Day 70: The Garage Has Walls

Moving one step closer... the garage gets most of its skin!

Day 69: We Can See Clearly Now, The Windows Are Here

The morning started with a phone call from contractor Menny. The window guys were coming. TODAY. Menny had told us they were coming on Saturday -- but apparently he got his wires crossed with the window folk, who told him "Saturday the 29th." Well, today's the 29th, so here they came.



It's kind of sad to see the windows go -- they were the originals to the house, as best as I can tell. But that also means they were thin, flimsy and likely to crack at some point. Plus, a hazard with a toddler in the house. The windows also didn't close well -- which meant we were losing a ton of AC and heat to the outside world. Hopefully that will change.



Setting up shop on our front yard.



Working on the side window.



In the meantime, our heating/AC grates are now in place (after a loud morning the other day of workers drilling through our old house foundation to connect the unit). Quite annoyingly, we weren't asked where we wanted the grates. They just put them in -- and almost in the middle of both rooms (above, the bedroom...)



(and here, the family room.) That will make placing furniture more of a challenge.



Meanwhile, the garage continues...



And here's the view from the family room.

Day 68: Garage Work Continues

An eventful Thursday, as I spent much of the morning at the city resolving more permit issues. Turns out it was a mixup on the fees... after signing a massive check to officially pull the permit on the garage, we were good to go.

Spent much of the rest of the day looking at tile for both the kitchen and the master bathroom. In the meantime, the garage is coming together nicely. No work today, but the solo guy who's been here the past several days is moving quickly.


The garage from the front


The garage from the back


The garage from the side

Day 67: The Rise of the Garage

The garage framing is going up, the roof appears to be done, the plumbing and electrical are mostly in place... and next up, the windows and doors are slated to be installed this weekend. Who knows, this thing could really get done by the end of October after all (knock on wood).



I'm just as curious as you are about that slight slope to the left. Is that for water drainage? If so, I'm fine with that -- you all remember the leaky roof we had in the old garage. It would be nice to avoid that problem this time around. Meanwhile, it looks like they really are incorporating that one wall from the old garage... I guess from a historical perspective it'll be interesting to see the difference between old and new.



Good news! I thought the backyard view was history, but the garage is short enough that from the back of the house you can still see the hills and the homes back there.



Finally, some roof shots...

Day 66: The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is On Fire -- Quite Literally

As you can kind of see from this back shot, the roofing continues -- it involves a lot of torching, which we can hear... as well as a lot of pounding and dropping of heavy material on the roof, which we can both hear and feel. Remarkably, I haven't noticed any new cracks in our walls despite all of that pounding -- but I should add, "yet."



Here's the ceiling of the family room, facing the driveway (hence the magenta flowers you see via the window). The speaker cables now droop in between the recessed lights. I'm getting excited about this room -- combined with our kitchen, we're developing a pretty nice gathering place.



And here's the tubing now in place on the TV wall, with wires going back and forth (as well as the speaker wires coming in).



The whirlpool is in place and filled with water -- but that required the builders to take down part of the bathroom framing. Now that it's in, it's also now even more obvious that this bathroom's gonna be tiny. Should we have sprung for more of a master bathroom? I guess the question is moot now.



I do wonder if they're going to have to move the bathroom door a tad to the left, however, since it's butting up to the tub pretty hard.



And now, the roof. Our existing house's roof had just been redone a year before we bought it, so this is kind of redundant. But if the goal is to merge the old and new roofs to avoid any problems, then I'm all for it. Still don't get, then, why the old and new remain seperated... but I'm hoping there's a reason for that. On the bright side, this should hopefully resolve the issue we had that led to the roof leak in our kitchen ceiling last year.

Day 65: The Garage Finally Gets Its Concrete, and The Roof is Raised

Things are picking up -- partly, I imagine, because I told the contractor on Friday that we won't be paying our next installment until the framing is officially signed off by the inspector. (That was our agreement, after all, but I think the contractor was trying to get the money early, hoping we wouldn't care.)

Having officially gotten the OK by the inspector on Friday to pour the garage foundation, the concrete guys were at the house bright and early on Saturday -- we're talking 6:30 in the morning. Quite an early wakeup call. But it was a nice one -- finally! Concrete!







In a bit of a bummer, the concrete was poured around the pre-existing garage floor. That means we'll have a slightly bizarre-looking floor -- two different sets of concrete, with a band (once the foundation) making an L-shape in the middle. The job foreman said it was necessary, though, to keep the old foundation there and add on to it. Still not 100% sure why they didn't just tear up the entire floor... but I guess the question is moot now. (And maybe it wasn't possible since we were keeping that one wall up).



On to the fun stuff: We got our whirlpool (above) -- it's an American Standard. The first one, a Kohler, came to us cracked. I like Kohler better as a brand, but I suppose this will do. Our sink and toilet, however, will have to be Kohler Memoirs brand, or we're sending them straight back.





In other news, the back windows are now gone. Here, the kitchen window is temporarily boarded up, but the view will eventually open -- so as you're cooking/doing dishes/etc. you can see the activity in the family room or even watch the new TV.



Here's the bathroom, with the shower plumbing in place and the wall also boarded up. Which means our current bedroom window has also been removed (we saved the actual window). It made for a cold night last night.

Also, we've amended our family room's electrical sockets to add in what my dad suggested -- a phone line and cable line toward the ground -- for the DVR/VCR/etc. -- as well as tubing from above (for the future flat screen TV) down to the DVR/VCR etc. below.



Here's a closeup of the now empty window in our current bedroom. You can see how, at some point, the home's original plaster walls were covered with drywall. That explains why many of the home's cracks are in straight lines -- it's the plaster underneath that's cracking, while on the walls we see it shows up in the seams between drywall.





And finally, work on the roof has begun. Above, a worker early on Monday begins prep work.





The prep work included taking the Spanish tile off the roof, as you can see in the above two spots.

Day 59: More Power

Above, the back of the house. The electrical is more or less wired -- with some final improvements to come.

Meanwhile, the inspector has some concerns over the wiring; wants to see the pipes strapped down; and a few other issues before signing off on the framing. And the garage plans just need a simple change on the plans, then we're ready for the foundation.


Side of the house


Bedroom


Closet


The new 200 watt electrical panel, on the side of the house

Day 55: It's Electric!

The electricians spent much of last week hooking the house up -- including putting the new 200 watt panel on the side of the house (not the back! Less clutter back there -- although we're still going to have to put the water heater on the back of the house). I went through one day with the electricians and figured out where to put plugs and where our TV was going.



Above, the family room. As you can see, we've put in recessed lighting, and -- even though we don't have one yet -- have put the cable and electrical socket up high for the eventual flat screen TV that will be a nice addition to the room (and viewable from the kitchen as well!)



The side of the house -- and below, the garage. The workers have gone back and expanded it some more to meet Glendale city code -- in which the structure has to be 21 by 21 feet. Goodbye, yard. (Do we even bother with sprinklers at this point? I guess we'll see how much they'll cost).