It is almost done!

I am so excited! Everything is coming together. We've had a few delays along the way...but the end result is going to be beautiful. My last blog we had just started sheet rocking and the brick arrived. So much has happened since then. The brick work was completed and they did an outstanding job. You really can't tell that it is a different brick. I am so impressed. It was one of the things that I was really worried about - that the brick would show off that it was an addition. Definitely not the case.






This photo shows both old and new and it is a wonderful match.

Now onto the inside. Once the walls were up it was time to prime and then paint. The hallway here is ready to be painted.

Once everything was painted it was time to put the trim pieces up - crown molding as well as baseboards. What an absolute difference it makes. This photo is the first area of crown molding that was up.


One weekend Rodney and I had several things to do around the house. He installed the fans in the 3 bedrooms, the lights in the closets and the bathroom and I stained the doors. The pictures below show the results.



I just love Marissa's fan!



Once Marissa's room and the guest bedroom were completed Rodney hung up the blinds and closet guts. These two rooms look wonderful! We had to quickly put the bed in the guest bedroom one weekend because my parents came up for a visit. We asked that my dad help us lay out a pattern for the wood floor in the hallway and the dining room. He has had a lot of practice laying floor so he was a big help. But we needed a place for them to stay the night so Rodney quickly put the bed together. Since then we have moved my office in there temporarily so when the new addition is completely finished we can work on the old part of the house and renovate it.





But back to the discussion on flooring. That was a bit of a challenge and our contractor ended up having to pull up the first attempt and start over. We have definitely learned quite a few things during this process and the biggest one so far is to make sure you read all of the instructions. :) Once we got the proper moisture barrier and glue for the floor we were good to go. The weights help to keep the boards down during the drying time.



We are so happy with the results. The Maple looks so good! With all of the natural light coming in from the dining room doors the house looks so open and airy.

We made that even more so when the contractor took down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We are going to have a counter on the dining room side that will look into the kitchen. In order to prepare for that he had to build a header to support the roof.









It makes such a difference to have that wall gone. Now of course we are ready to continue the floor and update the kitchen. Rodney and I have been on a mission to pick out kitchen cabinets and a counter top. Our goal this weekend is to get that all ordered. We can only go so long without a stove and oven!

Our master bath had been on hold because we were staining the vanity pieces ourselves and the tile had to come in from Dallas. We got the cabinets from Encore and picked up the stain - it was my first attempt at staining and I think it turned out beautifully! We still need to stain the side trim piece and put that on as well as pick out the vanity top. Another mission for this weekend!



Once the tile came in our contractor was ready to go! He started building out the wall around the tub and called in the shower door folks to get that going.



The transformation is amazing! With the help of my sister we picked out this beautiful tile and glass mosaic accents. I'm seeing lots of bubbles in my future!

Once the bathroom is finished we'll continue to have the kitchen gutted and wait impatiently for the cabinets and countertops to come in. :)

Can we say progress?

Yes - we can definitely say progress! Things are really moving along. We got the whirpool, shower pan, tub faucet and shower faucet all delivered. This allowed the plumber to come back and rough in the fixtures and we were able to get the rough in inspection completed. The new a/c unit is up and running as well! We also got some our windows in - we had a small snaffu with Home Depot - they didn't order a few of our windows correctly so 4 windows had to be installed at a later date but they are all in now! The house has been insulated and the sheetrock is up as well! It won't be long before we get it taped and floated.



Rodney and I picked out the door hardware for the house and got those ordered. We were able to put the new deadbolt and handle on the french doors to our room. Now the house is once again secure! Of course gadget girl had to order push button cypher locks...they are super cool.



Last week the brick showed up! A big semi dropped off the pallets! I had been slightly worried - ok extremely worried that we were not going to be able to find a brick to match. The guys that are going to brick the house came by and knew exactly what brick we had but wasn't sure if they would find any to match. They went to Elgin to the brick place and found one that is very similar. Our brick is from when they built the hemisphere in San Antonio and they don't make it any longer...this new brick is almost the same color...it just doesn't have the small flecks of yellow in it. I'm very happy with the match. I think that it will blend nicely. We found out today that they won't be able to work in their schedule to brick the house until the first part of January. So that is going to be a small delay but it won't be bad.

The wall from the house to the new addition has been knocked down! Thursday night all of the sheetrock was down and the studs were the only things left. Friday morning our contractor jacked up the wall, took out the studs and added the header. By Friday afternoon we no longer had any division between the two areas.

This weekend Rodney with the help from Robert took down the remaining panelling and sheetrock that was in the soon to be dining room and they also took down the ceiling. Rodney worked a little bit on the plumbing for the existing guest bath - we are converting the tub into a tub / shower.

Today they took out the window final window in the old guest bedroom and put in the new french doors. It is really windy today so it was quite a challenge.

The house is looking fantastic! We have picked out the tile that we are going to use for the master bath and we ordered the bathroom cabinets...those should be ready within the next week or so. Once we get those installed we will figure out exactly what kind of top that we will get. We did pick out the upmount sink that we wanted as well as the faucet...and those both came in without any problems. (I'm always a little worried when I buy over the web.) We also ordered the wood flooring - we purchased enough for the new addition as well as the existing house. I cannot wait to see that put in. On Black Friday we were able to purchase some carpet that we will be using in the bedrooms. I'll be picking it up from San Antonio when they are ready to install it.

