Wide Angle Photos Round #1

As I mentioned in my last post, Brian went to the house a few days (weeks?) ago and took some wide angle shots.  Not only are they awesome and art-sy but they also lend a better perspective often times.  I may or may not have mentioned this is the last post, but I have two separate groups of photos from him so here goes round #1.


Since these pictures are a little older, I figured I should update you on the house as well.  For those of you not in St. Louis, I'll just let you know that it is now officially winter here.  Meaning that you need more than a light jacket and we have had snow now.  And by snow I mean about two inches...but that might be overly generous.  Since there was snow and some other precipitation earlier in the week, things slowed down a little bit, but are still moving along.  To my knowledge, the major things that happened this week were the roof being put on and the basement being poured.  Both major steps to continuing the project.

It's a little dark, but that's the backyard and back of the house as seen from the dirt pile

Shadows from the dirt pile

The tresses from the roof.  I think there have been similar pictures posted already.

Lots of old siding and debris.

The new part of the roof is just barely peeking out from this view.

Like I said, cooler, art-sy shots.  The tresses are really big...obviously since the crane had to come move them!

Getting into the more noticeable wide angle shots.  This probably gives a better idea of how high the ceilings are going to be in that back room.

The entrance from the garage.

I promise the dirt pile really is huge!  On the far right side you can kind of see the walk out from the basement.

This used to be the doorway between the den and backroom.  Soon it won't exist at all.

Lots and lots of tresses.  And the square part in the back is where my room will be.

The stairs from the basement leading up.  They are SO wide now!

Having fun playing in all the dust.

Since the rooms upstairs will have full 8 foot ceilings, the peak of the roof will be taller now. That board all along the top is where the new roof will be.  And because the roof will be taller, the chimney has to be raised so it clears the height of the house more.

Okay, well that is round one of Brian's photos.  Hopefully the next round will be up soon.  I start school again on Tuesday which means the time I get to spend posting on here will probably be cut back.  Though truthfully, it will be hard to cut back on it too much when progress is being made at such a quick pace.

So Many Pictures, So Little Time

Tonight I thought to myself "gosh I haven't posted on the blog since New Years". I really thought this was going to be my first post of the year.  While it hasn't been quite that long, it has been almost a week since my last post.  Remember how crazy it was that they were able to tear the roof off so quickly?  Well it's only gone faster since then.  I have three sets of pictures that need to be posted.  The first set is similar to the pictures that are normally on here.  The second two were taken by Brian using his wide-angle lens.  I am going to post them all separately, as there are quite a few per set.  This post will contain the more typical pictures.

It didn't take long before there were walls upstairs

A little bit of old, a little bit of new

The back of the house one day after the roof was torn off

The view of the back room and the new upstairs wall as seen from the garage entrance hall

So the first few pictures were from Thursday (January 5) the following pictures are from Friday (January 6).

We knew that the tresses would be put into place on Friday, but kind of assumed it would be an all day event.  That was definitely not the case.  The crane had come, done its work, and left by about 9:30 that morning.

Well hello Brian! This gives a little perspective for the vaulted ceiling.  I think it's 9 foot something at the ends of the room and a little over 12' at the highest point

Quite a few tresses here, and they were all put into place in a little over an hour.  Now that's efficient work!

It's kind of hard to see because of the tree, but you can actually start to picture rooflines now

The next picture is my new favorite of the house.  I think I've mentioned before, and I know I'll mention again that we have the greatest workers ever.  They have only taken one day off since New Years Day.  Plus, last friday when the tresses were put into place, they were there at probably 8 am (if not earlier) and didn't leave until after 6pm.  And beyond the major hours they're putting in, they are super helpful with anything we need or want to know.

Since the workers were there so late, we got this awesome picture of the house at night.  Even now, work has progressed so fast that this picture wouldn't be as cool.

I believe this was at the beginning of this week, probably January 10.  This is the old part of the basement where they had to redo the pipes.  For those of you who have been to the house before, the pipes coming out of the wall are where the washer and dryer used to be and the wall in the background is the storage shelves.

And FINALLY the new basement concrete got poured!!!

This is the old part of the basement.  This wall used to be filled with old farm antiques that Grandpa used to love to ask us the uses for.  See the two brick sections? Originally those were windows and soon will be again.

It's funny, that pile of dirt doesn't seem so big when you're standing on the second floor of the house

Dad checking out the ROOF! All of the wood for the roof was put on this week, and thanks to the placement of my window, it's pretty easy to check out the roof.

I feel like having a roof of sorts makes the house look so much more complete already.  This picture is taken from the backside of the garage.

This is what the giant ladder leaning against the side of the house (that allowed the workers to get on the roof) looks like from the bottom.  Just a little steep.

These are all the "normal" pictures as of now.  I just realized that for the first time I think I'm not including any indoor pictures.  Hopefully I can get some of those in the next few days.  Now that there is a roof, you can start to picture room sizes a little bit better.  I have a day off work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll also be able to get Brian's pictures uploaded.  Let me just tell you now, they are really cool!

