping.  Working my magic with a little paint so far...

Gotta have some flavor in this beige world.

We are getting excited as this place transforms right under our noses. It's a fun, noisy place to visit during the day because of the amazing crew that we have. Not everyone is cut out for this type of project, I LOVE it! 

Master Dave-part 6 Demolition complete

The Rock: Demolition final 

We left off last installment getting ready to clear out the drywall and framing in the bathroom, and the detective work continued. There were the now-familiar wiring glitches leading us to wonder if the vision statement for the previous remodelers was “What you can’t see won’t hurt…much.” Buried wires and connections, wires pulled between framing members instead of through them—just a host of little things that left us scratching our heads and wondering why that would ever be okay. As my partner in crime, Bruce, constantly reminds me, “Don’t ask. You’ll never figure it out.”
The framing gave us a few clues as to what the bed and bath floor plan may have looked like in it’s original configuration—the original framing consisted of a double top plate (two 2 x 4’s), and the drywall was butted to the framing. The newer walls were framed with a single top plate and then installed over the existing drywall. We’ve noted a number of instances where the double top plates have been cut and removed, and leaving us wondering just how many structural issues this may have created.
The plumbing drains were exposed in the floor beneath the old spa tub, and they were predictably messy. The house is old enough to have originally used copper drain and vent lines, but these have been cobbled together with two different types of “plastic” pipe—ABS (black) and PVC (white)—with hose and pipe clamps of varying sizes to the various drain locations.
The shower was a “how-to” in what not to do in pouring a pan. Note that to pour a shower pan takes some effort, so why they didn’t do it right the first time boggles the mind. Typically, a pan requires two separate concrete or mortar pours sandwiching a waterproof membrane. The first pour establishes a slope toward the drain; the membrane goes next, usually with a coat of roofing tar under it both as a glue for the membrane and also a redundant water proofing characteristic; then the final pour as the tile underlayment. The thought is that if any water gets under the tile and the underlayment, it then hits the membrane and drains into “weep holes” in the drain. This one? Membrane stapled to the plywood floor, sloped pour and tile. Water got under the tile, under the sloped pour and just sat on the membrane. And festered. Eww!
As our final planned demolition events, we are removing the bearing walls and replacing them with beams and, as we cut down the kitchen wall, we again saw evidence of framing that was removed without regard to the structural intent of the original building. We topped off our second demolition dumpster with a shake of the head and acknowledged a new meaning to Thanksgiving!!

Discoveries

Week two of demolition has uncovered some goodies. More walls have come down and each day when I arrive there are little ditties to share. A 1978  CR phone book was encased in the kitchen wall and today a sweet little nest of eggs was discovered in the bathroom wall! How mama bird found her way to behind the drywall and in the insulation we will never know. I'm pretty sure the eggs are old. OF COURSE, I am keeping them. I love stuff like that! Its. not. weird.

Where is my mother?

The original structure of the house is slowly becoming evident. Dave has figured out where the several additions have been added and where the stairs originally went to the basement. A cool brick wall was found in one area - it was the original back of the garage and where the present dining room was added. Not sure if we will expose it. It would take sand blasting and a ton of work!
I have been slowly painting in the basement. Rog and I will tackle more this weekend. My car has become full of paint cans, supplies, Home Depot bags & receipts, and Stan's stuff as he accompanies me on my work days.
Hardwood flooring will be ordered soon as well a plumbing fixtures. I picked out some sweet mercury glass pendants for over the island. Cabinets will arrive mid December.

Our GC, aka The Master, Dave hard at work.

The lovely tub and shelf are already gone:)

Did we buy this house?? Hell yes. It's gonna be awesome. 

This is a labor of love that will evolve over time. 

How did this get here?? I asked Rog if I could get chickens for the yard and he answered, "Absolutely not".  Maybe a couple goats then... Wait till I drop that bomb on him!! (If you know Rog, you know I will NEVER win!)

And no...the house has still not sold. God has a plan and its a good one.

Master Dave -part 5

The Rock

As Julie noted, the hammer’s are out! The behind the scenes stuff included the permit process, the planning and ordering, coordinating the subs and, finally, getting us to finish the kitchen we were working on.  With a couple of dead days in the schedule, we started on Monday…and the dumpster was full by Wednesday.  Demolition is grunt work, but it’s also like being a detective—once the drywall comes off, the house reveals the many changes it’s received over the years, some good, some not so good.