There are just a few more items that Rodney and I have to pick out but we are super happy with how things are moving along.

Moving Right Along!

The framing is finished and the roofing is also completed! Everything is looking amazing. The roof looks so seamless that you can't even tell that we have added on. The electrician came out on Thursday and Friday and he has most of the house wired. We added a new breaker box inside the house and we made sure that we would have enough expansion room for the future. Darrell started taking out the old sheetrock that was the outside of the house. It's not an attractive picture but it is great to see the progress.


Monday the guys are coming to work on the air conditioning. They are going to add all of the new duct work and then tie it into the existing duct work. They are going to bring in a new larger unit that will replace the old one. I think there will be a couple of days that we will be without heat or air...but it is definitely worth it! Rodney took out the shrub that was next to the old a/c unit to make room for the new unit!

This past weekend Rodney and I went to San Antonio and we went to Greg's office to look through tile samples with Mary. We had a great time and we were able to pick out a color scheme for the master bath. After that we went to Home Depot to look at whirlpools, fans, lights and all that other stuff that we are going to have to pick out for the addition. We picked out and ordered the faucet for the shower. On Monday I ordered the whirlpool tub - but we found out that it is backordered so we picked out a different one. We still have to order the shower pan and figure out what we are going to do for the sink area, but we are excited with how things are coming together.

The progress will look slower over the next couple of months, but we are still on schedule. We hope to have the addition completed by Christmas!

Rain Delay!

So we had a bit of a rain delay this past week. Monday the framers were here bright and early and got quite a bit accomplished that day. They were able to get a few sides up. It threatened to rain on Tuesday so the framers weren't here...but they were back again on Wednesday and that's when they really got rained on. They had to stop a couple of time because it rained so hard. The contractor spoke with them towards the end of the week to find out when they were going to be done. They think they will be finished framing by Wednesday of this week and then the roofing can start. So our contractor already has the roofer ready to start. They already have the shingles in so he is prepared to start when the framing is done. We also got the windows and french doors ordered and they should be here in a couple of weeks. Today they started putting the sheeting up on the roof so it is looking more like a house!

The Framing has started!

Well I was a little disappointed on Monday because the framing didn't actually start. However, they did come out and look at it to determine the amount of lumbar, etc that they needed. They said they were going to come on Wednesday and start. Rodney and I had some homework as well - we had to get the rough out dimensions for all of the windows and the french doors. We had already picked out the style of windows, but we hadn't picked out the sizes. Monday night we got all of that information together and found that we weren't going to have to special order any! Thank heavens! Rodney also needed to re-route our data line so we wouldn't accidentally lose our internet- that would be tragic! The roofer brought the shingle samples for us to look at on Tuesday and we picked out the color for the new roof!

Wednesday morning the framers did show up and they measured and put down plumb lines and got everything square. Then they started sawing and nailing and the walls started going up quick! The first day they got two and a half of the outside walls done. As they got close to the existing house I was wondering if they were going to have to rip off all of the overhang - but they didn't! They just cut into the spot they needed and left the rest for later when they will need to take it all down. They did have to remove the guest bathroom window on Thursday - so we just have plastic over that right now but it shouldn't be that way for long. Thursday they got most of the interior walls done. We can definitely see how the rooms are going to look. I can't wait to begin putting Marissa's room together. I have to say the best part of the framing was seeing my closet! I cannot wait to be able to hang my clothes in there! I know - typical girl comment - but I haven't really had a closet since we got married...I've been using a chair. To be fair there is a closet for me to use - but we just don't seem to work well with each other. I can't see my clothes...so instead I have a pile. With the new closet everything will have its place. It's going to be interesting to see the rest of the house come together!

The Foundation has been poured!

There have been so many changes in when and what inspections and surveys that have to be done when you are adding on to a house. The foundation prep work has to be inspected before the foundation can be poured so Kelly from the bank came out of Friday to take pictures. Then bright and early Monday morning (7:00 am) the concrete trucks came in to start pouring. I think it took 3 trucks to fill it all in. They got it done extremely fast. We did have one "uh oh" - one of the trucks was backing up when the front tire sunk into a hole. Apparently the driver found an old septic tank that we didn't know was in the yard. :) But other than that the pouring went smoothly. Once they would pour the concrete they would start smoothing it out with trowels and when they had finished pouring it all they used a really long trowel. Then they let it set enough that you could stand on it and then they used these power tools to smooth it all out. After they finished smoothing it out they had to keep it moist so that it would cure properly. Rodney had to run the sprinkler on it for a little while in the evening as well. By the morning it was completely set! It looks great! They took off the forms and smoothed out the dirt around the foundation. This coming Monday the framing crew will come out and start framing the walls! Our job this weekend is to move the satellite dish so it doesn't get in there way.

Foundation Framing

I was working the other day in the office and suddenly the room got dark! I can no longer spy outside and see what is going on with the construction. The black plastic that will protect my house from getting soggy is now up. Now I have to go outside to check on the progress...which is good because I have to keep getting pictures...although I usually ask Rodney to take the pictures. Once the plastic was put up the foundation crew started trenching the areas where the pillars and beams will go. They dropped off the rebar today that they are going to use and I think they are going to pour on Monday. Now we're really getting started. The plumber also came out today to rough out the master bath!
I can't wait to see what happens next!