Catching up - Our progress over the last 4 months

I haven't posted in a while - mainly because summer is always crazy for us. But throw in the complete overhaul of turning a 2 car garage into a gorgeous living room and the complete gutting of our kitchen and remodeling the rooms it abuts, and you have negative time left.
When I last posted, we had just finished the office addition and moved in, and we had started transforming the garage into our new living room. Considering how long it took us to finish the addition (new construction + permits, inspections and therefore, extra time), it took almost no time to get the living room all but finished.
BEFORE:














AFTER:














Not bad, eh? Here is another angle:
BEFORE:














AFTER:














Next time: I will start posting about the kithen demo.

Onto the next phase

OK, so I already mentioned that we moved into the office and have started the transformation of the new living room. DH worked his tail off to get the drywall hung, and I even helped a bit! We waited forever for our drywall finisher to get back to us, and he was supposed to start two days ago, but never showed. But he assures us that he is coming tomorrow at 7AM to get on it and if he does, it really should only take him a few days to finish it. DH already started the finishing, so that will save us money on this guy's labor.

Meanwhile, we started brainstorming and browsing for kitchen remodel ideas. We're drooling over the new Electrolux appliances that have induction cooktops, but we haven't justified the acquisition of one. We really aren't sure if it would be worth having one, and unless we buy a drop-in, we can' get one with 6 burners like we planned on getting. So, we are leaning towards getting another built-in range like we bought in Vermont. I just dread having to clean those grills, but it isn't the end of the world, I suppose. Gas heat is the best. It is exciting to be at this point of the renovations, but the end result still seems so far away. I keep hoping that we can have a celebration party in our "new home" this fall, but I know better than to be too optimistic. We have done this so many times that I know that having unrealistic expectations only adds unnecessary stress to an already stressful project. Don't get me wrong, we love to do this type of stuff (or we wouldn't have done it so often), but there is a percentage of stress for every 10% of fun you get out of renovating a house.

I'll post some pics of our current kitchen after I take a few - this will be an amazing before & after job...can't wait for the after!!!

All moved in!

Well, we ended up getting the final inspection, phew! I suppose the room in question could be a bedroom, and in some cases it will be treated as such, but come on...why should a family of 3 with a home office need to get a whole new septic system because of some stupid technicality?

Anyway, the final inspection marked the entire project from start to finish at 1 year, 1 month and 1 day! We had projected about 9 months, so this was a bit too long for our liking...

But we're all moved into the office, save some needed decor, but that isn't priority with a new living room space in the works (we don't waste time moving from one project to the next and I don't mind spending 1 year, 1 month and 1 day on the minute details - it takes time to make a space your own!)

Here are a couple of shots:

Lessons on inspection deceipt

Well, we learned a lesson in avoiding installation of a new septic system. If you plan to add a room to your home that will not initially or immediately be used as a bedroom, be sure to make it look like something other than a bedroom! We moved into our new office a week and a half ago. While we intend to use the second room we built as a guest bedroom, we had told the inspector way back when that it would NOT be a bedroom, but more of an office/rec room that would be supplemental to the actual office. We did this because he told us that there may be implications in adding a 4th bedroom to the house. Well, we didn't realize those implications involved determining if the septic system was approved for a 4 bedroom house. Likely not, since the house was built in 1976 as a 1400 SF 3 BR rancher. So, being a kind man, the inspector has decided to overlook the bed frame we had in the room, and told us to make sure it resembled an office when he returned to re do the final inspection. So, we will not put the closet doors on, and we will put office shelving and a file cabinet in there; we have a desk and a TV stand rather than a bed in the room. So, take our advice, and be sure to know what the type of room you're uilding might do to your existing utility capacities!!

Starting Before Finishing

It's our motto! Even though we will likely be able to move into our new office this weekend, it is contingent upon whether the drywall finisher is done by then and we've been able to paint. That is the hope. But, in the meantime, my husband began ripping out the old ceiling in the old garage last night. This room will become our new living room when it is done. We already installed radiant heat under the new sub floor, and soon we will be able to erect the walls for the closets and enclosures before doing more drywalling. It keeps us going...

Looking To Move In

It has been just over a year (1 year and 6 days, to be exact) since we broke ground on our new addition. Since my husband and I (but mostly my husband) have done 80% of the work, it has taken much longer than we initially projected. Travel, work, socializing and the like seems to squeeze in between stages of construction and renovation. Oh, and inspections. We are fortunate to know people in the world of HVAC, plumbing and electric, so having those parts covered were big money savers. My husband did almost all the plumbing himself; his father is an electrical engineer and did all of our wiring; a good friend of ours owns an HVAC company who did most of our heating and A/C work (although he and my husband did a lot of the busy work themselves after hours). Knowing all of these people in the industry also led us to great contacts for other parts of the job - the 20% we contracted out (drywall finisher, carpenters (who framed the addition after the slabs were poured), and siding contractors). So, had it not been for us doing most of the work, we would have paid LOTS more and it would have been done probably last fall. But I am fine with how it has turned out. We made a lot of design changes along the way, as well as some mistakes. I can't wait to post the final outcome.