New views

We haven't been impacted too much from the work being done on the house. For the most part, all of the dust and dirt has been contained upstairs.

The one exception is in the bathroom downstairs. Since the plumbing is stacked, they replaced the pipe that connects from downstairs to upstairs. It required cutting a hole in the downstairs ceiling which enabled us to take these shots...

Me in the bathroom downstairs while Steve is in the bathroom upstairs (taken from both vantage points). I know we are 2 wild and crazy kids!!!

Other than a great deal of dirt and heat getting through which forced us to move all toiletries out of the bathroom - this wasn't a big deal...until today.

Today when I went to do laundry in the basement, I noticed water on the floor. Apparently there is some kind of blockage which now prevents us from using any water upstairs. The washer drains right there in the basement. Fortunately, my mom teaches close by and was able to get us access to the school bathroom and we will be staying at their house tonight.

Never missing a moment to joke about it. Steve proclaimed that our anniversary had really gone down the crapper. My reply, "Yes, it's a real pisser."

Hallway

Unfortunately, I don't have a before picture of this hallway or the bookshelf that used to be on the other side. Steve captured it on video - but it will be a while before I figure out how to splice and post parts of that.

This is the hallway that leads into the existing kitchen (left) and living room (right). The opening that is shown below was blocked off so that you had to pass through either the kitchen or the living room to get anywhere. That makes sense for an apartment, but not really for a single family home. We had suspected that this was once a hallway because of the cased in bookshelves on the other side.


If you look at the opening on the far left in this second picture, you can see that it was framed the same as the doorway to its right, which goes into the kitchen. Since we are closing off the kitchen opening by putting in a bathroom and using the existing living room as a bedroom - it made perfect sense to get rid of the bookshelf and return it to a hallway. It was hard for me to let go of the bookshelf (so hard I didn't take a single picture of it before demo). Having the kitchen cabinet in the soon to be reading room will certainly more than make up for the lost storage space.

Kitchen Cabinet - before and in progress

In the existing kitchen, there was a built-in cabinet (pictured below). Because this was my great grandmas, I wanted to find a way to keep it . The first thought was to move it downstairs and incorporate it into a future kitchen remodel.


The very top few feet of the cabinet (shown below) would have to be removed, because the kitchen and dining room downstairs have ceilings that are a good 2 ft shorter than upstairs.

When the cabinet was removed in 2 pieces, it became apparent that the only way to get this thing downstairs would be to take it apart into more pieces or send it off the back porch (like was done with the blue bathroom furniture). Neither of these seemed like good options. So we decided to find a home for it upstairs in the reading room. Basically it will be on the same wall as it was previously just on the other side.



Right now both pieces are in the kids' bedroom and will need to be put together in the reading room.

Below is what it looked like in the kitchen after this was taken out. The first shot is the floor and the second is of the wall. As shown in the bathroom/laundry room pics - this is where a toilet, bathtub and linen closet will go.

Steve is giving me a hard time about the amount of blogging I have done today. What better way to celebrate your anniversary, right?

Laundry room/bathroom Part 2

Here is what the laundry room/bathroom looks like now. This is the nook for the toilet. Originally it was going to be on the wall to the left of the sink but it didn't work plumbing wise. I think it will be better to have one toilet that is not next to a window.
Steve and PT are standing where the bathtub will be (to the right of the toilet).

Below is the area above where the vanities will go. They have started marking where the sconces will be hung.

This is the innards of the plumbing for the sinks. Yep - that's right - double vanities!!!

Plumbing for the toilet and bathtub....

Here is more of the laundry room setup. The first shot is just with the framing. The second and third show the progression of the plumbing and electric .

This final shot shows where the old entrance to the attic was. It is being moved out into the hallway. This wall will be for the bathtub on the left and linen closet on the right.

Laundry room/bathroom in progress Part 1

Underneath the yellow linoleum was this lovely yellow and green linoleum. We decide not to save this...


In order to do the plumbing on this wall, they needed to frame it out because the plaster was too fragile.

This is the wall where the kitchen cabinet was. In the corner will be a toilet area. Where the orange tool is standing will be the bathtub shower. In the unseen corner will be a linen closet.

Kitchen ...soon to be bathroom/laundry room

I didn't take many pics of this room before.

Here is the kitchen sink, which we are hoping to reuse somehow in phase II when we remodel the downstairs kitchen.

This wall where the kitchen sink was is going to have the 2 sinks/vanities.

This corner (to the left of the window) had a stove, which is now in the garage. The thought is to rehab this also. Going forward this will be walled off to make the laundry room part.

The wall not shown has the kitchen cabinet, which I will show before/after in another post.

Master bathroom in progress

Here are some shots of the master bathroom in progress.

This shot shows where the door used to be. We always suspected that the one on the right was not original because it is shorter than all of the other doors in that room.

