Finishing the new basement!

Well, after the sump pump project started being discussed, we decided to go ahead and finish the rest of our new basement so that it now includes a fully finished bathroom, a legal bedroom (with egress window), and playroom. This had been in our original plans but we decided not to do it when we did the rest of the addition because we weren't entirely sure what we wanted and we wanted to cut some costs.

The whole project took about 3 weeks despite continuous snowfall (very unusual for here), and we used Jim Cole again. We were fortunate to get him at a slow point so we feel we got a lot for our money.

We chose the same quality of finishes as we used upstairs but chose carpet instead of hardwood because of moisture issues. Although I have heard that you can use carpet or laminate in basements, we also really wanted the warmth of carpet. We chose a subfloor called DRIcore to use under the carpet. It's a great product which we learned about from some neighbors who used it in their basement. It is basically plywood pieces that lock together and which have some plastic feet-type pieces on the bottom - thus keeping the wood off the concrete. It's much warmer and provides a space for air underneath.

Eventually we will install some built-in bookshelves and a wall-mounted TV, but that is all for the next few months. Right now, the kids are really enjoying the play room (our son started crawling the same week we finished the project) and the extra guest room has already come in handy several times!

I'll post more information over the next few weeks, as well as some finished pictures.

Renovation: Kitchen! Railings! Patio!

Well, 17 days and counting until we move back into the house and things are really moving now. I feel like the progress is really tangible on a daily basis. I haven't felt this way since framing. The most major change right now is that the kitchen cabinets are in. They are made by Kingswood Kitchens and were ordered through Bergman Custom Casework in Queenbsury, NY. They are absolutely beautiful - I am thrilled with results! We made the decision to do a lot of drawers instead of lower cabinets. There are a few lower cabinets but we tried to minimize them since I hate how things always get stuck in the back! We are ordering our countertops this week and hopefully they will be ready to install next week before the floors are finished. We are opting for honed Absolute Black granite with a permanent sealer. More on that decision later...

The stair railings have also been installed and they look really great. We opted not to have a railing on the side of the stairs coming into the kitchen because it's only 2 steps and it keeps it more open. The code allows for this because there is a continuous railing on the other side and it's less than a certain height so there is limited risk of falls. You can see it in the pictures in the Construction album.

We also opted to get the landscaping in the backyard started. We are using a local family-owned landscaping business, Hambletons, which we have used before for small projects and spring yard clean-up. The patio will probably be finished in the next day or so, and then the sod will go down. We'll have to see if we can borrow a neighbor's hose to water it until our water is back on in a week or so. Let's hope we get some decent thunderstorms - but of course after the wettest spring in years, the forecast does not have any rain in it!

Renovation: Hardwood Floors

After a brief delay due to high humidity, our hardwood floors started going down on Friday. They finished the upstairs in one day, including the patches in the old part of the house. They look really good. It's amazing how well the old and new parts can be patched. They will look perfect when they are stained.

Our cabinets get delivered tomorrow morning and will likely go in this week. I am still trying to make a final decision on countertops. After going to one place that I did not like and another that I did, I did some more research and may go to a third place in Fairfax to see if they have the ideal countertop - basically a dark/black counter which isn't shiny and doesn't show fingerprints. I'm down to deciding between honed Absolute Black and Cambrian Black antiqued. I have not seen the latter so I am on a quest to see it tomorrow in person. I'll have to make some calls to see whether any of the local granite showrooms have it. I want to be sure to get my granite from a reputable place because the finishes vary greatly. I have found that for the same type stone, some installers recommend maintenance (sealing) every 6 months and others tell you that the stone never has to be sealed. Obviously, I want the least amount of maintenance with the best look. I'll have to figure it out in the next week or so.

I have chosen most of the paint colors for the house with the exception of the master bedroom. I have ordered a pillow sham for the duvet cover that I like. If it looks good in person, then I'll base my final paint decision on that.

Outside, landscaping will begin later this week. We're meeting with the landscaper tomorrow morning to decide on a final layout for the patio and the planting areas. I am going to have a lot of planting to do ths fall but at least I'll be enjoying our new house while I do it!

More demolition, brick work, and framing...

