The rains are coming!

As I write this, it is steadily pouring outside. While not expected to last more than a day, the rain is a reminder that fall is quickly approaching, and with it, many days of rain. Can we paint before winter? We'll know in about a month...

Anyway, for the fun stuff - new photos!

Mark and I jackhammered a 3,000 slab of concrete on Sunday. We both felt like we were vibrating the rest of the day!

back porch and bedroom balcony
One of our two front doors!
our wiring and plumbing are roughed in and ready for inspections

front porch really enhances the look of the front of the house

Windows and injuries

The good news or the bad?

Starting with the bad... I've now had my second of first-time injuries. First, it was two broken fingers from moving landscaping rocks back in May. The fingers are pretty well healed, though the middle finger still looks pretty funky.

The second injury was not as painful, but much more stupid. I went to the site in my work clothes (read: heels) and, violating common sense and previous experience, jumped down from the back of the house (where a deck will soon be), spraining my ankle.

I'm not completely laid up, but hobbling around and unable to run, jump (ha!) or do anything too physical. With the exception of dirt digging, which I managed just fine last night, to my dismay. What good is an injury if it doesn't get you out of all the really crap jobs?

Ok, that whining aside, we do have good news - the windows are going in!!! Siding, roofing, front and back porch, all a tedious if-then game, but will all be in progress in the next week. Pictures (as of today) below:

our future dining room windows
south side of house - and a bit of the front

Vacationland at the house

Mark and I are on 'recess' this week and next, which means that the Council members have two weeks off and we have almost nothing we have to do at work. So we're trading in office work clothes for construction work clothes pretty regularly these days.
The house is really coming together - the sheathing and 2nd floor framing will be complete today, which means that roofing and windows are tomorrow/Friday/early next week. The plumbers are at the house as well, working on the 1st and second floor bathrooms and the kitchen. The house is abuzz with activity! We had two inspections yesterday - side sewer and water line - and passed both, so we were finally able to have the excavator finish grading the front yard - and digging the new driveway.
A few pictures below for your viewing pleasure...

Taking a break to look at exterior paint colors. We settled on Benjamin Moore 2063:
click here for color







Roof trusses arrived last week via crane.








Roof trusses and sheathing.
Sheathing the roof.





Plumbers get busy in the first floor powder room.

Basement slab, walls and the incredible flying dogs

A lot has happened in a very short amount of time! We have a first floor with two walls, a basement, plumbing in the basement, and a lot more dirt around the basement walls (care of the Erika and Mark wheelbarrow team).

On Monday night, we took the dogs to the site and let them play on the platform. They loved tearing around and leaping over a partially constructed wall.


















The following photos are in chronological order working your way down.


Pre-slab plumbing and radiant in the basement



the framing crew - Jed, Dan and Tom



We've got a basement!


North wall





North and East walls - taken about 2 hours ago!

Walls!!!!

Well, we're going to have (basement) walls in about a day - just as soon as that concrete cures. Tomorrow the wall frames come down to reveal the concrete within, which is being poured today.

Our foundation guy Curt Wilson is awesome! His crew is fast and great, and he's talked Mark through every step of the way. Confidence is restored that we can be finished in 2010!!!


Showed up at 8:10am with a book, expecting to wait a while for the show to begin - this is what I saw instead. Holy cool!


















overhead view of concrete pour from our neighbor's second floor

Joe the concrete dude

Demo/Excavation photos

I've been negligent in getting photos on the blog. Although my parents saw the work site last week, our family in Iowa has been clamoring for photos and we have yet to deliver.

But first, an update on the status of the project. The house was demolished on May 19. It came down amazingly fast - when we showed up at 10am, we had a house and when we got home from work at 6om, we had a big pile of rubble. Seriously.

As you can see from the pictures above, Mark and I took a stab a the demo ourselves, which proved both slow and painful (I hit my ankle with the sledghammer when trying to swing it toward the wall!).




Back to May 19 - the remainder of the week included dozens of trips to and from the dump/recycling center to offload the housing materials and foundation. Despite a few setbacks - the big purple excavator, dubbed "Barney", went kaput on day 3 of the project - progress was made, albeit slower than expected.

By last week, excavation efforts were underway. Because the property's soil is primarily sand (we dug our fence's post holes with a shop vac, if that gives you an idea of how sandy it is!), it proved more difficult than expected. So... there is a theme here. Everything takes longer than expected!

Our concrete guy came yesterday and is, as I write, busily working to build the structure for the foundation. Sides poured next week, basement slab the following week, hopefully.

More soon!

Demo day is here at last!

