Clean Up and Bid Day

My trip has been postponed a week, so I was here to take pictures of the house tonight after work. My head-on shots turned out too dark, but the house looks most impressive with the debris gone from the front.

You can see a lot of the potential I saw in the house with the yard clean. You can tell that something is happening, that someone cares.

And you can see the front porch in its new form. Its been months since you could actually walk on it and it wasn't used as a place to store things.

It's quite a nice front porch. It's about 8 or 9 feet deep and 24 feet wide.

Still plenty big enough for a nice seating area. A good place to sit and watch the world go by.

Or to wait for someone to come by and visit. And the Foyer addition doesn't really take much away, as far as looks or space.

I asked New Guy to add another layer of trim to the door. He just beefed it up so that the moulding stood out more instead of being flush with the siding.

And they also added a little bit of quarter-round up at the ceiling to finish the transition.

I also had him add a 'drip edge' up top to match the rest of the windows. It's just a little detail that, once painted out, will really make the door seem like its always been there.

See it above the double windows on the porch? It's actually a drip edge for rain water, which won't get under the porch, but all the windows have it. And now the exterior doors do, too.

Here's the top of the original post we incorporated into the new wall of the door and foyer. Still a few mouldings to be replaced or refitted.

And look how they finished off the brick base of the column. They still have to piece in the green part somehow.

And they took down the funky board running vertically behind the post, in between it and the new siding of the closed in foyer. They trimmed it, making it follow the angle of the post.

From the back it still sticks out a bit, but it looks more finished than before.

And here are the remaining refugees from the demolition that were camping out on the front porch. I may be looking to sell some of this. I'm thinking about saving one of the mantels for decoration.

New Guy's crew cleaned up today while New Guy met several sub-contractors at the house, taking bids on the rewiring the electrical system, completely redoing the plumbing, and installing the new HVAC system.

And actually, along with another side project, all those sub-contractors will start tomorrow, simultaneously! They might even be done by Friday, depending on how everything goes.

So much to look forward to! And so much happening at once!

Storm Windows

New Guy and Crew got the storm windows up Friday afternoon.

Even the little windows up top got the storm treatment.

They add so much to the house besides their insulation value.

The solid sheet of glass is quite stunning.

It highlights the window paint and design even more.

It's quite eye-catching.

The reflection is quite nice, too.

It seems to put the windows on display, under glass.

It makes them even more special.

I'm so glad I decided to keep the original windows.

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I spent about 2 hours at the house Friday afternoon with New Guy, walking around and talking about what happens next. They'll put another coat of antique white on the trim and clean up yards, front, back and side. And will start on the next set of projects.

We have estimates in from the plumber and electrician and will be getting numbers from a few air conditioner guys, too.

I will be out of state part of next week, so the posts won't be as frequent as they have been. But big things are in store.

Window Paint

The men have accomplished the build of the Foyer, and all that's left for this round of work are the windows, which entail scraping, replacing, fixing, and painting, then come the storm windows. As you can see from the work today, the storm windows aren't far off...

Look how the Antique White trim pops! And how your eyes are drawn to the SASHES. And, oh, what's that? Up there? Have those windows always been there?

Yes, but don't they sing a little, now? I'm undecided as to whether or not the vent in-between these windows should be painted the trim color or the body color (which isn't on the house, yet).

Down the side of the house I saw pretty painted windows.

Single window in Great Room.

Double window in Dining Area.

Newly placed Kitchen Window!

And as I walked around the house in the cold dark, I noticed New Guy and Crew had pulled the forms from the back porch.

I found it curious and pleasing that you can see some of the old brick along the side.

Just interesting, really. Back to the windows...

Yes, I know. They all look the same. But look how much you notice the design. These are the Big Bedroom's windows.

And the Little Bedroom's window.

And the double windows on the front porch.

I liked these colors, then saw them go up and was unsure. But then I kept going back and looking at them on the actual house. And I drove by and all I saw were the windows. And having a fondness for blue anyway, this Sea Pine color just grew on me and grew on me.

I can't wait to see what the Siding color does for the house.

While walking around outside taking pictures I heard a loud noise from inside the house and it scared me at first. I admit that I jumped. But I knew instantly what it was:

New Guy and Crew left this air compressor on. But I didn't know how to turn it off, and it wasn't mine (or hurting anything), so I left it on. It'll keep people away from the house, for sure.