We believe the kitchen could very well have been in what is now being called the living room—that was Roger’s  guess and I’m starting to come around.  The framing in the kitchen revealed a huge window opening that had been framed in recently by the look of the lumber, and there’s no way the sink would have been against the window.  There is glue directly on the subfloor, indicating old vinyl flooring had been there once.  We think the stairs were moved when they swapped the kitchen, and that they added the dining room (and lower bedroom) at some point based on the roof framing and the “solutions” the previous contractor’s came up with…note, I just hit the sarcasm font.

The demolition is also revealing some pretty shoddy electrical work which will all be fixed as we continue.  We would typically remove a 4’ swath of drywall around the perimeter of the kitchen, but because of things we were finding in the wall we were going to remove, we decided to remove all the drywall…BINGO, we found a number of open splices  stuffed in there.  This will keep us all vigilant moving forward.  I can say with confidence many of the changes  in the house were never permitted and were not done by professionals, regardless of what their business cards may have said.

Today we start on the master bath and bedroom—wonder what surprises are in store for us there!

Scary wiring like this has been found. Yikes!

And we're off!

After a long time waiting the first hammer was swung this past Monday at the Rock house! During this blog hiatus there have been many decisions and plans made that seem insignificant to most, but crucial to the project. For instance, picking out tile, shopping for lighting, ordering cabinets, etc seems premature but in reality these things have to be ordered and ready to go before the demolition starts. Ordering cabinetry is a fine art. My kitchen designer, Betsy Goldstein from Kitchens by Wedgewood led me through the process of choosing cabinets sizes, crown molding height, roll outs, and island design. All things I have never given much thought to as I putz around my own kitchen. 

Meanwhile, Rog and I have been tackling the basement ourselves. We had a drywall guy come in and re-texture the entire basement, add rounded corners, and repair some icky spots in the drywall. The lovely bathroom down there had popcorn ceiling AND walls that had been painted over, so it was quite an eyesore. We rented a paint sprayer and applied all the primer and painted the ceilings. It kinda scared us when the paint hit a light bulb and it blew up:) I wore my sweet green bandana on my head to keep the 'do clean, but Rog forged ahead without and ended up looking 80 years old at the end of the day. He blew white crap out of his nose for 24 hours. Who needs Dr Neilmed?
I have begun painting down there and hope to have it finished in December. 
Now...the good stuff. The upstairs flooring has been torn out, the wall is out and all the kitchen cabinets and appliance are gone!! If anyone needs a white electric stove, come and get it. Shout out to Bruce, Dave and Mike for all the hard work. A BIG dumpster out front is about half full after one day. It was so exciting to walk in and see how open and different it will be. Check out the in progress pictures:

Looking towards wall before. Notice the hardwood floor.

After; wall is gone! The kitchen was in a room by itself. All flooring was removed.

The is where the frig was...

Frig was on the wall that was removed. Cabinets are in the dumpster!

The soffit above all the cabinets has been removed so the new cabinets will go all the way to the ceiling.

My guy working in the basement. He looks so thrilled..
Our house has not sold which Rog says is a blessing cuz we would be living in the construction zone.  So true. This week will be spent ordering flooring and painting. Thank goodness for Pandora and some rockin stations that get me thru my private time with a paint roller! #crashtestdummies #Gloveandspecialsauce #Sublime

Words from Master Dave: part four

Contractor to the House under the Rock: Part four 

From the contracting side of things, there’s been a little progress over the past week. The electrical panel is scheduled to be replaced next Friday at a cost not too far off the estimate I gave several weeks ago. I was worried that I had grossly miscalculated based on what my electrician was going to have to do, but after working through his estimate, it was apparent he had included many items for the kitchen and master suite upgrade. It should take him about a day to swap everything out, and it’ll put us in a great position to bring the rest of the house up to standards. 

Rebecca met with the structural engineer on Tuesday, and he is drawing up his plans for us and for the city. This also frees Rebecca up to design some spaces around what he considered key areas in the house—“…don’t move this…” and “…leave that alone if you can…” type of instructions. The best part is that we are one step closer to having a stamped set of recommendations for how we are going to accomplish the eventual floor plan, and one step closer to having something we can estimate. 

