Sunday afternoon, Riley and I popped over again to check out the progress. It's so rewarding to see something new every time we go over there. I really hope this trend doesn't stop :)
Our neighbor-to-be came out to chat for a minute while we were there. Really nice guy. I feel a little bad for giving him such a shock with our total demo. We had talked to him before and told him the plan, but I don't think any of us expected so much to be taken down. I met with Oliver on Friday and he explained to me that it is actually more cost effective to completely reframe in a project like this rather than try to utilize existing walls. The labor is costs to work in new with the existing is more than the materials & time to start from scratch. That being said, he is still reusing all healthy materials as much as possible.
It was really nice to sit down with him and go over timelines in person. He gave me a stack of materials to sort through for selecting finishings. First on the list was choosing a roof color. We picked Black together on the spot. Done. I guess there are hundreds of options (who knew!?) and I'm glad I was only aware of 4.
My next task is choosing all the plumbing fixtures for the bathrooms & kitchen (tubs, faucets, sinks, nozzles, on/off & pressure valves, temperature valves, etc.) It seemed simple in our conversation, but after sitting down and looking through, I am realizing how many little parts that is to choose. Half of which I have never heard of, ha. At least he gave me all Grohe catalogs, so that narrows it down quite a bit. I like what they have, but I can look at other brands if I choose also. Oliver also turned me onto a new website to drool over,
houzz.com. It's like
Pinterest.com, but for all house stuff! Totally addicted already....
Here are some photos from the visit:
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| Front of house - Nice to see a wall there |
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| Riley observing the scene |
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| No idea what the green things on the trailer to the left are? |
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| Our roof may be water tight, but it is a little low... |
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| Living room/dining room from front doorway |
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| Remnants of our basement floor - that's a LOT of hand-dug dirt! |
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| Old siding - kinda neat to see what it had pre-vinyl. We are doing a similar siding to stay within the original character of the house |
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| Ramp over outside basement access steps |
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| Exterior wall supports and our very wet hardwood floors |
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| Looking into the basment - Old home of the central stairway |
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| Lonely dining room built-ins |
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| Living room going through it's Blue period |
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| The blue bubble just cracks me up. Good to know a little rain doesn't stop this crew! |