Lots going on at the house these days. The old stairs have been removed giving us a much clearer view of the space between the living room and new family room. The picture on the right was taken from the back of the house looking towards the front.). It's going to be great and it makes even our smallish living room feel huge! They will fill in the holes in the floor where the stairs were either today or tomorrow.

Work is also continuing on the brick foundation around the garage, as well as some brick repair on the front steps and around our second screen porch door (which replaced a rather useless window). There are pictures of both the new doors and the brick garage foundation in the construction pictures on the left. I am so glad that we are doing the brick foundation on the garage. It looks really striking and the garage will be very front and center in our new small backyard! The garage windows were the windows that were taken from the back of our old upstairs.

The workers are also doing what Jim Cole calls "punch list framing" which is where they work from the top to the bottom of the house getting all of the last bits of framing done and fixing things that were off by a little before. They are also installing the pocket door tracks which need to go in before drywall. Fortunately this work has not been affected by the rain because with the new roof, the house is dry.

Jim is also picking up our new basement windows today. We had replaced our old basement windows not long after we moved in because they were rotten and had termite damage. They were not Andersen so the new windows are also not Andersen, but (of course) the old company that made them is now out of business). The original installer (WindowsPlus) was able to find a similar window for us which should work fine. They are not right next to the existing windows so even if they are a little different, it won't be noticeable. They will also have the much darker brown trim which blends well with the brick. The only exception is our egress window which is Andersen and matches the other windows in the house.

We are a little past the half-way mark for construction (we started about on about January 22nd) which is hard to believe. The next steps is plumbing, HVAC, and electrical which will probably start either Friday or Monday. The plan is to start drywall in about 4 weeks, then floors (hardwood and tile), and then finish work. So far, we are still on track for moving back in the house in July even if it means that it's not completely done.

Windows and Doors and STAIRS!

There has been a lot of progress in the past couple of days. We have now have all of the windows installed (except the basement windows which are not from Andersen). Everything looks great and we are pleased with the choices so far. The door hardware looks really good and was well worth the additional cost. I highly recommend doing that to anyone ordering Andersen doors. The new doors to the screen porch have not yet been installed. The major push behind getting the windows in was to get the house ready for siding next week.

Perhaps even more exciting for me (9 months pregnant) is that we have stairs from the basement to the attic. I can now easily walk around on the new part of the second floor which makes the whole thing seem more real. We can also walk freely between the old and new parts of the house.

Work has also continued on the brick foundation. The door from the driveway has a brick foundation about 1/3 of the way up the sides (see the construction picture slideshow on the left side of the page). The garage now also has windows and the brick foundation on the garage has also begun. The brick needs to be completed before the siding can go on the garage.

There were a lot of workers on the site today but it was refreshing to see a flurry of activity after so many days of rain in the past month. Hopefully May will be a little drier!

New Roof!

We finally have new shingles (Certainteed Independence in Charcoal Black) thanks to hard work over the mostly dry weekend by our builder and the roofing contractor. Here are some before and after pictures to give you an idea of just how much of a difference new shingles make! (And, yes, it's raining again today.)

Before

After

Next step is finishing part of the back of the roof which did not get done before it started raining on Sunday, and then windows and doors later this week.

We are finalizing our kitchen plans through Kingswood and then we'll be waiting about 2 months for those to come in. Fortunately there is plenty of work to finish before that point. Still 2 months puts us in mid-June so well before our (hopefully) late July finish date.

I am also looking at exterior shutters for the front of the house which is proving to be harder than I anticipated because I want shutters which are wider than standard shutters so they actually look like they could close (as shutters should). I also want something which is no maintenance but don't want to spend an absolute fortune since I want them to be black (a basic color).

Rain, rain, go away...

Although we lucked out with beautiful weather on Friday despite the forecast for rain, it looks like we have 2 days of straight rain ahead of us tomorrow and Wednesday. Let's hope the weatherman is very wrong. Despite the drought conditions in late February and early March, April has certainly lived up to its "April Showers" reputation! I think we have already had about 6 days of rain and it's only the 12th! Just our luck.

Our builder Jim says he needs one more day to get the roof tied in so he can put down tar paper and then the shingles can go on. The roof has been about an 8 work day process so far. Longer than I expected it to be (but what do I know). We were hoping for shingles this week but that may slip until next week unless a miracle occurs. Jim says the roof is the most complicated part - particularly the tying in to the existing roof and attic and obviously it's important to get the roof on correctly so there isn't much point in rushing!

