Addition!!!

Ok, I know it's been WAAAAY too long since I posted anything, but here I am again, with great news. Most people who read this blog already know pretty much the state of things (which is part of why it's so easy to neglect posting) but most of you haven't SEEN the latest, so here goes. Since many of you also haven't seen the previous few stages, I'm going to take the advice of Mary Poppins, a very wise woman: "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start"

The beginning: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go into the archives and read about the hassle we had getting a variance for this thing, and look at the floor plans. :D

The hole:



The footing:
(too bad they poured the fireplace footing WAY too big, so there's like 2 feet of concrete hanging out past the chimney foundation, and they didn't pour the wall footing quite wide enough so the wall is sitting RIGHT at the very edge... but oh well, the inspector didn't care)


The foundation:Now we're getting somewhere! Actual construction! This was very exciting, and I'm happy to say that despite a dubious job on the concrete work, the brick is very well done. This was a little stressful in addition to being exciting, because the foundation LOOKED really small compared to the vision in my head. Foundations ALWAYS look smaller than you expect, but it was still unnerving.


The new condenser:
Even though I'm totally not an Air Conditioning person, having it down here where it's regularly in the 90's or 100's for weeks or more at a stretch during the summer is pretty important. Our old condenser was barely big enough for the house without the addition, and it was also in pretty rough shape. So here's the shiny, new (BIG) 4 ton unit.


The First Floor:
They framed the first floor Wednesday (unfortunately had to redo a lot of it Thursday, since they framed all the window openings the exact size of the windows) and then Thursday they closed it in and covered it with the second floor. I think Jeff's body language says it all.


And finally, drumroll please......

The Living Room!
Because of the way the existing house is framed, we needed a pretty substantial beam to hold up the outside wall of the house. To put the second floor on, they needed to put the beam in, and to do that they had to break through into the house, even though the windows aren't in yet. So when we got home, it was to a HUGE (in comparison to the original) new living room. The space is bigger than it seemed from outside, and feels really really good. the window sizes look good, everything is living up to "the vision" and we're really really excited. (The post in the opening there is temporary, they just didn't get to taking it out yesterday.) This photo is probably more meaningful to those who've seen the house as it was, but trust me, it's a HUGE difference.

They're planning to have the second floor framed today, and break through into the bedroom, which means.... YES! no more sleeping on the floor! We've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for 15 months due to not being able to get our box spring up the stairs. Before they put the windows in, the framers are going to put the box spring in through the wall. So tonight, we should have a bed.

I'll post more tomorrow :-D