May 7th House Update
These past two weeks were big ones for the house. Framing started (and mostly finished?) and the windows were put in. It’s crazy the difference that made. You can start to feel her taking shape. There’s something about the basic 2×4’s everywhere that makes it feel like somewhat of a house again. It was actually pretty confusing prior, trying to remember where the exact walls and rooms will fall, now it’s easy to think ahead.
Joe stops over about every other day to answer any questions they have or meet with other contractors– getting ready to start electrical, plumbing etc. The other day he stopped over and saw a big hole on the side of the house… which wasn’t supposed to be there. The space where our new kitchen is going is an old dining or living room so the windows are too large. They went to cut out the old ones and found that they were actually two bay windows with no structural support between them; the old windows themselves were the structural support of the house on that side. Being that it’s an exterior, bearing wall the guys needed to put the support in, hence, the hole.
This is the part where Chip or Joanna argues on who should make the call to the client that they have to forego some of their budget to this necessary, unpredicted fix. They get the okay, and poof onto the reveal. In real life, this isn’t how it goes. Yes, it’s an automatic expense that has to get paid, like in the show, but this is also a major setback. It’s added time, sometimes weeks or months. In our case, probably only a week or two but you don’t think about it, or at least I didn’t, because I’m so used to the half-hour programming home renovation
What’s Next
Needless to say, they are moving! The house looks better every day, especially since the windows are black on the exterior– that was drastic actually. The entryway, the dining space, the kitchen, the wet bar, the laundry, the back entry and the upstairs bedrooms, closets, and bathrooms are framed. Joe’s closet is going where the old second staircase exists so that’s going to be a project. We have the funky curved wall that we have yet to figure out how the second bathroom vanity will fit in there. Some last little demo things haven’t been checked off yet. I’ve started to pick out hardwoods and lighting fixtures. Joe’s got the plumbing hardware. Let me just say, the hunt to find his complete shower system with at least six body sprayers and a rainfall head was a full two hours before bed one night…
It’s that time where I start to share my mood boards, watch out for those and let me know what you think! I love hearing ideas, I could talk about this stuff all day long….clearly….