He also does not want to put the windows in until the roof is on because he believes there is too much risk of breakage - too much throwing of stuff off the roof and pulling stuff up to the roof. The windows are waiting patiently in the living room and dining room of our house.

But, other work still continues with the design aspects. We are finalizing our stairwell plans (balusters, newel posts, and handrails), as well as the design of the stairs as they come down into the kitchen. We are meeting with our architect Kaye in the morning before work to look at some final details before the plans go to the "stair guy" to be built. They are built offsite and then installed onsite. There's about a 2+ week turnaround.

We are also finalizing our kitchen cabinet plans. We are using Kingswood Kitchens (Princess line). They have beautiful, high quality cabinets and we are very excited to see the end product. The turn around time is 6-7 weeks so we need to get our order in this week in order to be ready for install by late May.

Once that order is in, we'll likely turn to finalizing the electrical plan which will have some minor changes from the original - mostly adding or moving lights and switches. It's so much easier to picture where you want things to be when you can walk through the rooms and put your hand up to where you instinctively think there should be a switch. So far, it looks likes we'll be able to keep our existing electrical panel which is good, but we'll probably end up adding a sub panel for his wood shop which can be turned off and locked as a safety precaution whenever he's not using it.

Roof is going on!

After about 5 work days of rain, the roof is going onto the house. It really gives us a good idea for the size and shape of the addition and it looks great! They actually went up all in one day which is really amazing. The back part of the roof (shown here) is made with manufactured trusses, but the part that ties into the house is stick built. The manufactured part goes on quickly, but it is the bulk of the roof so that's good.

There is still work to be done on the stairwell between the 2nd floor and the attic, so that will entail additional work in order to tie it into the rest of the roof and the existing room. The actual stairwell is built by a special subcontractor who specializes in stairs. I would expect (although I have not confirmed) that he will be on the site next week. He has already been here to do measuring. We don't really know much about the process so we aren't sure how much of the work is done offsite and how much is done on site. We'll soon see! I'll be really happy to have the stairs so I can get up to the second floor much more easily!!!

Jim expects the windows and doors to be delivered on Thursday (so long as the distributor receives them tomorrow from Andersen), but they probably won't be installed for a few days.

As for other addition, the baby is due in about 5.5 weeks... and we are soooo happy we are not living in our disaster of a house!

Siding Decisions - finally!!

Progress continues pretty quickly on the framing at our house. The decisions are coming fast and furious now. We have finally settled on Hardie plank siding (fiber cement board) in cedar mill, 6" visible width in timber bark. We decided to go with a darker color to stay in the same dark shade of our brick and also to provide a good contrast with our trim which is a medium tan color. I didn't want anything which was close in color to the trim because the windows wouldn't stand out as much. Hardie has a 15 year warranty on its pre-painted siding so we want to like this color for a long time to come. It took me about 3 weeks to come to a final decision although I had been considering the possibilities for the past few months. I do have some concerns about it being a tiny bit too dark but I really like the pictures I have seen of it used on other houses. It's also a change from the medium tan that I almost always choose for everything!

The next round of decisions involve the kitchen cabinets... more on that to come.

Walls are up!

The walls for the first and second floor are pretty much up. It looks great and we are really excited to see the progress. Next is the stairwell and roof trusses, then windows and doors, and the breakthrough between the old and new house. Jim Cole hopes to have the house "dried in" by the end of next week which means a lot of work next week but there should be lots of progress to show off. Lots of new pictures in the slideshow on the right.

Renovation: House Framing Begins!

Today framing on the house began which is a huge step. The sill plates are now bolted to the foundation, and the floor joists have been installed for about 3/4 of the first floor. More pictures posted under construction photos.

We are making our final decisions on both shingles and siding. We are leaning towards the Certainteed Independence line, although I completely fell in love with the Grand Manor line. But, budget considerations made us decide against the fake slate (which I REALLY love) so why spend a lot on asphalt shingles? Because of the slope of the roof, the roof is really only noticeable from across the street. So, we're saving some money by picking a less expensive shingle (or 'shangle' according to Certainteed, whatever that means).