I wonder if the storms will start going up tomorrow?

Paint Quest 2nd+1/2 Attempt

It was late and rainy when I got off of work. And dark. But I braved these things for pictures because there is actually a little bit of color on the house and I don't know what to think about it.

See the double windows on the front porch? The white trim? It looks weird. Not because it's bad, but because I have never seen the house with light trim. Ever. It's always been that dark green.

Up close, you have to ignore the overwhelming slightly yellowish siding color. The white is actually pretty, it's a nice white, but it's not stark. It's called Antique White, aptly so. This is one of the double windows up close.

And the pair, one unfinished. It's different to see paint up that I didn't do myself. I just told New Guy what colors I was thinking, and today they're starting to go up. Or maybe these are samples, I'm not sure.

I kept playing with my flash, trying to get a better idea of the color from the dark, rainy night.

Inside was cold and dark, but not wet. They worked on the windows a lot today, obviously, so no huge changes. But this is the kitchen window, and I did notice that they fixed the siding here--- remember where the two square openings were on either side of the window?

And they framed in the doorway that was the front door in the Foyer. But there were two ladders below it and this is a bad picture, but you see the new wood. Did I mention it was dark in the house?

I was just too distracted by the paint colors to stay inside long. So back out to the front porch, I went. I like these colors. They are a lot better than the first ones I picked out.

I just don't know. I really need to see it in daylight, and probably with two coats of paint. And with the body color. It's a softer look so far than what was in my head, but that could be good difference. I want it to look sophisticated and classic, but also young with a nod towards the whole craftsman thing.

And I can tell you this, though, I am extremely, terribly, wonderfully glad that I kept these windows. Because they make the house.

Porch to Foyer Project Day 4

I felt bad, still, today. So I stayed home from work. I decided to get out of the house and drive over to one of the big box stores and see if they had any lighting on sale this afternoon, and on my way stop by my house and take pictures, but I just wasn't up to it. I drove by and then came home.

After I ate something and waited a few hours, I did make it out, but only to the house. And probably only because I was too curious to see what New Guy and his crew were working on today.

At first I wasn't sure what they'd been doing...

And then I realized they were piecing in the siding around the new front door. They'd begun using the new siding last week, but didn't get very much up. And I see they took that little bit down and used the original siding they'd taken off what is now the interior of the Foyer.

And that little detail will make a big difference, reusing the original siding here, since this is the face of the house. It will help it blend in even more and not seem like such an addition.

Here you can see where they measured how the original siding was put up and wrote down the measurements on the door frame. They matched up the boards to the other side of the front porch. If you can zoom in, you'll see each board is actually faced a little differently, not all completely uniform.

This part... concerns me a bit. Not the difference in the original siding and the new, because my house its on a narrow lot and once painted out, will be fine, but rather... this board. That runs along the porch post.

It does stick out. And is obvious. But I'm not going to rush to any conclusions here. Maybe it's a temporary thing, used to get this awkward angle of the narrowing post and the straight, new wall figured out. New Guy won't leave this like this, I'm sure. His other work is too meticulous and perfect, even when its 'imperfect', like matching the siding around the door.

The little bedroom's window. They started replacing the broken or damaged glass and also the glazing (I believe, is the right terminology), which appears white.

The big bedroom's windows.

The single window in the Living Area of the Great Room.

The double windows in the Dining Area of the Great Room.

They also resurfaced the concrete on the back porch.

Which looks much, much better and more uniform.

Inside the Foyer, they began rebuilding the interior walls, which used to be the exterior walls. And they obviously have just started, but this didn't seem quite up to par with New Guy's work, either.

The end product has always been very satisfactory, so I'll wait and see where this is going.

They also put down the second layer of sub-floor in the Foyer. It looks a little off to me, but this was built on a porch. And it may be perfectly level, I don't know. Look at the base of the new wall, how the left side is higher than the floor, but the right is almost level with the new sub-floor.

I'll ask New Guy about these things tomorrow. I didn't catch him down there today, partly because I didn't know if I was still contagious or not. And it is an old house. Once finished out, it may all be fine. I have confidence in his work so far.