Day 26 - 10/27

Not a lot to report today, I was here for the heating rough-in inspection.  Once complete, framing was placed around the heating stack for the second floor here in the first floor closet.
With everything in that closet we reduced the opening from 5 feet to 4 feet as well.

The bit of wall left to demo (at the end of the old hall) was also removed.  leaving the nice big opening that we'll have on the way into the dining room.  The marks on the floor are where the old wall used to be.  It made a corner and went into the blue bedroom.

And the downstairs bathroom fan was vented out the back of the house.  It's there just above the glass block window.

Day 25 - 10/26

The big reveal!  The blue tarp came down right away in the morning revealing the new configuration of the front windows for all of the neighbors to see!

The tarp came off because the shingles arrived and the roof was finally finished (with the exception of gutters, soffits, fascia...).

The heating rough in was finished, including a chimney that vents outside!

Quite a lot of the electrical was done.  Unfortunately quite a lot will also be re-done, like these switches that were placed behind the front door.  Other than those types of changes the first floor is wired and ready to go.

The wood floors were removed from the dining room.  Initially we were going to place oak in the old kitchen as well so we'd have the wood floors flowing throughout the first floor, but we changed our tune when we started to consider the durability of tile by the often used back door.

Day 24 - 10/23

The heating guy was the first one in today and he started piling up things like this.

He would later turn them into ductwork for the upstairs as well as this...

It's the heat run and the cold air return for the upstairs.  Here's another shot.

When we got home the cold air returns were functioning and the heat run was stubbed out (for now) right next to the new staircase!

We can easily tread our way upstairs now!  This is a huge and exciting development.

We also got a little insight into the next few days.  Shingles on Monday, along with completed plumbing heating and electrical rough-ins and then the insulation and framing will start upstairs.  Keep watching, it will start to go very quickly from here.

Day 23 - 10/22

The header was placed at the front of the porch and then the temporary supports were put back in place. 

The temporary wall was removed from the upstairs and the size has really become apparent.

And the plumbing was roughed in.  Here's the upstairs...

Here's the flow through to the waste pipe (inside the kitchen wall)...

And here is where the new plumbing attaches to the waste pipe.

Day 22 - 10/21 - Phillies win the National League!

The footings are poured for the front porch!

 Soon the posts will be in place, the headers will be set and we'll really begin to see the look of the front of the house take shape.

The sheetrock was pulled from the remaining kitchen wall in order to facilitate the plumbing.

So... the fridge has been moved to the other side of the room.

Here's a climpse of the plumbing work done upstairs.

Day 21 - 10/20

We arrived home to find the house tarped once again.  For good reasons this time though. 

The tarp is up to keep the footings holes from filling in with water as it rains... some more... again.  Here's a shot of one of the holes.

On the inside, the new windows were placed in the front of the house!  We have 2 nice big 3 foot windows right in the center of the ground floor.

To clear the way for the new windows, the front door was moved to its new temporary home (until the new door arrives).  The front door will now enter into the living room.  This is a change of plans now that we've seen the location of the staircase that will lead upstairs.  Moving the door over will really keep the open feel that we want in the main floor.

Prep work began for the heating.  This is a shot of the holes cut in the bandroom wall for the chimney to the upstairs and the cold air return that will come back down from the upstairs.  Several of the floor cut outs for the upstairs heating were also made (but not pictured).

Day 20 - 10/19

We have our first wall downstairs!  This will be the guestroom.  Once I get window coverings in here we'll probably be staying in this room for most of the duration of this project.

With walls comes... the first door!

Also today, the picture window that used to be in the bay window in the southeast corner of the house was moved to the dining room.

The new front door is ordered and framed in where the picture window used to be.

Outside, a couple of the footings were dug and the siding was finally removed from the fireplace chase - matching it to the rest of the house.

Bonus Post! Our original plans

I was going to post these in the beginning... but I forgot, so I'm doing it now and calling it a bonus!
Here is the original 1st floor setup.  It's drawn to scale.  The dining room is in the upper left, then going clockwise - the kitchen, the bathroom, the green bedroom, the red bedroom, the blue bedroom (all clustered on the right side of the house), the attic access (stairs) and the living room (lower left).

Here is the new 1st floor plan:
The upper left is the new huge kitchen!  Again clockwise - the unchanged bathroom, the new guestroom (the green room re-vamped), the dining room and the living room.  Note that the attic access stairway becomes the new stairway down, the stairs will land, then turn to the dining room.

Here is the upstairs plan:
The upper left is the master closet (walk-in) then the master bath, then a small bathroom (mimicking the downstairs bathroom), then two larger (kids') bedrooms, a family room/library and then back to the master bedroom.

Here is the outside of the house, looking from the northeast corner:

Day 19 - 10/16

The kitchen wall is gone.  As the project continues the sheer size of the new kitchen becomes more and more impressive.  The counters and cabinets will shrink the space to a certain degree, but things are going to be very spacious.  I can't wait to start cooking in here!

The drop ceiling in the dining room is gone!  There used to be a 2x6 header that dropped the ceiling in the dining room.  It was purely for the effect of seperating the dining room from the living room.  Now that the entire dining room will be part of the kitchen the drop ceiling becomes even more useless.  I'm glad to see it go.

Day 18 - 10/15

New walls downstairs - here is the futre main floor coat and storage closet:

Here is the wall for the future guestroom (formerly the green room):

We'll be putting a larger window into the guestroom as well.  In order to make it a bedroom, we needed an egress window and were consistenly disappointed with the small crank style egress window we had previously.  The large window you can see on the left side of the bedroom wall picture (above) is the one that will go here on the east wall of the guestroom.

The kitchen demo begins!

We're picking siding and shingles!  The green siding (left) is the one we'll be using and the shingles in the lower right of the display (right) are the color of choice.

Day 17 - 10/14

More new windows!  Not much else to show you today.  The electrician has been getting wiring ready for the upstairs, but pictures of wires don't make for great viewing.

Day 15 - 10/12 - Phillies move on to the NLCS!

We arrived home to find our floor plan very... open. Almost all the walls that will come down are down at this point. the sheetrock has been removed from the remainder of the front wall and the trim has all been removed from the windows.

2 shots showing the lack of walls between the red room and the green room. Check out the tape on the floor that outlines the walls of the new guest bedroom.

Where the closets used to meet.