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!

The Waiting Game

It is hard to contain excitement and anticipation with a big healthy dose of patience. So we wait. Wait for bids, budget and permits. The ball is slowing gaining momentum.  As we wait for the first swing of the hammer I thought I would answer a few questions that I have gotten from friends and family.

First, a little about us. Roger and I will have our 29th anniversary this summer (and are still crazy about one another), have three grown and super cool sons, we coach and direct a high school mountain bike team in Highlands Ranch, Co, at one point we had 18 bikes in the garage, Rog works in the heavy construction industry, and I am the wearer of many hats- artist, always mom, former teacher, team manager, boss of everyone. Plus I think I am funny...just ask me.

• You're moving AGAIN? Why? 
• With Roger's job of 28 years we had the opportunity to live in different cities and even Texas for two years. With every move we made great friends & neighbors! Do we get attached to houses? Not really. Home is where our stuff is. With that said, we are downsizing to a place for Rog and I to stay for a while. Our current house is too big. Who wants to clean it? Not me. There will always be room for our guys to come home...maybe even eventually bring some gals around.
• Why would you sell your really nice home and buy a 45 year old house??
• Cuz we want to. We love a challenge! We didn't have to buy a house that was in the 'right  school feeder area' or neighborhood. We picked it for its unique flavor and potential. Plus we can ride our bikes down to the beer garden downtown Castle Rock; how awesome is that?
• How many houses have you lived in?
• This will be our 8th house. We have bought/sold four of them from the same realtor that we LOVE. Seriously, if you need to get it done then call Vanessa Holmes of Your Castle Real Estate. She is a gem. 

  

  View of the rock from the backyard.

  
  

  

  Pikes Peak in the distance.

  
  

  

  One of my sweet boys:)
  
  Our current home goes on the market on Monday. Holy crap, I better spit shine this place this weekend!!! Keeping fingers crossed for a quick and painless sale.