I’ll let Julie describe her shopping sprees, but I know she’s made some decisions on appliances and plumbing fixtures, all good progress. I hadn’t heard from Roger because he hates me—this is waaay too slow for him. I did look at his deck railing, however (news to him!) and have a fairly easy band aid fix to get him through the next several months, or at least until he gets a budget together to figure out how far to take the deck and railing. 
I got all my paperwork into the town of Castle Rock, so now I are a licensed contractor. In Colorado, every municipality has it’s own requirements for contractors which is both frustrating and expensive. In Douglas County, for instance, proof of insurance and a fee of $250 makes you a licensed contractor. (It should be noted that the license fee has been revoked by the county for the time being—perhaps making it easier to get permits?) Castle Rock requires the same insurance, but also a valid license in any other municipality requiring a test. Oh, and another $150. You know…for luck. Aurora tests, but does reciprocate with Denver, who also tests. But Denver doesn’t reciprocate with Aurora, so…well, you get the picture. 
Next step is drawings, estimates and submission to the city…

Pieces of the Puzzle

The process of the remodel is new to us. There are some many pieces of the puzzle that it takes to get to the initial swing of the hammer and big picture. Don't let the HGTV shows deceive you; it takes way longer than 30 minutes to design, plan, budget, permit, demolish, and build!

 With that said, there have been things happening in the process and we keep getting one step closer to that 'initial hammer swing.' I have been working closely with our designer, Rebecca Musielak of 303 Development. She is a gem and has gotten to know my quirky personality and what kind of style that I like. We have shopped for appliances and plumbing already. Little did I understand that you can't order kitchen cabinets until you choose the appliances. Seems backward to me, but I comprehend it now! Gotta make sure that beautiful stove will fit in the space that we allotted for it with the cabinets.
 I chose my gas range, stainless refrigerator, convection microwave, dishwasher and wall hood. Rebecca came along to Specialty Appliance and walked me through the pros and cons of different options. Next came the plumbing. We went to a showroom of all things plumbing. Doesn't sound that exciting, right? Well it was! I decided on the tub, faucets, sinks, towel rods, and wait for it.....the toilet. 
Rog and I met with Rebecca last week to finalize the design on paper. The structural engineer has been to the house to inspect the walls that are coming out. The wall between the kitchen and great room IS a structural wall, so that will be a big part of the planning. There will be a big beam added to support the roof when that wall comes out. We sat and poured over four designs that she presented to us; all with different options. We got more and more excited as we pictured what our house will eventually become! We combined elements from the designs and came  up with the final design. As I said, one step closer. The reclaimed wood on the island that will be custom colored, the fireplace in the master bedroom, exposed brick on the original fireplace stack, industrial pipe shelving  in the kitchen-we can't wait!
Rebecca has sent the design off to Dave to review. Dave will have a trade walk thru with the sub contractors this week to present the design for their bids. He will also (I think) apply for the permit with the city. The city has to have the final design plans before issuing a permit, so I am hoping that will come soon. We are having a little 'Before Party' as soon as Dave gets us a start date. Then will follow with an 'After Party' to reveal all the magic.
Meanwhile, I visit the house every day to do little projects on the outside. l got the fountain working in the back. I think her name will be Aquafina (thanks Kim K). I raked and shoveled rock out of an area in the front so I could add some plants before fall comes. Let me say that raking rocks really STINKS! The list continues with things to do.

Before (its bigger than it looks!!)

After

Gus loves Aquafina.

Words from Master Dave

Contractor to the House under the Rock: Blog three

This week will be a departure for my version of Julie’s blog: I’m writing it without seeing hers first.  My goal is to write strictly about where the process is from my view point.

At this point, we are in the planning and budgeting phase.  Although I have preliminary drawings for the kitchen, I have nothing defining the spaces in the rest of the house.  Again, we are starting with the idea that walls now governing the kitchen, master bed and bath, laundry and more, are either going to be moved or removed, and the rooms reconfigured to work better than they do now.  Until I have a plan, however, I can’t begin to create a budget.

Flash the camera toward Roger:  budgeting and planning projects is what he does for a living, and in order to do so, he needs the entire scope of the job in front of him, complete with estimates of labor and materials.  He doesn’t want to get too far into the kitchen without knowing what costs are going to be incurred in the other phases.  Makes sense, right?  But the process is slow planning a remodel versus what he’s used to in road building, and I fear it will frustrate him.

Now to Julie: She’s doing great at assimilating all of the design information being tossed in her direction.  She is on “shopping” duty as she meets with Rebecca regarding appliances and plumbing fixtures, and has picked out a cabinet style and finish with Betsy.  At the same time, she’s readying her other house to hit the market—busy girl, for sure!

So, since last week, selections have been made regarding the kitchen cabinet; I’ve received an estimate for replacing the electrical panel and bringing everything up to the current code requirements; I have the preliminary plans for the kitchen that I use to begin the estimate process; we are scheduling a meeting with the structural engineer next week to see what we’ll have to do to make the preliminary floor plan work.

Also next week, I’ll be looking at the upper deck and railing.  Seems Roger and Julie were out there last Friday and the railing was less-than secure, as in, “Yipes!”  I’ll leave one section loose for Julie to use on Roger if she needs to…just our little secret!