Day 16

Domingo was here when we got home and he spent quite a bit of time explaining what was going on. He was very nice to Megan and she started showing more interest in what's going on. While watching 'Holmes on Homes' this evening, she even asked me whether we have permits (of course!). She commented that all the supports in the garage look like a jail. She's now considering changing her room decor. The new idea is black stripes on the wall and bars between her bunk beds instead of the curtains she currently has. Tom will love that!

The beams seem to be done today. You can see they've added the metal brackets-




Sorry for the odd angle on the photo- I took the picture in the dark. The lights are disconnected in the garage and once the plywood goes up, it's pretty dark in there. It's kind of a cool photo, though; you don't immediately see what it is. It could make a cool quilt block. Or maybe I'm just living up to my hair color...

Domingo confirmed that they're ready for the main header that goes across the front of the garage. I believe that will be a steel beam. I'd like to be home to see that go in! The support columns will be going in tomorrow as well.

They had to move a water line that was in the way of one of the beams. As a result, we ended up with another hole in the bathroom ceiling-


As well as some additional damage in the wall-


I feel sort of bad because the electricians were so careful to not damage the walls in the bathroom because of the faux painting. They worked in the tiny area between the closet and bathroom and went to extra effort because of it. We'll see how good a repair job I can do on the paint. We might be re-painting MUCH sooner than I thought.

Day 15

The structural work continues. We have more and more supports in the garage-


And new beams going in-



One thing I've learned is how much effort is involved in improving the structure on a remodel. With a new build, you just build it right from the start. Here, they're going to lots of trouble to add in the new support. There's some things I don't understand yet, like the strange protrusions coming through the garage roof-

And it looks like our garage doors have outlived their usefulness and we've now stepped up to plywood-

The big stress right now is the tile. We decided on a cabinet and then managed to agree on a tile that we both like-

Unfortunately, the cost of the tile is 3 times the budget! It's back to the drawing board and I don't like anything (that Tom would consider acceptable) as much as that expensive tile.

Days 12-14

Friday was a bit overwhelming with information and the activities going on. I got news that we have an issue with the landing area. Then, when I got a call that the stove people were coming over, I headed home. There was so much going on. There were 3-4 people in the kitchen area. The lights for the kitchen and back yard were going in. We now have 6 lights in the main area-


One light over the sink in the corner-



And two lights in the hall-

Outside we have three lights along the patio-

The also finished the plumbing and electrical for moving the dishwasher-

There was lots of activity going on the garage as well and I got the worst news. They need to run a beam along the dining room wall to support Megan's balcony. We need to move the mini-kitchen out of the dining room. I thought we were done moving! And have I mentioned that we have no space for anything? Garage overflow items are living on the back patio. Sunday we will spend re-organizing the living room and trying to fit all the stuff from the dining room in there. We are so short on space the new oven and microwave are sitting in the hallway-

Saturday morning dawned with the discovery that we had no phone service. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn't update the blog!

The guys came in on Saturday for a while. We have quite a bit of the new beams in. The old beam is the one sitting lower. The new beam that runs east-west seems to be completely in and they've started in on two of the beams that run north-south-

The single garage door has also come down. The guys prop it back in at the end of each day-

Saturday afternoon, Tom and I tracked down the phone problem to a cut line in the garage. He spliced the ends together and voila- phone and internet service.

I don't think I've mentioned it, but we're leaving on vacation soon. If we want to have the kitchen done by the time we get home, we need to have the cabinets, tile, paint and granite picked out before we leave. We haven't decided on any of them! Argh!

Living Conditions

So we've moved most of the kitchen into the dining room. On top of the filing cabinet from the garage, we have the microwave and the toaster over. On top of the microwave are the plants. They are not too pleased. Promptly after the move, the orchid dropped all its remaining blooms. I hope they don't hold grudges...


Another fugitive from the garage is this cabinet. We've managed to fill it with the essentials we use every day. So far the decisions we made about what to keep handy seem to have been pretty good.



One thing that didn't fit in the dining room is the refridgerator. That is living in the family room. Because the board we put it on is a bit larger than the fridge, that has become the place we feed Nessa. Note that the gap between the fridge and the sofa is fairly small. No one can get by while she's eating, nor can I get in the fridge during her meal times. I have not quite gotten the timing of getting both Nessa and Megan fed efficiently yet.

Upstairs, we are all sharing Megan's bathroom. That's the one benefit of Tom being away this week- less contention for the mirror. We also haven't gotten around to sorting out all the stuff from the master bath, so right now it's in two boxes taking up the precious little room there is to move in that bathroom. We also need to compromise on bath products. We just don't have room for all four of us to have separate shampoo in the tub!

Finally, here's the craft room turned bedroom. I kept my cutting table because trying to get that back down the stairs would have been the end of us. The bed, Nessa's crate and the dresser from the master bedroom takes up the remaining space. Yes, the picture is accurate - there's not a lot of space between the bed and cutting table!

So far, we're managing surprisingly well. Remember, though, that Tom's been gone since Monday. It may be another story when there's four of us tripping over each other!

Day 11 - Building starts

Building starts - sort of. They built a temporary support wall. This will hold up the garage roof as they change out the main beam. You can't see it in the photo, but the part of it near the front of the garage is already in. Because the new beam will be higher than the existing beam, they needed to move the main gas line to the house. Right now the new line is bright yellow and runs along the base of the garage. I'm hoping it will eventually be covered up...

