Insulation, Poo, & Progress!

After Brian had rewired the house (a HUGE project), we were able to start stuffing the insulation.  While this was an awful job, it was so exciting to actually have insulation.  The house was starting to feel closed up from the outside world.   A new roof was on, so we have no more leaks when it rains.  With the new windows and insulation, we no longer feel the breeze in the house.  Yes, on really windy days it was not only colder in the house, but we could also literally feel the breeze even if the windows and doors were all closed.  The curtains blew away from the windows on windy days whether or not windows were open.  Honestly though, the windows were always closed because none of them had screens.  Since the wild animals (raccoons, possums, and who knows what else) were already taking up residence under the house and in the walls/ceilings of the house we felt that having open windows sans screens would only be inviting more in.  Not necessary.  Oh, and the house no longer whistles that high pitched whistle it used to on windy days.  Hell yes--progress!  I should probably also let you all know that when all the old, weird, useless pebble insulation (vermiculite) was removed we found a bunch of claw scratches on the studs and raccoon poo in the ceilings.  Nastiness.  Thank goodness those days are gone.  I swear one night this summer Michael and I heard a raccoon in the house.  He was literally wandering around in his pj's with a crowbar trying to find it while I was in my pj's and tennis shoes at the top of the stairs ready to make a run for it.  We slept with the crowbar under the bed that night.  Looking back on it, the animal probably did get in the ceiling, and the image of this night and our response is a little hysterical.
Back to the task at hand.  At night Michael and I went to the house and stuffed insulation so that we could get the sheet rockers in asap.  It was a first for me.  We also had the crawl space under the house spray foamed for insulation.  It is awesome!  The crawl space is now warm, not scary, and poop free!!!

Kitchen

Looking through the living room to the guest bed/office.  On the left is the addition with the new windows!

Just a good pic of the progress...

Another pic of the addition with windows that look out to the lake.

Master bedroom sitting area.

This wall is a new addition to the master bedroom back half...more on that later!

Working hard!

The color palate

While demolition was going on in the house, we were also busy figuring out the color palate for the house.  Since this style of home is new for both of us, we hired a decorator to help with different textures (wall/wood/finishing types, paint colors, layout, etc).  We have made a few changes, but were thrilled with the ideas she had for us.  We plan to do all the furniture buying and decor on our own at a later date.  We were so excited about the various paint colors that we bought samples of each to paint on a test piece of wood.  All of the colors are Sherwin Williams colors.  They are all a gray base, except for a punch of green for the upper kitchen cabinets.  We wanted to do something adventurous in the kitchen, thus the green cabinets!  The colors we have chosen are as follows:
-Useful Gray: all the trim throughout the house, living room walls, kitchen and master bedroom ceiling, office and laundry room floor
-Gray Area: kitchen walls, guest bed/office walls and ceiling
-Fawn Brindle: Master bedroom walls
-Universal Khaki: kitchen floor
-Gauntlet Gray: lower cabinets in kitchen, all cabinets in laundry room, all exterior doors
-Garden Spot: upper kitchen cabinets

Prepping for painting our sample pieces.  Cookies are a must for this! 

We are impatient and dried the wood in the oven so we could add a second coat asap!

The addition!

Quite possibly the most exciting part to this renovation (other than heat, insulation, and a leak-free home) is the ADDITION we have built!  Remember the screened in porch off the living room on the lake side?  That is now enclosed and is our extended living room.  The living room before was tiny and awkward.  We are so much happier with this new space.  The entire lake side has windows and the ceiling is peeked like the ceiling that is in the existing living room.  It was a big project.  We also replaced the shingles on the roof of the house at this time (in only one day!).  Thanks Roof Guard!  This particular 'projects' hiccup?  We are unable to get heat vents past the line where the existing living room met with the screened in porch/new addition.  The heat runs under the house in the crawl space, and unfortunately there is a cement wall which we can't pass through to get a run/vent to the new addition.  Luckily with insulation, new windows, new roof, and extra vents in the old part, we should stay nice and toasty warm in the winters!

The addition going up

The new peeked ceiling on the addition

Windows and inside of addition

 

The new front door

Originally, Maywood had 2 doors on the front of the house, which made it confusing for guests to know which door to enter.  There was a standard door into the kitchen, and then a sliding door into the living room.  Neither of us liked the idea of entering into the kitchen, and with the new layout for the kitchen remodel it wasn't going to work anyway.  So, we said goodbye to the kitchen door, and have replaced the sliding door with a new standard front door.  Of course, nothing can be done in this house without some kind of a hiccup.  The new door had panes in the glass that rattled every time the door was shut.  It made the door sound too cheap.   After talking with the door company, we were able to get it replaced with a door with panes on the outside of the glass.  Wahoo!  It looks much better, and is much more inviting!  It will look even better once the deck railing is rebuilt, the house doesn't have building equipment leaning against it, the trim is around the new door, and when the siding is replaced where the old door is. =)  All in time...

The old front door into the kitchen.  Notice the old bay window (sitting on the deck) has been replaced! 

New front door!

New front door from the inside.

