Brick, Wallboard, Tile [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]Well, Good Morning! We are seeing some dramatic changes. The brick is done, and we only have to get their extra materials and sandpile removed. The column bases look really nice, and the new brick will eventually be treated with steam cleaning and a preservative. [Photo] [Photo] [Photo] This is a before and after of the old, coverted garage, and it is being mudded and textured. The bathroom to the left in the middle picture will be tiled as soon as the walls are finished, which should be today. The bathroom for the addition (on the right) will get the wire lath filled, and tile should go on this week. Also, tile went down today on the boys' bathroom upstairs. [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]Finally, these are two shots of the addition's great room on one of the new garage. Brendan and I will be putting down wood floors this week, and the complete heat pump system should be operational by the end of the week, too.

Last Brick Standing - Tiling Started

This is how the house looked after prepping to walls for brick facia.

Today the brick will be finished, essentially completing all of the exterior except for things like downspouts and a little sidewalk demo. As the grout dries and lightens in color, we are hoping for a closer match to the existing. We may put a preservative on the new in order to darken the brick a bit. But it looks great, and after the last lift is added to complete the stairway section, I'll get a picture of the finished product.

Tiling started yesterday. Brendan and I put the metal lath down for Burt (the tile artiste) to fill with a preparatory compound,

then he laid tile in the kitchen area and entry way. It is dirty, but beautiful.

The wallboarders are now feeling the pressure to keep ahead of him, hence the Saturday work. We couldn't be more pleased that they are feeling pushed.

Insulate, Insulate, Dance to the Music

So I'll post a couple today to catch up. Insulating was an experience. We blew cellulose into the walls. What didn't stick was vacuumed up and sent back to the truck to try again.

After all the cavities were filled, they scraped and smoothed the remainder to make it flush with the wall. We put cellulose on all the exterior walls, creating a very tight enclosure, then put batt insulation in the overhead and the interior walls.

Now we are beyond that, and most of the wallboard is up. It is Saturday, and they are filling and taping wallboard as I am writing this.

The Big Mess

As soon as I figure out how to get pictures off my camera, I'll post some, but the painting is done and the garage doors are the color of the trim. Insulation was 90% done yesterday, and wallboard starts today. They have started on the exterior brick, and interior demolition of the flooring in the existing house starts today. The insulation in the walls is a blown-on cellulose, which entirely fills the cavities between the studs. It looked like a major dust storm during installation, but it is incredibly tight sound deadening. Daily cleanup will be necessary, but almost futile. More later.
John

The trim goes on.

The painters moved right along today - until the massive thunder storm drove them to the new garage. We also passed the HVAC inspection, had more electrical completed, the insulation guys foamed up all the holes, and we tried to pass the electrical inspection. We corrected all of his from yesterday and got his new list of things to fix.

We've got the big doors and color!

The garage doors came yesterday. We can't use the openers yet. We need to get the outlets connected, but we can park in there and get away from hail and tornadoes!

They are also painting the house, adding the trim detail to the pillars on the front porch (brick will go on the bottom), and putting in smoke detectors throughout the existing house. We had the electrical and plumbing inspections yesterday. We didn't fare as well as Garret did in Kindergarten, but the changes aren't too big of a deal and should be taken care of in the next few days.

We are Plugged In... Almost

The electricians and plumbers have worked hard this week and we almost have power to the new spaces. They just need to finish tying in the new board to the old one and then we will have our electrical inspection on Monday. That means Brendan needs to pull or replace the speaker wire this weekend that he and John put in because it is not the right kind for the inspection. The garage doors should go in tomorrow and the painting crew starts early next week. Speaking of paint - (that's all we've been speaking about), we have a new color - High Tea from Sherwin Williams. It is a little green and a little brown. It really makes the Peppercorn look blue green which we didn't like. We are excited by it and look forward to seeing it on the house.