and now, my house, she waits. again.

The last time I posted in this blog much progress was being made, excitement was building, and I could really see myself living in the completed house. Here are the latest pictures:

This is the view of the main room, the 'Great Room', if you will, taken from the front double windows. I took down two small coal closets and a double sided fireplace in the middle of these two rooms. I'd planned on putting a wall back up, but once all that was down, I just couldn't. The visual impact of the openness was too great, the light coming in from the five windows too wonderful. So it became the living room and dining room.

This is the opposite view, standing in what will be the kitchen doorway (the wall of studs seen in the previous picture). I'm undecided as of yet if this kitchen wall will be a half wall or a full wall or an open, framed doorway. I'll have to wait until the bedroom wall is moved as planned to actually see what the feel of the kitchen will be. But back to the Great Room, a side note: This room is almost half the square footage of the whole house. This picture came out dark because the room was so bright in real life.

This shot is the progress made in demoing out the old bathroom and two closets, where the new bathroom will go. This view is from the master bedroom, but the wall you see will be a solid wall once my renovations are complete. I took this picture to show you, now that the closets are out, a better view of how big the bathroom will be and that it will also take in the awkward hall seen on the left of this picture.

This is the same bathroom space, but seen from a head on shot of where the dining area will be in the Great Room. Old closets on the left and on the right where the shower and toilet where. The stud wall you see directly in front of the camera is the other side of the awkward hallway--- that's the back of exterior siding. The hallway actually used to be a side porch that was closed in at some point.

Here's another (angled) view. I'm very pleased with the progress being made, but I must point out that its been two weeks since I posted. These pictures were taken two weeks ago, as well.

My contractor tore his rotator cuff in his shoulder at his 9-5 job two weeks ago. Which in turn means that he hasn't been able to work on my house due to his injury. He's hurt himself pretty badly and the verdict's still out on whether or not he needs surgery. It's pretty clear to me, though, that he won't be working on my house any time soon.

I feel nothing but compassion for him and I'm terribly sorry that he hurt himself. But I've also been feeling sorry for myself lately, too, and a bit down in the dumps because, here again, my project is on hold. It's no one's fault, but I guess it's just that we had such a momentum going and everything was gearing up to be turned around quickly and on schedule...

And now, my house, she waits. again.

I guess I should start calling contractors.

Catch-Up Pictures...

Here are the pictures from the last two weeks. I took the liberty of just posting the highlights. That, and I had a heck of a time uploading these tonight for some reason.

View from the main entrance, which will be the view from the foyer when entering the house. With the floors mostly clear and the walls down, you can see straight to the back wall. So open and light...

Looking up in the kitchen to see the underside of the roof. I like all the angles. I wish there was an economical way to open this up, but it's more practical to leave it like it is.

Kitchen: wall with the window. The window will pretty much stay in the same place, but will be taller than this window. You can see there used to be double windows in this room, too. My sink will go under the window.

A semi wrap-around view. Still playing with kitchen layouts. I'll tell you why in a bit.

The little closet juts out on the back porch. I'm entertaining the idea of having a similar closet in its place, a shallow pantry. Notice the 'new' wood and plumbing to the right of it? This is one of the original doorways to the back porch. At some point it was closed in and a craptastic bathroom was built there. There will be a door here going out to the back porch from the kitchen.

This is the top part of the back wall of the kitchen, right above the closet/pantry area. It all pretty much needs to be replaced, along with the back porch on the other side of it.

View looking from the kitchen back to the front of the house. See all the light? and the openness? This is what keeps making me think twice about my kitchen layout. Should this wall become a half wall? It will give me a technically smaller kitchen and less upper cabinets, but it sure would be a nice feature to the house...

My contractor pulled the carpet in what will be the master bedroom. This is the floor. It's pieced with plywood on the left hand side. I didn't have high hopes for it anyway. Moving on...

In the master bedroom, looking towards the back of the house... what will be the master closet and storage for the whole house.

Close up of the back wall in the closet room. A lot of the studs here will have to be replaced, same story as the kitchen. This part of the house has the sill that sits on dirt, and the leaky craptastic bathroom is immediately to the left of this picture, on the other side of the wall.

This is where you learn what I mean by craptastic. I'll give you one guess as to where the toilet was. Hint: look for the moldy, toilet tank-shaped spot on the wall. You really can't miss it. Make sure you note the daylight in the upper right hand corner--- that's the back porch. This will all eventually live in the dumpster, never to haunt my house again.

A close up of the same bathroom, note the baseboards, people! How great does that floor look? Do you think its sagging at all? completely. disgusting. filth.

Since we're on this bathroom kick, let's look at the other bathroom, and where the new one will go back:
From left to right, (before) closet space, doorway/hall/sink, then small room with shower unit and toilet. Lovely.

Two shallow closets were here, side by side, opening into opposite rooms.

This used to be a short hall, closet on the left. Then they closed the doorway and plopped a sink down with a mirror above it.

Turn to your right while standing in front of the sink and you see this, where the shower was. It had to be cut out in sections. Look, ma! No floor below it! Nice plumbing job. Love the wallpaper.

And right next to the shower, in the same little small room, was the toilet.


This whole area will become the house's only bath. I plan on having a bath tub unit with a shower, a long vanity, big mirror, single sink, toilet alcove, and a washer, dryer, utility area behind doors. The whole area is about 10'x 11'.



Head on view of all three bathroom areas, and don't forget this bathroom will also include the hallway that runs behind it:

It may not seem like much, but a lot has been going on since my contractor started. I'm very pleased with the results so far and can't wait to get more accomplished.