Some serious destruction

The name of this post is the only way to describe what we did to the inside of the house.  Flooring was removed, walls and ceilings were torn down, windows were replaced, and doors were removed and replaced.  We also found some old and now worthless insulation that was removed by the shovel full.  We had some extra help at night to speed along the destruction so Brian and Jason could focus on other things during the day.  Michael was able to help with all of the actual physical destruction.  I, however, would have just been in the way and focused on rounding up dinner for everyone who was working late those nights.  A special thanks to our friend Aaron Maytum for helping out with the destruction process and for recommending the guys we were able to hire for the extra help!
By time the destruction was done, the house was unrecognizable and was pretty much down to just the outside walls and studs.  Here's a bunch of pics of the process!

The first hole in any wall. Piles of little pebbles of insulation came POURING out.  It was a disaster in itself!

Kitchen

Kitchen 2

Living room looking into the guest bed/office.

Looking down to the living room. 

Guest bed/office.  Look at all the insulation!

Guest bed/office

Upstairs bedroom

Upstairs bedroom/sitting area. 

Looking through bedroom 1 to bedroom 2 upstairs

Ceiling in living room

Fireplace

The tile floor was in the screened in porch that is now GONE!

Brian & Jason

I should probably mention that we have 2 guys who work with us full time.  Brian has worked with Michael since early 2008.  Janson just joined the team in the spring of this year.  We are so lucky to have them.  They are both so talented.  When we look at any home to remodel, or when we are trying to help at the house and are stumped, we ask ourselves, "What would Brian do?"  A big thanks to these two for all the hard work, the extra hours they put in, and the always amazing finished product.

A garage!

The frame for the garage has gone up!  At this time, the garage is done, and unfortunately we don't have a nice picture of the finished garage.  When I get one, I will post a pic.  But for now, this will have to do...
Notice the rebuilt rock wall along the sidewalk?  Brian (our main guy who does EVERYTHING) did a great job on this (like he does on EVERYTHING)!

Wood to be milled

This is the amount of wood from the cut down trees we were able to have milled into beams and other sized wood pieces to use inside the house.

The stump grinder

Once the hostas were dug up and the trees were cut down, Michael rented a stump grinder to get rid of the tree stumps.  This was very fun for him.  He was able get all of the stumps up using this, and I think he had a hard time returning it to the rental company.  We then filled the hole with dirt and the cement pad was laid. Woo hoo!  We are finally making some exciting progress!

The trees are almost gone!  What is Michael doing on the stairs? Ha!

Now that's a stump!

The stump grinder.

Preparing to fill the hole!

The dirt is in, the frame is laid out, and we are ready for cement!

We have cement!!

So long hostas

The first part of our renovation was to add a detached garage.  Originally we wanted an attached 2 story garage with a bonus room on top.  Unfortunately, we were going to end up spending thousands of dollars on cement just to tie the garage into the footings of the house.  We decided we would rather use the money elsewhere.  The company we hired to removed the trees informed us about 18 hours in advance that they would be at the house in the morning.  We had to unfortunately cut down 5 full grown trees to have the garage built, but we have since had that wood milled and it is being used in the house renovation!  So, like everything else we do in our life, we were in a scramble to meet the deadline and have all of the hostas dug up so they could be transplanted and not completely destroyed while trees were being cut down in the morning.

The night we had to take on this project was quite possibly the hottest and definitely the most humid night of the summer.  Super!   A big thanks to Jim, Steve, Darlene, and Diana for their help that night!  It was a miserable task and we couldn't have done it without you all!  In total, we dug up 44 hostas.  The worst part was trying to dig them up around the underground sprinkler system.  Not only was it just 44 hostas, it was 44 HUGE hostas.  When we replanted them, it was 88 to replant.  They were so big, we had to divide most of them to just lift them into sacks for temporary storage, and definitely to replant.  We ended up filling the back of my mom's truck, as well as the back of the Jensen's truck and their trailer.  It was crazy!  

It was so sad to dig up the beautiful landscaping, but we are hoping and praying they will come back in the spring and we can replant some/most of them again.  When we looked at the yard the next morning, we though "We ruined our house..."

After the digging up was completed, we took a Boji bath and enjoyed a very well deserved and delicious meal of BLT's, Graettinger-guy corn on the cob, and fresh fruit.  It hit the spot! 

The Eldo

Just for fun... Check out the sweet whip we get to cruise around in during the summer!  Do you think its big enough???  And yes, I (Kira) CAN drive it...
Check out the yard behind the car--notice anything different?  Future posts will explain what is going on with that destruction!

The "land yacht"

Check out these hostas!

Aside from the view, one of the best features of Maywood is the landscaping.  It is filled with lovely, healthy, and huge hostas.  At the first part of spring, we knew we needed to spread mulch around the trees and hostas.  Off we went to Menards to buy mulch while it was on sale.  We ended up using 85 bags total.  Yes, 85.  It took so long to spread, but it was totally worth it.  We refused to make 2 trips to Menards, so we of course piled the bags as high as possible into the back of the truck.  We only lost a few bags along the way.  A special thanks to my dad for salvaging a couple bags that fell off the truck and into his yard!  Ha!

That's a lot of mulch! 

So many kinds of hostas in the front yard!

Hostas lining the pathway. 

The condo

To put things into perspective, I thought I should put up some pics of what we left.  Here are some pictures of the condo we still love and miss!  Before we renovated the condo, it was covered in oak wood and gold metal everywhere.  It was cool in the early 90's...

Guest bedroom/Office

Guest bath

Dining room/Living room

Master bath

Master bath

Maste bedroom

Master bedroom

Kitchen

Living room

Dining/Living room from kitchen

Living room

Patio