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE: Demo day is tomorrow, bright and early (as early as 7am). Prep work only today because the tractor wasn't fixed in time to start today.

UPDATE: Demo guy's tractor broke down and will hopefully be fixed by noon. Maybe demo today, maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow is demo day! We're thinking sometime between 9 and 11am tomorrow. Seattle friends and neighbors - come on out for the show! We'll post pictures galore once it's finished.

The teeny apartment

Our little place doesn't require more than 4 photos to capture its entire square footage, but it's cozy and convenient.

Interior House Photos

house photos after digging up trees

Front of house
We still have the magnolia, but can't replant it until it blooms. Any day now!



A large hole where the japanese maple used to be. Man, that was work!



Back yard - straight back are the two japanese maples; the plant on the right near the orange mesh fence is the forest pansy from the parking strip. The chubby butt in the middle is Oscar.



Back of house
Mark ripped off the crappy vinyl panels to see what was beneath. Crappy wood paneling.

On needing a place to live

So in less than a month we’ll enter the mortgage-with-no-house phase. Barring yurt-building or the purchase of an RV, this means we need to find a 'second home'. A really cheap one.

Our dogs are already anxious, seeing the parade of empty boxes making their way up from the basement and being filled with things they like to look at, pee on or chew. They stalk us from room to room and bark at the top of the stairs when we're going up and down, batting at each other for prime parent-watching position.

Unfortunately, packing has transitioned from the easy stuff to the miscellaneous - the square-shaped piece of plastic that's a part for either the fan or the bike rack (Or neither? Is it worth keeping?), the old heart rate monitor strap that works with the watch I lost (What if I find it? and how do I categorize a heart rate monitor - bathroom? bedroom? medical supplies?). Boxes and boxes of those question mark miscellany, left for another time when I have more patience.

Unlike packing for a vacation, packing our house is an exercise in regret. I found my old flute, which I promised myself I would keep playing as an adult. I found gifts from others and to myself that I barely used. I found puzzles unopened (not making enough time for fun), a punching bag unpunched (never did take those boxing classes), and even old resumes (why didn't I ever apply for that job?). Even prints and photos that I meant to frame could create anxiety, if I let them.

But back to the issue of needing an apartment. Last week, we scoured craigslist for a suitable place, and by a stroke of luck, we found a studio in the building above Verite Coffee in Madrona, just two blocks from our house!

We toured the next door neighbor’s place (who has the same layout), finding not only is 250ish square feet really small, but some people (like maybe our future next door neighbor) are unashamed of showing off their dirties. We tip-toed around dirty dishes, dirty clothes, a bathroom that looked like a throwback from the frat house, pizza boxes, and dozens of video games. No joke – I think I threw up in my mouth when I saw the bathroom. Undeterred (and a touch desperate), we immediately filled out the rental application.

Apartment = check! The only obstacle that remains is the dog interview … Fortunately, we have some leftover muscle relaxants from when Felix hurt his back, and although they’ll probably need to be carried into the interview, the dogs will pass the test with flying colors.

Before pictures coming soon…

The beginning

Today is not the beginning. The beginning was years ago, when Mark decided there was no getting around the inevitable. The house, though filled with post-war charm, a built-in liquor cabinet, and a red vinyl and formica bar in the basement, had to come down.

The beginning began even before I met Mark, before I moved in a groaned about the kitchen (no counter space! no dishwasher! no garbage disposal!), before we tripped over the extension cord that connected to the one working outlet in our living room, before we wrangled for position in the 1ft by 1ft bathroom, and before we bought a queen sized bed that was so big for the bedroom that the closet door couldn't swing open or shut. So it's just always open.

As Mark tells it (and evidenced by photos and still-exposed dry wall in the kitchen), he tried his best to make it the house he really wanted. He cut a hole in the kitchen to install a back door, built a deck, re-wired and dry walled the bedrooms, and made the front and back yard lush with flowers, japanese maples, forest pansies, mondo grass, a yellow magnolia and beautifully landscaped walkways.

But there was that awful bathroom. And those bedroooms that, ideally, would suit a child in a twin bed rather than two adults who like clothes and shoes and spaces for all our books. And the low-ceilinged basement that would only serve as a dumping ground for our bought and forgotten junk.

So it was decided at some point years ago, that because we love our neighbors, our neighborhood and the proximity to work, it was better to rebuild than move. And here we are, on the eve of demolition, hoping we're making the right decision.

We'll post pictures, details, and hassles or delights of the day. Please make comments and suggestions - thanks for supporting our adventure with your thoughts and insights!