Blowing the Roof Off

Ok so the title may be a bit of an exaggeration, but we really don't have a roof anymore.  On January 3, they tore off the roof on the second story.  As you may or may not remember, the two bedrooms upstairs are being extended out the back of the house, to make the rooms larger and so that the ceiling will be full height. It will also allow more space in the bathroom.


Here are some new pictures of the house sans roof:

No roof.  The Tiffany Blue room on the left will be Brian's room, the Big Bird yellow room will be mine.

I think I'm the only person who finds this picture cool, but these are the bricks cut to fit the former line of the roof.

Putting in the subfloor.

I can't be completely sure, but I think that facial expression is somewhere along the lines of "What did we do?!"

To the left of the staircase will be the little alcove - sitting room

This picture is taken from my room or possibly the bathroom.

Up the stairs and into the open air.

You can see the framing for the height of the room.  So the room will now go from where the wood ends to the bright blue wall you can sort of see on the far right side of the picture.

This is from 1/4 (the day after the roof was torn off).  The pictures is kind of blurry, but you can see the wall for the back of the bedrooms.

And again, as you can see, we're moving right along with the construction.  I heard that if all goes according to plan and the weather stays nice, there will be a roof by the end of the week.

In an Effort to Catch Up

Rather than three separate posts with a few pictures each, I thought one SUPER post would be better.  We'll just get it all done!  The good news is that with this post I will be completely caught up...for the time being.


First up: recent pictures of the first floor of the house.

The tub is from the first floor bathroom prior to the home being torn to pieces.  It's awesome and old and weighs about a billion pounds.  We're saving it to put in the upstairs bathroom.  The brick wall you can see there is the back wall of the house/ the end of the master bathroom/closet.

This was originally the den and will soon be the master bathroom/closet.  We're saving a few things from the house before, such as the tub, toilet, wood bin, and wood stove.

The stairs going up, and the soon to be wall of the living room.  The giant piece of plywood you can kind of see in the back, is covering the opening that will be the walkway between the dining room and the family room.

The slab for the front porch was poured this week too:

I guess something else will eventually be poured on top of this too and that's where the posts will go.  Did I just wow you with my construction terms?

Next, the supports for the floor in the back room were built.  Getting this done is huge, as building the new kitchen and addition are probably one of the most substantial parts of the project.

Last weekend (12.18.11) they started building the supports for the floor of the back room/ family room/kitchen.

Later in the week once the "I" beams were attached.

Again.  As you can see from this photo, the concrete in the basement was never poured.  The weather still has not been dry long enough for the ground to be dry enough.  The construction workers decided to continue on without it, and when the time comes, the concrete will be poured through the windows on the far side of the room.  Not ideal, but at least the project can still move forwards this way.

Even later in the week.  Mom standing on the addition.

I can't say enough about the amazing workers who have been tirelessly working on the house.  Last weekend they worked Saturday and Sunday because the weather was nice enough to work actually.  Luckily they took the weekend off for Christmas and took today off as well.  It rained this afternoon and evening so who knows what tomorrow brings.

So remember at the beginning of the post when I was boasting that I was finally caught up on posts?  Well in the duration of writing this, I was informed that there are more pictures waiting for me.  Oh well, more for you!

Set in Concrete

In between all the rain, we got walls poured!!  

This is the outer wall closest to the backyard.  The extra framing to the left is for the walkout

This is the same outer wall.  The wall extending to the right will be the entrance from the garage into the kitchen

Pretty exciting, I know.  They always say things are as boring as watching paint dry...for us, things have been as boring as waiting for concrete to set.  Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration.  The concrete is set, but with all the rain, it hasn't been dry enough to be able to waterproof the walls.  Until this happens, we can't pour the basement and make a ceiling for the basement/floor for the back room.  Given that this is the biggest part of the project, we would really appreciate some dry weather!

I know I said I was going to keep posts short, but that was really short.  So here are some pictures of the new piping that has gone in.  Also a crucial part of the project that had to be finished before the basement floor could be poured.  I know It's pretty exciting looking at pictures of piping, but I'm just limiting this to two pictures.  

This is the new basement.  If I am not mistaken (which I very well could be) the wall that has the blindingly bright light is the wall that was already a part of the basement.  I could also pretend to tell you why there is new piping, but I'm oblivious.  I'll update this post later with a reason

This photo more than any other has stumped me.  I just spent close to five minutes trying to determine what this photograph is of.  Based on the wallpaper that used to be in the kitchen, I think this is the framing for the new powder room/the edge of the master bath.  As you can see, there is some more piping in there

Ok so there are the uber-exciting concrete and piping pictures.  I'm sure you will get to see more of each along the line.

Are you overwhelmed with posts yet? I'm still working hard to get you caught up.  I believe there are about four more sets of photos waiting to be posted (including a guest blogging post).  After that we will be all caught up with posts.  Meaning that probably starting this time next week, all posts will be CURRENT! It's about time, right?