We have started the CC Remodel project with swinging hammers. All of the flooring is out of the house and the small hallway area is demoed out to start trying to figure out how to tie in new plumbing for the powder room. And the upstairs bathroom is torn out
First issue is we see that the Prior Owner must have built this bathroom himself because the plumbing is not right. Both the shower and sink drain lines have an upward slope to the main drain. What the hey?? That is Plumbing 101, drains need to slope downward. And, we are having a hard time trying to figure out where and if there is a vent to the roof for this set of bathroom plumbing. We can see a vent going up the wall but there is no evidence of that vent exiting the roof. More investigation required
When we opened up the wall behind the toilet we can see into the attic area above the living room. We find a medium size beehive with a big honeycomb. But all the bees are dead and the honeycomb looks several years old. Look further and you can see daylight… there’s about a one inch gap in the exterior siding providing a nice highway into the attic. Luckily we didn’t find any other major critter evidence! You just never know what you are going to find behind closed walls. It’s something new everytime. Have never found a beehive inside an attic!!
I loaded some new photos, including photos of the building plans to try to visualize the work being done
Let me tell you… we are experiencing terrible High Heat right now. It has been miserable - 103 at the project yesterday. Not only for the crew but the owners also. We had to tape off the entire AC system to avoid dust getting pulled into the registers and intake. They are living without any air circulation or air conditioning. Needless to say… owners are finding important tasksto take up their day that involve Starbucks, the local library, shopping for appliances, anywhere with AC!!!
I told the guys yesterday that they could take their shoes off and put their feet into the enticing pool but they are too shy to do this. They felt it wasn’t appropriate in front of the owners.
I’m just focusing tasks to the indoors right now while waiting for the Heat Wave to pass. I really didn’t want to force them to get outside and start jackhammering concrete in the sun
Suddenly I am appreciating my high tax city. City inspection came to look at the new air con unit and approve. No fee. We post permits in the window in this town.
We are still waiting for someone in the City Building Department Structural to open up the plans and review them. The City has a website where we can track the progress of the permit review. The computer automatically generates a promised due date for reviews. The structural review is still just sitting in limbo and has not even been assigned for review to an engineer yet, even though their promised completion date is Monday Oct 30th. Doubt that is going to happen although I was hoping that someone would grab ours from the pile because it is an ‘easy’ review compared to complex plans that might be sitting in the pile.
We have two other disciplines that we need to get stamps from, so we are slogging back into the City next Tuesday and hoping we can pick up the Structural review at the same time.
They are painted cabinets. They may have been originally stained oak and then painted an almondy cream. The cabinet boxes and interior shelves are brown pressboard with wood face frames on front. Only the face frames and doors are painted. The problem with raw pressboard (no sealant or finish at all) is that it absorbs every bit of humidity or moisture and smell. Not good after many years in a kitchen or bathroom!!
Yep - we had the cabinets painted about 20 or so years ago…have we really lived here for 25 years???
CB’s crew is very hard working. They really don’t stop - and I would seriously have no problem with them jumping in the pool anytime to cool off. I remember the pool solar guy did that after being up on the roof during a hot afternoon fixing the solar system. I think the heat wave has broken, although it’s still quite warm.
Hubby has set up a joint office in one downstairs bedroom, and a “family room” in the other bedroom, using one side of our sectional and putting the TV on a bedroom vanity table. Our china cabinet is also in that room, providing some extra storage. It’s actually comfortable. Our master bedroom is downstairs as well, and we have french doors leading to a back patio and side path to the garage, which now houses the fridge and microwave. The rest of our belongings went into the pod which was hauled away yesterday. Now we just have that 22 foot dumpster in the driveway…so excited for my own dumpster!
We haven’t had A/C and survived. Pretty soon it will be cold at night and early mornings, and CB suggested that we buy a space heater.
The house turned into a construction zone very quickly. Every change is really exciting so far. We now have some pretty new windows in the front of the house, and the dropped ceiling with fluorescent light fixture over the kitchen is gone, revealing the much better vaulted lines of the original house/roofline. Whose bright idea was it to drop that ceiling? So weird!
The abandoned beehive was a good find. About a year and a half ago, we had to have a swarm removed from the side of the chimney by a beekeeper in a big white suit. He took the swarm away to a ranch and filled up the crack where they had found entry. The only bees that died at the time were probably about a hundred that were dropping from the light fixture into the living room over two days.
CB didn’t mention this, but we saw not one but TWO snakes yesterday very near the house. It was so hot, they must have been warming themselves up on the patio. I haven’t seen snakes for quite a while, and fortunately these were gopher snakes, not rattlers. I think after the deluge of rain last winter, all the critters are multiplying. We’ve found 3 lizards in the house in the last six months. We don’t have any outside cats in our neighborhood due to it being a coyote area; I keep wanting a cat to keep our lizard population down.
I exited the back door and was greeted by a snake!!! Poor guy took off quickly from my shrieking:). I have to be quiet about it because my lead carpenter is a baby about snakes
Working on kitchen designs now. It’s pretty tough because we can move it anywhere we want but there are door and window challenges everywhere
All of the windows in the front part of the house have been removed and replaced with new Milgard Tuscany dual pane windows. The front of the house looks lighter, brighter and fresher now! We are going to have to trim out the inside of each window because we retrofit into the existing aluminum frames. Old windows were single pane black aluminum with grids on top of the glass.
All flooring is gone, window coverings gone, baseboard and chair rail torn out, upstairs bathroom completely cleared out. The upstairs shower bottom has been reframed to try to get the step into the shower a little lower. The shower was raised up really high from the floor but we figured out why… all of the electrical and water lines are running through the ceiling/floor cavity right underneath that shower… just our luck! It would be too much work to try to re route all of these conduits.
Kitchen is cleared out and we removed all the electrical, water and gas lines from the exterior walls that are going to be removed. We opened up the ceiling and it really is a beautiful vaulted area now. But… we are going to have an issue trying to re route the ducting and provide more ducting to the addition square footage in the back of the house for heating and AC. Never a dull moment.
We are basically considering two kitchen possibilities. We can keep the kitchen, with a modernized island type layout, in the existing area but the layout is constrained with a door that goes to Dining Room and a new window that is being placed in the exterior wall (see photos and the plans). Or… we can move the kitchen into the side area that used to be the family room. This is constrained because the main hallway entry is on that wall. But, we can do a larger kitchen with more tall wall space available in that area.
The photo of the living room is striking. I’ve never seen corner windows right next to a fireplace like that. Could your fireplace detail include shelving or something on the opposite side that picks up the horizontal lines from those windows?
Here’s a real benefit to having owners living in the construction. We have tools and some materials under a patio cover in the backyard. The owner provided a big tarp to protect the work area from sun. The guys left this afternoon and did not move some expensive tools and stuff into the house. Actually, the back of the house is torn up now and open to the elements. We took all the glass windows out to get them into the dumpster. Dumpster is moving out tomorrow and a low concrete dumpster coming for patio removal.
Owner was so sweet to go out and cover up the tools because we have a slight chance of showers tonight. We have become complacent from our continuous heat waves
There is a photo of a fp with what looks like a stained wood wall on the side… that wall is actually cabinetry - there are hidden bookshelves inside. Looks super sleek and hides messes well.