Day 10 - Panoramic Views

Too bad Tom's out of town...how's this for luxery???


There's interesting things popping up all over. This photo is taken from our downstairs bathroom, looking up. The hole had been cut in the drywall to run the new electrical wires and now with the demo happening on the balcony, we can see sky. Are open-air toilets the new fashion? :-)

Work in the kitchen included removing the old flourescent lights, running a proper water line to the refridgerator and moving the gas line for the stove down near the floor. Because of all that, there are lots of new holes in the dry wall. The guys are really good about keeping the dust to a minimum and cleaning up as they go.

This is our old shower. Doesn't it look sad? Megan was freaked out by the fiberglass threads out the outside. It did look sort of fuzzy.

And after all the demo, and getting rid of stuff, here's the new stuff. It's really exciting to think they're going to be building soon.

Day 9 - lots going on!

The biggest thing going on today was pouring the concrete for the footings. After cutting holes in the concrete, then excavating the dirt, they go back and fill in the holes with concrete. Ronnie took this photo for me since I had to go back to work-


8 days of work to get to this point-



More demo happened today, too. Megan is standing in the sliding glass door. The open area to the left of her is/was our master closet. Our old bedroom is now open to the great outdoors.



The funnest part of the day is that the cabinet guy came by. He took measurements and we planned out the layout of the kitchen. Not too much is changing, layout-wise. We'll switch the dishwasher to the other side of the sink and add some drawers there as well as a cabinet on top. We talked about the electrical and plumbing changes that will need to happen. That should start in the next day or two. We also got some cabinet door samples. They'd like a decision in the next few days - before Tom comes home! I thought I'd like that, but it's a bit stressful in that if we don't like it, it's all on me. I'm taking suggestions on which you like best-

Of course, cabinets are just the start. We also need to select tile and paint colors fairly quickly. So far nobody likes my lime green paint choice...

Day 8

We left late Friday night for my sister's. Megan had a basketball tournament there over the weekend. Because traffic was so bad, we didn't get home until very late on Sunday. Poor Tom had a 6:00 am flight to Bloomington, so he didn't even go to bed that night trying to get stuff done (packing, shopping, etc.). Tired as we were, though, we did notice that the big dumpster was back.


Besides the beautiful dumpsters, we also have the tiny blue room in our yard...



It's been there a while, and I'd been meaning to feature it. I find it very humorous. Such a nice blue highlight. Speaking of humorous, I'll have to show you our current living arangements soon.

The work today seems to have included getting rid of the shed which you can see in the top photo, and the start of the removal of the balcony flooring (below). There's also some new strange orange markings in the bedroom. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to talk to anyone today about the water in the hole, but there's no signature on the inspection card, so I assume we won't be pouring concrete tomorrow.

Day 5

We were supposed to be ready for the first inspection today, but it had to be cancelled. Everything's ready except there's water in one of the holes and we don't know where it came from. Could be as simple as someone washing their hands with the hose, or it could be a leak somewhere. We have to figure it out before they pour concrete.

There's been a lot of progress, though. All the balcony railings are down and you can see the frame of the existing master bedroom which will soon be demo'd. Also, the big dumpster is currently gone and we've got a little one now.

The other big thing is that we started on the kitchen. We worked the whole week in the evenings on getting everything moved out. More exhaustion! Friday morning the kitchen looked like this-

Friday evening I took these photos-

Next step is to finish the electrical in this area and then fix the walls. Tom and I are working on choosing tile, cabinets and counter tops. Surprisingly, I don't think we're too far apart in what we want!

Day 2 - More of the same

Some of the balcony came down today. The crew is very tidy - at the end of the day, stuff is swept up and boards are nailed over the open stucco.


The holes are getting bigger and rebar is going into some of them. So far there are four large holes across the front of the house three holes inside the garage. The saws make an awful sound as they cut through the concrete.

August 9 - Day 1

Work starts!

Although we've known it was coming for a long time and we'd been working on it for just as long, getting the garage and master bedroom empty was way more work than I'd ever expected. By the time Monday rolled along, Tom and I were exhausted!

All that started to fade as things began to happen...

Some of the stucco came off and they started making some very big holes.

Catch-up

Notice the large gap in time???

We met with the architect and finalized the plans. I was going to wait to post until I got a new copy of the plans so I could post a photo of the layout. Before I got around to doing that, the architect finished the plans and tried to submit them to the city. The city said, "Sorry, you can't add that much space." That was after the architect's assistant had gone to the city to make sure we were ok and they said we were.
Turns out there's a floor-area ratio in Torrance and we could only add ~360 sq. ft. instead of the original ~792. After the requisite mourning period, we started working on plan B. Our architect was amazing. He came up with a modified design that fit within the guidelines, re-did all the structural plans and submitted them to the city again without charging us anything extra. The city estimated it would take 3-4 weeks for the permits. It took more like 8-10. We finally got them in July while our contractor was on vacation.
During this time, we also re-worked the contract with the construction company. We were able to fit the kitchen into the budget (sort-of). We'll see what compromises we have to make along the way!
Also during this time, we started the electrical rewiring. The photo is of our new 200-amp panel. Exciting, isn't it?