if you want to destroy my sweater...

...hold this thread as i walk away. we haven't really destroyed our house so much as dismantled it. but a few times in the past few days it felt like it might take a lot to get it rewoven. as usual, though, robby the rock star pulled through and by the end of the weekend it felt much more manageable. and also like a really big house!

progress as of friday after work....

tarp on the roof, house wrap on, sheathing on (no window holes cut since the windows won't be in for another 1.5 weeks)

interior shot from front door looking back towards the addition:

first thing was to rip up the old linoleum and subfloor... it was tough work getting out old rusty nails...

then the old back door and kitchen window came out:

and another window from the dining room:

as we left it late friday night, same shot as from above:

then saturday arrives. robby gets up and over to the house and by the time i get there (after a birthday party i photographed) he's done all this...

put up temporary walls and knocked out part of the existing old load bearing exterior wall... he's fast.

then came time for the triple 9.25" LVLs. these take the place of the load bearing wall that was there. we {heart} structure that keeps the house from falling down! however, this was no easy task. here we are (meredith came to help saturday) taking a break from just carrying it in from the back. it was so heavy robby needed a beer!

as we rested we took turns kidding around with it as it was sitting up on top of the ladders...

then brian came over to lend a big helping hand and we got it up!

hello big open space.

we worked late saturday night...

today wasn't the most productive... but we got one partition wall almost finished inside.

today as we finished up, from the front door looking back. see the difference from the first of this shot? (sorry for the big fridge in the way!)

we had a crazy storm this evening...

that proved the cricket sheds water!

final shot from the weekend... composite from a corner in the soon-to-be kitchen. you can see the partition wall up that we did today. it is amazing how big and open it feels now. i think we're going to like it. (as usual click on the image and it will get bigger)

(laziness)

so i've not posted in a while, and i would post new photos tonight, but laziness has hit me. not really, it's more like busy-ness has hit. i just haven't made it to the house with my camera in a while, and it was a crazy weekend with graduation at UNC (Susanna Birdsong, MSW!!) and nasty weather. we did purchase our appliances, which is a huge check off the list. we got a great deal at HH Gregg... if you're out there and need appliances i highly recommend it. robby even scored a free 19" LCD tv. pretty sweet little deal.

the progress we have made includes sheathing on the house and roof, the house wrap is on and more demo inside. robby (and ryan) get the credit for all this. i've been sweating over cabinet choices and arrangement. i've also had to balance the construction budget since we closed on our loan last week and had some bills to pay.

so a new post soon, i promise.

robby rocked the cricket!

some of you have intelligently asked us about how we're dealing with rain in the valley created between the old roof and the new. this is the answer... well, half the answer at least!

this is the cricket. a crazy little angled roof that connects the two main roofs at a high point in the middle and slopes down either way to get water off the roof. robby got half of it built tonight... figuring out all those compound cuts was quite a task... too bad real life doesn't have a mirror command for the other side. it will get sheathed and finished with shingles like the rest of the roof.

this is the view from the low end:


this is the view from the high end:




higher up on the roof:





robby thinks he's the bee's knees now....


fun times on the roof

starting to take shape

we made a lot of progress this weekend... i'll let the photos do most of the talking since i have 8000 of them to post.

friday night robby and i finished laying out the last bit of wall. robby voted first... notice the sticker.

robby's super cool safety goggles... nice reflection.

proof i do more than just document the progress... i {heart} power tools.

laid out, ready to go up saturday morning.

ryan came over again saturday to lend us a (tall) hand... and we got the wall raised just the 3 of us.

henry telling us how it should go....

plumb walls!

ripping off the existing roof to make way for roof rafters...

my role in this part was clean up... i made up a game for the dumpster throw called "death stick toss". all the boards that come out of the demo work all have old huge rusty nails attached to them... hence the name death stick. they are dangerous. but my game was fun...

the roof was on fire at some point in the history of this house. we knew that, but saw first hand the results when some of the rafters were exposed.

flash forward to roof rafters up! this moved really quickly. ryan and i measured, marked, and lifted. then ryan and robby nailed into place. (i physically couldn't handle the nail gun up on the ladder... so sad)

visitors... stevie, katherine, and hannah. and our neighbor and friend brian helped with the rafters once ryan left. both brian and ryan were a HUGE help!

back to work after the visitor break. robby and brian knocked out the majority of the work:

by the end of the day, it really started to feel like a space we could live in, not just walls.

we were TIRED.... thank goodness bryan's wife, kathleen, made us a yummy dinner.

sunday sunday sunday!

today was rough.... it was hard to get going, but as always, starbucks helped.

the task of the day was to get roof sheathing on. (i.e. 4'x8' sheets of 1/2" plywood attached to the roof rafters). it was my job to lift these sheets of plywood up to robby.... holy moly i'm making new muscles all the time now.

our pile of plywood:

step 1: get it leaned up against the wall:

step 2: lift it up to robby (no photos of this)

step 3: robby maneuvered these giant sheets like they were sheets of cardboard. he is amazing... and definitely had the hardest job!

real progress! this really feels like the addition i designed. we have decided to keep the angled corner in the kithen open and just put glass in. more money,but we think it will be really nice.

this corner is facing south so it gets filled in with wall. but there is our bathroom! so exciting to watch it come together...

views from around the house...

from the back yard: (if it looks wonky and like it is sloping, it is an illusion... everything is plumb, square, and level. checked and double checked... it freaked us out, too)

best view is from the side street.

just to make it very clear how terrible we look after every work day, we have our self portrait. we really are having a great time doing this together!

and to end, we have a little bit of rafter art.