2018 Update

I thought I would start off this post with a little reminder of where we started just over 3 years ago.  This is what our house looked like on the day we closed the deal in the spring of 2015







This is where we were at in early fall of 2017.  We had elected to get some paint on the house despite knowing we had a lot on upcoming construction and this was taken during the work.  A big impetus was to simply get some better protection of the wood siding and replace sections as needed.  This would likely conserve as much material as possible.  Notice in this picture that we still have the old windows and front door with a screen door for the summer.  The large front window is a simple glass pane to likely replace the original window that would have had the wood grid system.

Above is the old front door and the new replacement.  When the door was installed they forgot to install the dentil shelf but later pictures show it in place.  The new replacement window in the front bathroom is seen above as well. 

A pile of single pane wood windows after the new replacement windows went in.  It was amazing how fast the process went with just some chipped paint off the wood trim.  Of course there is a lot of exterior priming as well since some of the window blocking was removed that held the original windows in place.  In the end we sold the windows for a decent price to folks using them in a variety of projects.

The new front door and replacement windows as they appeared right at the end of 2017.  You can just make out the new grid system in the window furthest right.  It really adds back a lot of character to the front of the house. 

Elizabeth next to the completed front yard fence (see previous blog post) with some huge sunflowers she grew.  In addition, to the fence we spruced up our front pathway this summer with a new border and some fresh pea gravel. 

Replacing sections of our back fence.  There are still more sections needing attention and in the spring I intend to power wash the fence and get a sealant on the wood. 

So as we headed into late summer/early fall we started in on the next big project, a big addition on the second floor.  We had been planning to do this for at least a year as our only bathroom is on the first floor and our bedroom is on the second floor.  Phase one...demo!  Actually most of this we hired out though we did demo my office as well as abate all the vermiculite that was in the knee wall area.

The amount of dust trapped in among the old boards was staggering.  Air filters a must!!!  The roofers cut a nice hole in the roof so we could easily pitch things into the dumpster below.  My cramped feeling old office space.  With that drop style ceiling gone it already feels a lot bigger.

In the next post I'll show the construction process as we put this whole thing back together-TS