We were quoted in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times. The author interviewed me a few months ago, but after the WSJ article I was hesitant to talk to another reporter. However, Michelle did a great job, didn’t misquote me or spin the story.
I don’t know how long the story will be available online, so if anybody is interested–check it out quick!
We’re into the 12th week of our remodeling project. Barb and I both had five days off for Fourth of July, and we spent most of that time working on the house. We got a bunch of stuff done over our “holiday”…
We met with Eric, our cabinet maker. He should be contacting us today or tomorrow for final approval of the cabinet plan. Cabinets should be done in about 2-3 weeks, and installed shortly thereafter (assuming drywall is done). Eric suggested that we look into prefabricated vanity counters for the new bathroom. Tile Outlet had these for ~$375 each (’Uba Tuba’ 37″ granite with sink bowl installed and pre-drilled faucet holes). No grout lines to clean, and it’ll look great! Eric also suggested that we order the cabinet trim piece for our microwave, so I stopped by A&A and talked to Gavin about that. ETA is about 1.5-2 weeks (2007-07-20).
Barb got all the exterior sheathing removed from the back side of the original house, which should make for a quicker demolition party.
Nearly all of the construction debris has been loaded up. The back yard looks much better now, and it’s a lot easier to move around. We’ll be buying the bathtub tomorrow, since we’re finally able to drive the truck into the back yard again.
We met with the roofer, Bill Hall, after we passed our roof diaphragm inspection. He gave us a bunch of new chores, almost all of which are done. Barb went to the supply house and picked out our roofing material: Owens-Corning 40-year “Oakridge” teak.
Our HVAC contractor, Jose, came and looked over our project. He needed us to make copies of the floor and electrical plans, including any changes we are considering for subsequent remodel phases. He took care of most of his venting/roof penetrations today. We still have to figure out exactly where the furnace is going before he can place the flue vent.
Windows for our addition should arrive sometime this week, in which case they will be ready to install next Monday (right after our demolition party this weekend).
We got all of our non-glass doors ordered from U.S. Building Materials (off Sunrise Blvd, south of White Rock Rd). Great folks, by the way! ETA on the doors is about two weeks (2007-07-23).
I started working on our electrical installation. I got most of the outlet and switch boxes positioned in the bedrooms, hallway, laundry room, nook, and the added-on area of the living/great room. I still need to do the bathroom. The kitchen and the rest of the great room may have to wait until after the demolition party.
Lots of stuff done, but quite a lot left to do!
Update: Added a bunch of tags to this post.
We’re getting ready for our final* demolition party–tearing off the back wall of the original house. We still have to cut a score line around the ceilings (which we’re trying to save) then brace the ceilings near the walls that will be removed.
Barb has been removing the exterior wall boards, and I’ll be pulling the power lines out of the walls the day before demolition party. Speaking of which…
Our final demolition party will be next Sunday, July 15. We’ll be starting at 7:00 am, but if that’s too early for you feel free to show up during the heat of the day. 
Our objectives will be:
If you’d like to come and just gawk, that’s fine too. We’ll provide food, drink, and as many tools as possible. Please bring a pair of gloves, safety glasses, hammers/sledge hammers, pry bars and wrecking bars if you have them. Be sure to write you name on everything! We’ll have sharpies if you forget…
RSVP via email or by commenting here so that we know how much food and drink to have on hand.
Another weekend gone, and we’re a bit closer to a finished house although we appear to be going backwards!
We took down most of the garage roof this weekend, which was considerably more difficult than the main roof of the house where we had ceiling rafters to stand upon. For the garage nearly every cut had to be made from the top of a ladder. To make matters worse, we are storing lots of building material, tools, etc. in the garage, so just moving a ladder around is a major chore.
From the final picture you can see that we have a few rafters still in place. Most of these make up the wall separating the house from the garage, so at least there’s a place to stand while working on them! We should be able to take the rest of these down tonight, if the roofing crew doesn’t take care of it for us today.
Eight people came to our party yesterday and we managed to take off nearly the entire roof.
We tried to take good care of our help–Gatorade, water, coffee, and sodas in the morning, more Gatorade, water, sodas and barbecued burgers and dogs in the afternoon. We’re immensely thankful to our friends and family: Dad, Barbara and Reggie, Tod, Andy, Joseph, Bill (not in picture) and (also not in picture) Punk!
More pictures are online in the roof demolition photoset on Flickr.
A professional crew came out and stripped the shake and shingles off the roof this morning. (The previous owner had applied composite shingles over the original shake roofing.) It took them about three hours from start to finish. Check out the roof tear-off photoset on Flickr.
The only major bummer about this–our framers couldn’t finish installing the subfloor near the existing house, for fear of falling debris.
We’re going to be hosting a demolition party this Saturday (5/19) starting at 07:00 am (when it’s nice and cool). Come later if that’s more convenient for you. Our objective: tear off the roof structure. (The shingles are already going to be removed by a professional crew on Wednesday.) If you’re not comfortable working on the roof, there will be plenty to do on the ground! If you’d like to come and just gawk, that’s fine too.
We’ll provide food, drink, and as many tools as possible. Please bring a pair of gloves, safety glasses, hammers/sledge hammers and/or pry bars if you have them. Be sure to write you name on everything! We’ll have sharpies if you forget…
RSVP via email or by commenting on this article, so that we know how much food and drink to have on hand.
We got to do our first serious demolition over the weekend–tearing down the back porch!
Check out the porch tear-off photoset on Flickr for more pictures and notes. We took a video of the actual demolition, but that’s about 40 minutes long and it’ll take some time to edit that down to a reasonable size. We’ll post that when we get it finished.
Effusive thanks to (in order of appearance) Barbara & Reggie, Dad, and Andy! We couldn’t possibly have done this without their help. A couple of people are missing from the picture below: Dad had to leave as soon as the roof came down; Barb and I took pictures of each other with the crew, and the picture she took came out much better than mine, in spite of the fact that I appeared in her picture.
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