Friday, April 3, 2009

the BIG project has started!

There is no turning back now--work on our family room addition officially started yesterday! I'm a ball of stress because I don't deal well with messes and this is MESSY!! And as of now the mess is only in the yard...I don't know what I'm going to do when the mess moves inside! Ugh!

Here is the back of our house before we started any demo. Excuse the overgrown ferns--I've since trimmed them back. Spring definitely hasn't sprung here yet!
Our addition will take up the area previously occupied by the little deck and the patio--basically we're bumping out the backwall from the lower left corner of the house over to just past the sliding door. The window on the left is in our family room (teeny tiny family room!) and the slider is off of the breakfast nook. We're adding about 270 square feet to the house in the family room and breakfast nook.
We demolished the deck ourselves to save some of the labor costs and we'll also be painting the interior and exterior of the addition.
We found someone's old nasty shoes under the deck. How gross!! They were all the way up by the house, too. Blech!!
Yesterday our contractor started on his part of the job. Eight weeks from now, he'll be done. For right now, he's turning my yard into a mud pit! Right now I have a small bulldozer parked in my backyard, waiting for him to come back today and dig the foundation. Yesterday he removed the patio...which turned out to be six inches thick rather than the more typical 3.5 inches!
Handsome and Princess are enthralled by the digging, especially because they have front row seats! As for me, well, I'm worried about naptime! Yesterday I managed to get them started with nap while our contractor was taking our patio to the dump...but after an hour they woke up when a chain saw started in the backyard. Yikes!

10 comments:

Jessica said...

Your children still nap?? BOTH of them? Holy Moly!! Ben quit at 31/2 and Carter quit at 2 (although he still passes out in the car or on the couch about twice a week)....consider yourself one of the lucky ones! :)

Jen @ tatertotsandjello.com said...

That is so exciting!!! I can't wait to hear/see more!

Good for you!

XOXO
Jen

frillsfluffandtrucks said...

No, the napping isn't lucky--it is because of their reflux. Their sleep is very disjointed and they get very tired.

~ Sarah

Rae said...

How fabulous!! I too can't wait to see!

Rachel @ springpad said...

That's so exciting! We did home renovation a few years ago and it was intense... You might want to check out springpad - it's a great way to organize all the aspects of your life, from meal planning to home improvement. I think you'd really like it!

Life is Good said...

Happy Remodling! Looks like they are off to a good start :)

Stacey @ The Blessed Nest said...

Wow! What a big, but exciting undertaking! Here's praying that it goes quickly and without any problems for you! :)

Nicole said...

Wow, how fun! I can't wait to see how it turns out. Your blog looks great by the way, you probobly changed it forever ago, sorry, I'm a little slow these days. Try not to get too stressed and think about the end result, I'm sure it will be wonderful!

Unknown said...

Wow I can't wait to see this finish product!

I am a fan of your site come by mine and check it out!

Connie said...

I feel your pain. We put a 600 sq. ft. addition on our house last year which included a remodeled kitchen and family room with a storage room and laundry room. All I can say is that it is like pregnancy, miserable for a time but oh so worth it in the end. Hang in there sister, this too shall pass (the mess that is).

I just happen to stumble on your blog, I hope you don't mind my making a comment.