Certainteed has a cool function on their website where you can pick a house that looks like yours and basically try on different shingles. I've spent more time on this site than I should have over the last few days. We also went to a local roof showroom on Wednesday but it's still hard to tell what the shingles will look like on your house. Our current roof is just so bad, I find it distracting but I think any new roof will look so much better anyway... but I want to get it right of course. I am sure this should be on the list of things that only I will notice. I am leaning towards charcoal colored shingles because we want to have black shutters. Unfortunately there area about 4 shades of gray/charcoal to choose from! Right now, I am leaning towards the charcoal black option because it's classic for the style of house and it's not straight black because of the type of shingle has a lot of raised details.

We are also making the final decision on the color of our HardiePlank lap siding. Again, I think I am going to choose a darker option which will lessen the effect of the difference between the brick and the siding. Also, our trim color is tan so there won't be a stark contrast like there would be with white trim. So, we are leaning towards the Cedarmill 8.25" (7" exposure). I'm making my final decision between Autumn Tan, Woodstock Brown, and Timber Bark. I plan to go and look at the options tomorrow in the sunlight. I don't want the color to be too close to the trim color but I am concerned about it being too dark (although that may be fine ultimately). Hardie also has some cool features on their website so you can see your options both on your style home and on actual homes (some for sale!).

Both the shingles and the siding take about 3 weeks so I need to decide on those options very soon since the framing will be done in another 2 weeks or so hopefully.

Brick Foundation

As I wrote about in previous posts, one of the goals of recycling the brick from our garage was to be able to use it on our new foundation. As you can see from the pictures, the new foundation looks great withe brick and will really help visually tie our new addition to the original house. The hard work will certainly pay off - we hope. There are more pictures in the Construction Photos on the left.

The schedule for the rest of the week is to finish the foundation and seal it for waterproofing. The next steps will be to put in the steel beam, probably on Friday (unless it's really raining). And then the floor will be poured early next week and the floor joists for the first floor will be put in. After that, framing will begin on the first floor and the garage.

Foundation in Progress

We are officially building up now which is exciting for us! As you can see from the pictures, they made a lot of progress in just one day. I would estimate that they are a little more than half done with laying the block but Jim Cole says that the top is very important because that's how you ensure that new and old floors are perfectly aligned and level. I assume that will take some time and careful planning. In any case, it's great to see the progress moving along so quickly. See the pictures in the construction photos on the left.

Once the block is laid, everything will be sealed on the outside and then it will be time for the steel beam to be installed. Our steel has been ordered so it should be ready when our structure is ready for it.

Ready to build up, rather than digging down!

Turns out they do pour concrete even when it is snowing/raining! I am sure it was a tough job because the weather on Wednesday was not pretty but it's done and now we are in the final steps of preparing for the block walls.

It was very exciting to see a large pile of cement blocks in our driveway when we got home from work yesterday. The block starts to be laid on Monday, which will mark the start of building up instead of digging down! I have no idea if this is all the block they will need but it does not seem like enough to me. Today they are working on grouting the last set of underpinnings which is a tough job because the concrete grout has to be tightly packed into the back of the holes. At least it's not 90 degrees out. Once this is finished, the underpinning process will be finished. It took about 2 weeks total once the main hole was dug out. Obviously other work went on at the same time (including building the garage foundation, finishing digging the rest of the hole, and pouring the footings for the foundation).

After talking with our architect today during our Friday weekly meeting, we decided to contact our local pest control company, Ward Pest Control, to ask about termite prevention. We were originally thinking we would do termite protection when we finished the project, but Kaye (our architect) told us that there are some treatments that go under the gravel of the foundation. Arlington has a lot of termite issues so we figured it would be wealth worth it to have it checked now and see what a pretreatment would cost. Another neighbor who did a similar project mentioned to me that if you live near a house which is undergoing major renovations, it's a good idea to be sure your house's termite treatment is up-to-date. Termites may be dislodged from their happy home in your neighbor's house and may decide to move into yours where there is less noise to bother them! There are several renovations going on in our neighborhood (including one directly behind), so it's probably a good idea to get this taken care of as early as possible.

We also talked about the door configurations for our house again to be sure that we know what we are getting for each. We recently changed our original plans so that we have more operable doors for exiting out onto our back deck/patio. Kaye wanted to be sure that we understood that the doors would not all look exactly the same, and that's fine with us - it's worth it for the increased air flow.

