Hey, what's that piece of metal doing at the bottom of the stairs?

Our contractor asked us to double check the inside water supply to make sure it was turned off during the very cold weather.

When Dan was checking the house and cats he saw a chunk of radiator at the bottom of the stairs.

Odd......

Oh SH*T! Not good.

Thankfully Dan was able to contact our heating contractor and quickly drained the whole system. We only lost 4 radiators and the upstairs faucet. All other plumbing seems to be ok. Cats are toasty because we moved a stand alone electric radiator into their room. 

 

 The very, very best part of this potential disaster was continued open communication between us and our contractor. No finger pointing, just facts and a plan to buy new radiators. Worth every penny and minute of planning time!

Steenstra Holiday Card

We didn't get a Christmas Card out this year due to the move.  Here's our motley crew ready for our new house to be born. We're projected to move back in early June.

Ernie in the sunbeam

You can barely see Ernie sunning himself in the right window of the dormer.  The cats are happy to be in their haven upstairs.  They'll be miffed when framing starts on Tues.  TOO BAD! I'll make chicken for dinner and share.

Outside before framing begins

My babies room back to studs again

Dan ripped all the old nasty beaver board off in 2001 when I was pregnant with Grace.  He added new insulation, drywall, ceiling, lights and wallpaper.  GONE in a day!  First pic is the location of the new staircase.

This room will get longer, no taller, and will be John's room.

Good bye scary staircase - I was the only person who wasn't bothered by the rise and treads made for kids.

Framing starts Tues: Last pics of 'before' of the original house

Old play room looking into the bathroom (similar to other pics). No wonder this room was cold there was a layer of lathe and plaster, exterior boards then siding. Brrrrr.  Warm new bedroom here we come!

Other pics are the ceiling - no subfloors in 1910 just nailed the flooring to the framing.

The wood square at the base of this door is the floor of the 'closet' in the office.  I wonder what the bathroom looked like when the house was new?

Counter Tops - waiting for samples

I visited Rugo Stone with Tom (our contractor) to see the remnant area for counter top options.  Based on our color range, budget and basic preferences we quickly narrowed it down to 2-3 options.

Tom said: How will you and Dan decide what to select?
Gretchen: Depends on how many choices we have - I brought my camera. Hope (architect) said we should have dark counter tops, I like matte/honed finished and we have a budget so our choice may be simple.

Lo and behold there were 2 options that were great - 1 was a more traditional granite pattern in the darker family that wasn't jet black.  The other was a locally produced granite with an interesting finish. I liked both for different reasons.  They're making a sample set for us.

On the way home Tom made the comment that he likes working with us because we make decisive choices based on their recommendation without a lot of obsession about every possible option or variation. I told him Dan shows his clients options in pairs or groups of 3. No more or it is too hard to decide. We're following the same rule with SethAnne - we're depending on their expertise to narrow our options to the top 2 or 3.  If we hate all options we'll ask for another set but we're not not asking to visit the showroom or start combing catalogs....yet.

We're also trying hard to respect the budget so we can enjoy our additon WITH new furniture.

When I got home and showed Dan the pics he agreed with my first impression.

#1 has a black base with a lot of additional tones in white and brown.  They said when they polish in a honed style (not high polish) it will have a lot of depth.

#2 is quarried is Culpepper, VA. It's cool because the base color is charcoal grey and it looks like a handful of white beach sand has been thrown across the slab.  You can see a swirl pattern vs veritcal in the 2 slabs.  It may be interesting to have 1 version on the counter and 1 version on the island.

This is what a honed vs high polish surface looks like. Same granite just 2 finishes.

Interior demo almost complete

Barrier between living room and dining room. The zipper feature is really cool.









This is the TV/playroom back to bare walls - you can see the outline of the staircase.  This will come out and become part of the master BR.

Kitchen demo - outside wall next to DR.

Outside of the house with no siding. Not too shabby for 100 yrs.

Permit BABY!

It's a long story but we're happy to see our little friend in the window.

The other size of the story

The office is the hurling room - somethings gotta give right?



More donations


The diamond of the story: Not only does Grace like having her own room (@ our home away from home) so does John. His motorcycles helped keep him company and he stays in bed ALL NIGHT EVERY NIGHT! This is coming from a boy who came to our room every single night to sleep next to us in a sleeping bag for all of 2009. Pinch me!

We're Ready!

Downstairs bath: Ready to expand into a 21st version

















Kitchen: Only item remaining is a roll of paper towels and fire extinguisher








Dining Room: 2 boxes remain for left over items and we have to find a home for John's trampoline
.
When our Contractor stopped by to check on us this afternoon I believe he doubted we'd have the house ready. It's always worst right before it gets better...






Living Room: limited storage

Kitties are not happy!

We moved Josie and Ernie to our room upstairs during the downstairs demo and framing. Normally we never let the cats spend time upstairs but it's queiter and carpeted.

We set up a cat haven with calming aromas, blankets, extra soft cat beds...the works.

They spend the day under the bed.

I worked at home today to keep them company. By the end of the day they came out to look out the window and check out their new pad.

Demo begins

Outline of the old porch - this view is kind of cool. You can also see they built up the foundation and are ready to pour the new gathering space floor (with radiant heat!).

It is amazing how much fine dust is already all over the house after 1 day of demo.  We're packing up the rest of the house this weekend and will start stocking up on swiffer products for our return.









Bathroom starting to come apart. I thought all the walls would crack when there were pounding in here today. They whole house shook.















Ceiling of the bathroom. Doesn't look too bad....



















Dumpster at the start...

Bye-Bye bathroom

Tues the downstairs bathroom will be removed to make room for a fancy new version.  This will be a bitter sweet moment because this is the place where we bathed our babies.  It is also our weight insurance program.  If we can't fit through the space between the sink and tub we need to eat less!

On the other hand I can't wait to check out our new tub built for tall people. It ain't cheap but Hope (architect) insisted that it's best options. In addition we'll have a linen closet IN the bathroom.  JOY!!!