Slight slight progress

Finally!!

Some progress is being made although at a tortuously slow pace from my perspective. Contractor is working towards a framing inspection on all three spaces at one time. This means that  even though the kitchen framing is done work is only happening on the outside until the those spaces are ready for the framing inspection as well. After that the electrician will wire all three spaces at once and then we'll get an electrical inspection. After that insulation will be put in, insulation inspection done and then drywall. 

The other day I told the foreman that he needed to stop demoing things and build me something or I was going to lose it. He found this quite amusing, and I think endearing, and was very excited to show me the skeleton of my new vestibule when I got home from work. Below is the frame of what will be a 4 ft x 7 ft new front entry. This space will eat into our front porch but will also be unified with both the existing front entry and entire newly opened space, thus stoping the feeling of almost tripping on the stairs upon entry and enlarging the whole feel of the main floor (I hope). 

New vestibule

Below you can see the start of our newly enlarged mudroom. We had intended this to be much smaller but when they started laying it out I realized just how tiny, useless and visible from the kitchen it would be. I had always wanted sliding glass doors and a connection to the family room deck so we decided to make the mudroom into an "L" shape, along the back of the garage - allowing for the sliders, and thus lots more natural light, a better view of the back yard, and the gained space of the door swing. The mudroom as originally planned was going to basically be 6 ft by 8 ft, but this one will be an L which is 6 ft by 10 ft and then to the left another 6 ft by 12 ft. In order to do this we had to disassemble the entire main deck and rebuild it, which was an expense we hadn't planned on just yet.

Floating foundation started and footers ready for filling. And lots of mud being made.

Outline of new mudroom/outdoor connection

The part which connects to the kitchen is not going to have much in it and I was warned it will just be a hallway. However this hallway will connect my kitchen, garage (the two doors currently in view) mudroom (the part along the garage) and deck/backyard area, so to me that's a pretty useful hallway. Also now the actual mudroom contents can be hidden along that back wall and not in view of the kitchen and dining area. So while this change added almost 30% to the cost of the project, it is really going to be incredibly useful. My only concern now is whether we're getting into the "we should have gone whole hog and put a huge addition off the back" but that would have been considerably more still and that was just not in the cards, nor even really necessary. I never wanted and don't need a huge house.

Hoping that this week the rest of this structure gets built and we can get on with actually finishing the inside space.

Psychological study

Reactions to living through massive reno. Match family member to number.

1. Loving all the processed foods, highly, and somewhat surprisingly put off by the chaos.

2. Excited by the chaos, hating the bad food, secretly enjoying the relief of not being able to prepare proper dinner.  

3. Ignoring the chaos, missing healthy food. Definitely not liking the abundance of kitchen talk.

4. Hating every aspect.

Living room - currently serving as dining room, living room, kitchen, mud room, hallway.

I'm kind of surprised by our reactions to living through all this chaos. The mess and mayhem don't really bother me all that much, and having our floors covered with cardboard and plastic has some advantages in the winter. I may implement it next year!  However with no end in sight this dorm-style living is getting old really quickly. The other day I watched a friend take some fairly straightforward roasted tomatoes out of the oven and had a huge pang of jealousy or regret or longing or some odd emotion for the ability to create healthy nourishment for my family. I didn't actually want to eat the tomatoes, or even serve the tomatoes, I wanted to create them. I guess as much as I deride needing to cook dinner every night and seemingly constantly feed people every moment that I'm home, there is a part of me that misses the creative and maternal alchemy that is cooking with fresh food.

I'm also really not enjoying my contractor coming up with some new cost every time I blink. When people describe how stressful living through a renovation is, or when tv shows show homeowners melting down out about rising costs, I didn't quite realize what that stress felt like. It's the feeling when you take your car in to be fixed and have no idea if the mechanic is lying to you or not, or if you should sell the car and buy a new one because you can't predict what will break in the future. It's that, "I really don't want to be ripped off" rising anger but with much bigger numbers and every day for weeks and months on end.

Dave is much more thoroughly and deeply agitated by the huge chaotic mess we live in, and is also coming in and out of the details of the contract so is even more plagued by irritation over the seemingly daily increased costs.

And the kids, who I didn't even think that much about when planning this, are out of sorts and annoyed. Alex is really hating having everything asunder, and Natasha is definitely missing some real home cooking, and not enjoying straining for my attention. 

Future kitchen with temporary sink.

We made matters worse by enlarging the back mudroom project. This of course added several weeks to the torture project. More about that in the next post.

Demo!

Most of the decisions are fine but the countertops were paralyzing for some reason. Lots of demo and temporary

After a few contractor delays we finally started. It's been a crazy busy time at work and home so I've been a bit stressed. I just can't wait to get past the big decisions on countertop and layout.

Temporary walls until beams go in.

Sophie is not happy.

View of dust wall.

Temporary kitchen in living room. Kind of cozy actually!

First glance of the future

Finally the dust wall is down and I can see my vision starting to take hold. There is still a bit more opening to do and the extra rooms on the front and back aren't even started.  

I furiously texted my neighbors begging them to come look and they happily obliged.  I love them!

The overwhelming thoughts are: 1. this is so much better!!! 2. this still isn't that big!! 3. thank goodness we're doing the front bump out vestibule bc you really do open the door into the stairs currently. 4. we really need to open up entrance to living room more. 5. I'm really glad we didn't do a "half way" revision which only took down a small wall...that would have been way too small.

There are a few add-ons that seem expensive for what they are but now I think they're totally worth it. Mainly opening of supporting walls in the living room, to have better sight lines.

In a sense, I'm kind of glad we'll have the kitchen "open" in a sense, to the living room and not the family room. We will have not an inch of wasted or unused space in this house. If the kitchen were open to the family room we'd barely use the living room.

I haven't spoken about this too much, but living entirely in our living room and family room hasn't been so bad. The only real frustration is when it's so cold outside that all my food freezes and it's too cold to grill. I was kind of counting on our moderate mid-atlantic winters, not an arctic tundra. But all in all it's really not so bad, and, it was our choice. We weren't hit by a hurricane and caught off guard.

View towards what will be the island, pull out pantry, fridge, ovens

View towards what will be the table area

Table is standing in approximately where the island with sink and dish washer will be. Other appliances will be behind

View towards living room, from about the table area, the pretty detailing along the stairs is now much more visible.

View of what will be island, and coffee area under window. Door to basement removed and second opening started to living room

View from dining area towards back. Mudroom will be beyond that door, which will be removed.