Drywall

Eric Read, Christopher and I put up the ceilings in two nights, November 1 and 2nd. These photos were taken November 13. The dry wall is complete and we should pass inspection Monday the 15th. It will all be finish work from here on. I decided to get more people in our pictures. This is me pulling Christopher into the picture for our staff photogarpher ( Margo).
This is Jonny putting screws into the drywall. He is standing where the old front door used to be, in the north west corner of the new master bedroom. The dark shadow in the master bathroom just beyond is Christopher hiding again.
This is the same location on the master bedroom, just to the right of the last shot. We replaced the old single pane aluminum window. It was ten feet long by 4.5 feet wide. The new window is vinyl and 6x4 feet.
This is the sink side of the new master bath.
Am I looking for Christopher? The new kitchen is really taking shape. The old skylights are the only things remaining from Mom's dining room. We sure had a lot of nice meals in that room. The drywall really defines the new spaces. We can't walk through walls to get tools anymore. It feels strange to walk down new hallways and through new doorways in a home I've known all my life.

Laundry and Half bath

The shower drain had corroded some year back. So there was a lot of moisture here. The walls and drain were not hot mopped when the shower was built, so the walls and built-in hutch were molding away.
The sill plate that the walls are built on (and bolted to the slab with) had rotten away to compost
with roots growing in it. Also, I was able to crumble the studs in the walls to about 2 feet up with my hands. This is also the only area we found that was damaged by termites.
The exterior wall that covered the old garage opening was rebuilt completely and bolted it to the slab. We built a wall separating the laundry area from the toilet area. The home will now have a separate half bath. We added a window in the new half bath, and filled in the old laundry room window.


We are now also drywalling this with a new drywall ceiling and can lighting.

Sewer Drains

We had to rent a concrete saw and cut through the 6 inch slab!!! and jack hammer footings to dig to the existing sewer main to add the drains for the new bathroom and kitchen. When we
saw the dark rich wet soil under the slab. We should have known that the sewer was cracked and leaching out under the slab. We replaced half of it and paid NUFLO to line and repair the
drains that were still under the slab going to the existing bathroom. That was expensive.

Pouring the slab was very satisfying. It meant we could go on to framing walls
Walls are framed, new shower pan tarred. We are now putting up drywall.

West Side, New Main Entrance

This is how the west side looked before we started working. The old plywood siding was rotted at the bottom where water dripped off the roof and bounced back up on the walls.
The old sheds Dad built under the eaves were really bad. It took Jonny and Hunter only a few minuets to remove. Removing them really opened up the entry. This also shows the new door and window.
The paper water barrier and chicken wire wrap are up and ready for the new stucco. The stucco
proved cheaper than re-paneling the walls and will look better.
Stucco work is done. We have some repairs left and paining to go. I also want to build a fence
with an entry arch to highlight the new entry, money permitting

Front of House

I'm not sure what to do with the wall where the old garage used to be. We may add some false
framing, or leave it blank. I'm also trying to figure out a way of creating an ached fence way to highlight the new side entrance.

Back Yard

Back Yard
This is the backyard face of the house. The following pictures show the progress from May to November.



The patio was too rotted to repair. Now that it is down, we won't be replacing it.

We priced replacing the sliding glass door. A stock door only 6' wide was $1,100. The old door was 8'"and the height was not standard. So we would have had to order a custom door. Replacing the slider with a door and window left us enough money to replace all the single pane aluminum windows in the whole house.
We needed to repair the old siding, as it was rotted also from too many years of doing without paint. The old stain finish wasn't ment to last 20+ years .We got a great quote from the stuccer to include stuccoing the whole addition. We think it will make the house look more uniform, and it was about the same price as the wood siding would have been.