More Salvage and Demolition

More demolition is continuing in the house. The basement ceiling is now down exposing the beams, ductwork, and pipes. Fortunately it's not too much of a mess down there. The coolest thing they have found so far is a hacksaw probably from the 1930s sitting on top of the ductwork. My husband is very excited about adding this to his tool collection. Fortunately Jim C. doesn't mind if my husband goes over and swings a hammer with them for a few hours on a Friday or Saturday afternoon.

We also found out that we can salvage 2 windows from the back of the house (2 upstairs windows in the picture on the left) and use them on the side of the garage. This is particularly great news because these windows are only 2 years old (part of our whole-house window replacement project). Arlington County does not allow you to put windows on a garage which is within a certain distance from a neighbor's property for fire prevention purposes. We are also required to finish with drywall those walls which are facing a neighbor's property.

As you can see in the picture above, the workers are also going to salvage some bricks on the back of the house. Our builder calls this project "mining for bricks" which is hilarious. It's hard to believe we are going to need this many but not too hard when you think of the size of the foundation for both the garage and house. It's going to be quite a pile of bricks when all is said and done.

I continued my decision-making by choosing the door and window hardware. That order is going in next week so those choices had to be now. Fortunately I was able to find a few minutes last week to run over to the Window Smith showroom to meet our salesman, James May, and see things in person. It's so much better to see things like hardware in a showroom instead of a catalogue. You can get a better idea for the finish and feel of the hardware. Of course, I didn't like the basic hardware which was ultra-modern and white, so I had to "upgrade" to something more traditional. I can only imagine what the muddy kid fingerprints would look like on white hardware. If you are interested, my choice is on the right (Whitmore collection). Andersen has quite a few options for door hardware which fit pretty much any design style. This will be our first experience with Andersen doors but our experience with their replacement windows (Renewal by Andersen) has been fantastic. Let's hope the same is true of the doors because they will be heavily used both out to the backyard through the kitchen and family room and out to the driveway through our side entrance.

Keeping Classic Details and Character

When we bought our house, we felt fortunate that our house retained many of its original details - hardwood floors (protected by carpeting), original moulding, original kitchen, and no strange reconfigurations to the floor plan. When we were shopping for houses, we saw many houses which had undergone horrific "remodels" in the 1970s where all the molding was removed or horrible kitchen renovations complete with wood-grain formica cabinets and rust-colored countertops. So, although our house needed some cosmetic upgrades, we at least didn't have to undo anything that had been done previously. The majority of our work was painting, floor refinishing, and landscaping but nothing too serious. We also knew from the beginning that if we were going to stay in this house long-term, we would have to add on and do a major renovation. As a result, we only did a minor kitchen renovation (painted walls and cabinets, vinyl black and white tile, and new appliances) to make it livable.

As we are preparing to do change a lot of things about our house, we are making a big effort to keep the character of the house which we love. In our plans we stipulated that all moldings in the house should be matched in the addition including baseboard, window molding, crown molding, and wood floors. We are also looking for ways to make small details like the interior door knobs match our existing original glass knobs and brass back plates. We can probably achieve this by reusing the existing closet door knobs on the main hallway doors for the bedrooms so when you look down the hall, it's not obvious which are the new rooms. Over the years, we have replaced some chipped or broken knobs by purchasing new ones on eBay or at local garage sales. We'll probably do that again if we find we need more to match, or we'll check out some local salvage places.

DC has several great local options for architectural, including Community Forklift, The Brass Knob, The Brass Knob Backdoors (for big stuff), and Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Habitat has ReStores around the country so check their website for local options. You can also Google - "architectural salvage [your city name]" and you'll probably find some good local options. Many places (including the Brass Knob) offer nationwide shipping so if you find what you need in their catalogue (or they can find it for you), you can get it sent to you. Price-wise, you'll probably do better at Community Forklift or the ReStore, or even eBay as opposed to the speciality options, but you may be more likely to find it at the speciality store. Community Forklift and ReStore also have modern items such as appliances, new hardware, and other building supplies. I'll keep you updated on our efforts to make changes in keeping with our 1940s house as we move along with the renovation.