It was kind of weird to see the radiator hanging out there. They ended up removing it and draining all of the radiators.

Below is the plumbing for the toilet. Yes - it will be great to have a view out the window while taking care of business...

Master Bath - before work began

Our neighbors reported a flying blue toilet, sink and bathtub. Here are some before shots of the master bath. It's a tight space - so I did my best to get some good shots.

This picture below is one of my favorites of the bath tub and light. For whatever reason the electrician said it would not be possible to keep this set-up. Doesn't everyone need an exposed light above their bath???

Room by room

A few vacations, travel and family gatherings have made it nearly impossible to stay up to date with the blog. My thought right now is to do room-by-room posts on where we are at...and if time...where "we" are going.

One would think that hiring someone to "do" the work would give all sorts of time to blog about it? My guess is that I will be much more anxious to show off progress - when it's hey - look it what i spent my entire weekend doing.

I am sure the next few months will test that theory. Enjoy the pics...

Just a couple

Imagine if you will...

The problem with being on the road while your house is being worked on is that you are completely at the mercy of your husband to update you on what work is getting done.

Yesterday - Steve informed me that they took the plaster out of the master bathroom. In doing so, they discovered that there was an opening for a door on the wall were the sink was. I'd insert a picture here - but for now you just have to imagine.

This door would have connected what we are calling the master closet to the master bath. We know that the master closet used to be the back hallway and there was a stair case into the kitchen. We also know that this back part of the house was not original. Now it follows that this room was added but may not have always been a bathroom. I have often stared at the bathroom and closet doors and wondered why they are different heights. It makes sense if one is not original.

Today Steve came home and was excited to see more garbage in the dumpster - some Kohler boxes. He thought this meant that they had installed some of the bathroom fixtures. Since we did not purchase anything made by Kohler - he quickly came to the realization that this must have been from another job site.

When he went upstairs - he didn't even notice (at first) that the hallway had been extended. The existing blue dining room (soon to be reading/craft room) had a book case in it. The book case was added to frame in a doorway that connected this room to the hallway/stair case. It is so odd to think about what it will look like to "see through" that wall into the room.

Finally, in the existing kitchen (soon to be kids bathroom) - they took out the kitchen sink and have started to prep the kitchen cupboard to be removed.

As excited as I am about all this change - its scary as well. I have only known these rooms as they looked for the last 30+ years. The cleaning out and wallpaper removal that I have worked on are merely cosmetic. Crazy it is going to sound - I am going to miss this space as it once was.

We are doing alot to preserve the footprint of the upstairs. It was like a time capsule up there. You could see (and at one time smell) what life was like up there. The kitchen will never again be a place where cookies are made. The dining room will not be a place for hosting friends for dinner. My grandpa's bedroom will no longer be a place of boyhood dreams.

It seems odd to have these connections to these rooms since I never baked in the kitchen, dined in the dining room, or even saw a bed in grandpa's bedroom. I do take comfort in knowing that the kitchen will now be a host to the smell of clean laundry and bubble bath, the dining room will be a place to relax with family, and grandpa's bedroom will hold toys to be played with in the same rooms my mother and grandfather played in. I also know that prior to my family living in the house - these rooms had other purposes - before the house was a 2-flat. So I guess my "memories" are all relative (no pun intended) and that the house will continue to change as the needs of its caretakers change.

On the road again...

When you go more than a few days without posting, it is hard to figure out what needs to be left unsaid. I will do my best to keep to the key moments over the last few weeks.

Previously on 108 North...

We had just found out about the water line and were headed for our first cruise. The trip was great and we have lots of fond memories like....being detained in Mexico and leaving 1 cell phone in LA. The Gs safely made it back to 108N and the phone...well...Steve just got the shipping info today - so he promises it will be here shortly.

PT got to vacation with gma, teach and ellie in chambana and had a grand old time.

The house...while in spite of best hopes of progress while we were out of town...little was done inside. The electrical did get updated - so that's a start.

The week of the 4th - which I keep referring to as 2 weeks in 1 - dragged on. Seriously what kind of a joke is it have a holiday mid-week? Tues felt like Fri, Wed felt like Sun, and Thurs felt like Monday AGAIN. Remind me when this happens again in a few years just to take the week off.

We celebrated like it was 1812 at that band concert on the 5th. It actually was nice that work hadn't really started on the house. I just know there will come a point when having people over will not be feasible. We also got news on a new addition for our friends. Not sure if this has been announced - so will just leave names out for now :) We're so excited for you guys!!!!

This morning I left the house bright and early for ORD and a business trip to Houston :) Steve went for an MRI - his back/leg have been messed up. He also reported in that the dumpster is in the driveway, which I hope is an indicator of lots of work getting done this week.

Tonight I am procrastinating because I have work to do. The hotel offered a free movie and popcorn - so I just got done watching WF and JH in Blades of Glory.