Saturday, March 28, 2009

Yesterday, Wayne came by in advance of this coming Wednesday's (anticipated) electric and plumbing inspections. He cut another opening and wired it for the second sconce the the right of the kitchen/backyard door.

Our new lights arrived as well. We will be swapping out the fixtures at the front of the house, in the portico and over the garage so now ALL exterior lights will match :-) Stay tuned for pics of those...

And, most importantly, last Friday, we went to Bath Connection in Millburn, NJ and we bought everything for the bathroom. It's going to have a different, more modern feel than the rest of the renovation-- Heck, than the rest of the HOUSE. But we're excited.

So, again, not a lot to SEE, but lots going on...

Brrr! It's Cold in Here

Our amazing a/c guy, Dave Gadaletta, came over today to move the two vents we had in the kitchen as it wouldn't do to have one in the middle of the bathroom floor and the other under a cabinet. Now we have to high mounted vents, one in the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen and one in wall by the door.


As for Wayne and Spence, they finished off the siding, moved a support for the powder room so the a/c duct would fit, filled in most of the holes in the floor and put in some insulation. They also did a serious scraping job on the floors, I am assuming in anticipation of the new flooring being laid. However, I imagine that is a ways off. We are now on hold until the inspections of the electrical systems, the framing and the plumbing. Hopefully those will happen Monday or Tuesday, so that Wayne and Spence can get back to building my dream kitchen.

I've Got The Power... And A Little on the Side

So much happened today.

Mike, the electrician, and his crew were in today. They wired the kitchen. Now all the lights are positioned in the ceiling, the outlets and switches are roughed in, and they even got the exhaust fan set up in the powder room.

Here is an idea of what they did:








Wayne and Spence were working outside today. They put up all the new siding and trim on the outside of the house. Good-bye to run down home look. The plywood is all hidden behind nice new siding. It still has to be painted, but it looks great. See:

















you can catch a glimpse of Spence in the top photo.

We All Need Support

Much of the work today was reinforcing the new windows and doors as well as putting in supports for where the old ones were. We had a special appearance this morning by Becky Wallwey, designer extraordinaire. She stopped in to see the progress and was very pleased with howmuch has already been done. She also assured me that even though the work now is not as obvious to the naked eye as the work last week, that there is in fact a lot happening.

Wayne and Spence really framed the new windows and doors today to close up all the gaps and give them support. The TYVEK wrap was finally put on the exterior to act as a moisture barrier. In the future powder room, you can now tell where the sink will be and where the commode will be.

So, without further ado, here are some photos:

This is where the new powder room vanity will be:

And the home of the future throne:
No more gaps around the door or windows:

Plumbing

Again, no photos today. Plumbers were here all day laying pipes and cutting old lines. All the rough plumbing is pretty much done. The lines are laid for the new bathroom. So, while a lot of work was done, it is nothing that would really photograph well or be interesting to look at.

Wayne will be back tomorrow, so hopefully he'll do work that I can show you.

Not Much to See

No new photos today, as the work was all about moving gas lines and plumbing lines. Had a tense moment though when the house started smelling like gas. Apparently, the master control valve for our gas line is not working. PSE&G came out to check it. They are coming back tomorrow to fix it. But there is no leak, so that is a good thing.

We picked out the tile for our backsplash today. It is going to look amazing. Sort of Tuscan. I cannot wait to see it on the wall. I can't wait to actually see the walls for that matter.

Day 3, the Makings of a Water Closet

So, while not much visible work occurred today, the contractors actually did quite a bit of work. The plumbers removed the old waste pipes for the old bathroom, capped off the old lines and roughed in the plumbing lines for the new one. I have to stop saying, "the contractors" and refer to them by their names, Wayne and Spence. Wayne and Spence installed one more window over where the banquette will be, put up the framing for the new powder room and reinforced some beams. Take a look:

Below the two windows will be a banquette:

This is the framework for the new powder room.Tomorrow promises more plumbing work and framing. In case you are wondering about the ceiling fan, Wayne left if just so they have light to work by. It is not staying. There will be recesses lighting in the new ceiling.

End Day 2

Today was framing day. They removed windows and doors and installed new windows and doors.

There used to be wall and door-size window here:

This is a double door to our deck:


Where the plywood is, used to be a window. Where the window is used to be wall:

This is how it now looks from the back of the house:

After 1 day of work

Today was all about demolition. The kitchen as it once was, is no more. It is now living in a dumpster in the driveway.

This is how it looks now:

And so it begins

After much work with designers and contractors, we finally began the remodeling of our kitchen. But this is more than just a simple redo. We are changing the entire footprint of the kitchen. We are moving a half bath and totally updating everything. If all goes well, we will have a new kitchen in 6-8 weeks.


Here are some before photos: