Go on, torment me, why don't you?

The house has been in total turmoil today. It was fairly oppressive.

The diggers and jack hammers were hard at it in the back yard, removing every last vestige of concrete from around the pool in preparation for the 200 feet long trench that needs to be dug for the BBQ utilities. Worryingly, the landscape guys decided that the posts that hold up the overhanging roof outside the family room and living room were in the wrong place; and so they removed them, propping up the roof instead with flimsier looking sticks balanced on wood blocks. I almost ran round to Site Supervisor II for reassurance when I saw this - figuring that he knows more about houses and roofs than the landscapers would - but then I decided that they must have consulted. Hubby thinks this is an example of plunging head into sand rather than opening potentially difficult (embarrassing?) dialog....




The dining room was taken over by a couple of men from Jim's Bunch installing the new French doors. This involved ripping out the existing door unit, of course, leaving a large hole in the wall for most of the day. Much drilling and sanding, as the threshold of the old door and that of the new door proved to be incompatible. The guys covered everything in the dining room with plastic and blue tape, as there was lots of dust. As a result I could not get at anything in the dining room and haven't been able to make a cup of tea all day (sob). Luckily I was headed out to a friend's house to do some pre-RV trip cooking and she fed and watered me at lunchtime.



In the kitchen we are seeing great progress. The countertops are in, complete with sinks. I am a little concerned that there seems to be no space cut for the cooktop (which is currently sitting dustily in the garage). The microwave/appliance garage cabinet still needs to be installed. The floor has started. The dour Russian tile guy put the concrete layer down on Monday, and today he started putting the actual tile down. I reckon he's about a quarter way through. I popped my head round the door late this afternoon to take a peek at what he was doing, and he was quite affronted that I disturbed him. "Do not step on the tiles!" he ordered. "I'm not coming anywhere near them," I told him with a cheery wave of the hand.

Rain, Rain, Go Away, come again on Friday

It rained a lot over night, and our back yard is doing its best Somme impression.

The Jolly Demo Guy was out in back again this morning with his jack-hammer. Quite what he could find to dig out this time was beyond me, but he managed to produce yet more bricks and rocks. Astonishing.

He is also working away at the front clearing rubble. We are the proud foster parents of a CAT in the back and a BobCat in the front. Yesterday the back yard CAT was busily removing piles of debris from the pool, and then it stopped. This morning I noticed that we still have two large piles of rubble in the far corner of the back yard. Are they, like, someone else's rubble to deal with? Do the demo guys only deign to take their own rubble? Oh come on.

The pool has a puddle in the bottom from the rain. I'm not sure what comes next for the pool, could be the tile or the new plaster. The new coping is supposed to be arriving next week some time.

I approved new doors for the house interior today. Chose MDF over Douglas Pine on the grounds that it is (1) harder and less prone to denting, (2) easier to prep for painting and gives a smoother finish and (3) is cheaper. This may be the first item in the whole remodel that we've chosen (or had chosen for us) the cheaper option.

Hubby is still engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the landscape designer over his choice of BBQ grill for the outdoor kitchen. He keeps saying "I want charcoal" and she keeps sending over plans including a gas grill. I said to her last week, there's a "Man he make fire" thing in play here. Hubby will either get his way or she will grind him down and make him change his mind. I'm just an innocent spectator on the side lines.

Quite a lot of banging today from the bedroom/bathroom addition. It's a little frustrating because it is now impossible to have a nose about and see what they're up to. At the end of each day the workers nail up temporary shutters on all the openings to the outside, which is good for security, but bad for curiosity. I know the electricians have been in today. They stopped me to ask what some switches operated, and of course I didn't know. I never know. They must think I am some gormless bimbo, or that I am a recently acquired trophy wife! (LOL, as the young folks say.)

The Gentle Hum of Disposal

I am almost light headed with the lack of horrible noise. Just the teeniest bit of jack-hammering in the pool this morning - most of which I managed to miss by arranging a first-thing-in-the-morning appointment elsewhere - and now all I have around me is the gentle hum of the BobCats running back and forth, moving rubble and old plaster from the yards into the waiting truck out front.

Maybe the neighbors won't torch the house after all.

It can't go on much longer....

Here are some photos of the pink tide, taken this morning.

I naively thought that today might be the last day of demolition out front, but I have just realized (peering through the window) that, although the demo guys have broken up all the brick, they now have a layer of concrete to get through. How wrong I was. The jack hammering started up at 8am. All our neighbors appeared to come out of the house and get in their cars at 8:05am. I am sure they are as sick of it as I am. I took Hubby's car to get petrol this morning and spent a moment with the garage squeegee wiping pinkness off the windows.

Out back we have a different crew of guys with jack hammers. These are with the pool renovation team. Their jack hammers are smaller but just as annoying. They are standing in the pool peeling the plaster off. The plaster bits fall into the bottom of the pool, where another guy shovels them up into the scoopy thing of a waiting Bob Cat. (Did I mention the Return of the Bob Cat yesterday?)

Both the demo guys at the front and the ones at the back are running generators, to add to the overall loveliness of the experience.

The pool renovation really is going along speedily, though (not like last time, when it took 7 months to get a not-very-good result). The pool is now eight inches deeper than it was, thanks to the building up of the walls with gunnite to allow for the leveling of the lot; the vault for the pool cover has been created; and most of the plaster is off.

Here's some photos of the pool guys in action:

Utterly Pink

One more day of jack hammering, I think, and the front will be entirely gone. One effect of taking out a good deal of red brick is that everything around is now covered in a thin film of pink dust. It really is very pink. There is a tidal wave of pink dust nestling against the front door. Pink dust is rimming the window frames. The trees that remain in the front yard are crowned with pinkly dusted twigs and leaves. Hubby's car has a light coating of pinkness.

I can only wonder what the neighbors' yards, houses, cars, etc etc must look like. Sorry folks.

The very jolly mustachioed guy who is in charge of the jack hammering promised that he would clear a path through the rubble to the garage side door tomorrow. As it is, we either have to go through the garage door (which we can't close from the outside as the opener/closer doesn't work) or we have to tip-toe through the rubble. And become very pink in the process.

There was an earthquake today in the local area, something like a 4.1. Did I feel it in the house? Did I heck. In fact, I think we may have been the epicenter.

Still no mail, even though I put a nice little mail box on the tree protection fencing yesterday. Hubby thinks the mail man - who is less than conscientious about actually delivering the mail he should - has simply crossed us off his list of acceptable customers.

Shingle-drills, shingle-drills, shingle all the way...

We now have a roof on the bedroom/bathroom addition - complete, nailed down and light brown in its cedar shingley goodness. The roof over the office/laundry is nearly done.

The drilling continued unabated till 4:30pm. The demo guys are now taking out the front path, which is made of bricks laid on concrete. It's very noisy and dusty. No mail came today: I suspect the mail man took one look at what was happening in our front yard and declined to come further.

This evening I received an email from Mike the Pool Guy, warning me that tomorrow around lunchtime they'll be "doing the gunnite" for the pool. I have no idea what that is, but Mike says it will be noisy and dusty. Well, I wonder if I'll notice the difference.

Weather continues bright and sunny.

BBBRRRRRR

It is so utterly draining to sit here all day listening to the vile noise of the jack hammer. It is currently at work ripping out the front yard. I am not sure how I will get from the front door to the road. Pity the poor neighbors who have to listen to this and will get no benefit from it.

Sudden Miasma

And clouds of dust - I think it's dust, though I thought it was smoke at first - are obscuring the back yard. The drilling has restarted. I think they may be removing the path on the side yard that I had installed at great expense two years ago. Time to go out for the grocery shopping.

Catch Up Report

Hello, dear readers (that means you, Anthony). I know you will be worried that my lack of writing will be a reflection of lack of progress, but how wrong you are. Even over the holiday period the guys have been working away, and things are going very well (at least to this amateur's eyes).

Landscaping:
The back yard is now a wasteland. All the concrete has now gone, except for a small piece around the pool which they have clearly decided to leave and concrete over, as part of the raising of the grading of the backyard. This was an exceptionally noisy and intrusive part of the whole remodel experience, with three BobCats in the yard at one point, one with a jack hammer attachment, the other two with different kinds of scoops; plus numerous guys with hand-held jack hammers and shovels. The planters are gone, the wall under the trees has gone, the lawn has gone. We have a big pile of mess in the area that used to be designated lawn, including all the loungers and chairs that Hubby wouldn't let me dispose of, and the old pool cover.

The pool has had its coping and water line tile removed, there are several holes punched in the bottom, and the light has been taken out. The bottom of the pool is full of shards of stuff. One of the pool's wall steps has been broken.

(Hold on, a man has just appeared in the hallway.)

(Just the electrician looking for the sub-panel.)

The wood framing for the concrete pouring around the pool has been erected, and rebars have been inserted around the top of the pool, presumably to hold the new coping. That is supposed to be arriving in the third week of January.



The little lemon tree that the kids bought for Hubby's 40th birthday is still standing bravely in the midst of all this. I tied some "Caution" tape around a couple of bamboo stakes to protect it, and miraculously this seems to have worked. Elsewhere, the drainage plans have been marked out on the ground in orange paint, so we can now see where the barbeque is going to be and also the planting beds near to the house.

House:
Jim says that we have a delay in the windows arriving, and that will slow down the completion of the walls. In the meantime, his guys are working away on the roof. The bedroom/bathroom addition now has roofing felt, and a pile of cedar shingles is waiting to go on. On the office/laundry addition, the shingles are already going on; the roof over the dining room is finished, and the office roof looks like it may be finished today. While we were away at the snow, the new gutters went on. The guys have also started to rough in the plumbing and electrics. Lots of thick yellow wires are strung across the wall framing, and a lovely black pipe indicates where the washing machine will go.

Current discussion is focusing on the kitchen. We have been scheduled to have the kitchen demolition next week, but our architect is now wondering if it can be put off a week, as we'll be away for a few days in February. Personally I suspect that they will over run anyway, so they may as well over run while we're away.

Action all around

It's all happening here this morning:

- men on the roof over the kitchen
- men in the family room engaging in more mysterious banging
- men in the back yard demolishing the coping from around the pool
- big crane on the drive in preparation to take down the Monterey Pine

Lots of noise. Rain currently staying away.

Jigga jigga jigga jigga

On returning from dropping the kids for the last day at school, I had to enter the house through the garage as the Bob Cat was running up and down the front path demolishing the courtyard wall. Now I have one man jack hammering in the front yard, and one in the back. The guys from Jim's Bunch are on the roof pulling off the shingles. The hanging light fitting in the dining room is swinging gently from side to side. Oh, it's started rattling.

The fish are looking a bit traumatised. I just spent half an hour hiding in Little Starlet's room drinking tea and reading a book. That's the only room in the house that doesn't have a man outside it jackhammering, or anyone on the roof pulling the shingles off.

Now I am heading out to Hayward to look at Caesarstone. I can only take so much of the noise, so I might as well do something useful. Unfortunately, Achilles came by to take away the stain samples yesterday, so I don't have anything to compare the stone to, but I'll use my imagination.

The weather is mild and beautifully sunny today. The rain that was forecast for this week has not materialized.

There's a Bob Cat in my Garden, Round 2

Photos here of the back yard being destroyed by Bob Cat Man and his friend, Workman with Strange Moustache.





The brick planters are gone, the seating at the end of the pool is gone, the lawn is totally destroyed, the brick and concrete wall under the redwood trees is gone, and a bit of our fence has fallen down, just to complete the picture of loveliness that is our back yard.

All very noisy. It will get worse tomorrow, as they plan to jack hammer out the patio.

We have a roof

Both sides of the house have men standing on the roof. The good news is that both additions now have sheathing over the roof joists, so we have some level of waterproofing for the next bout of rain (due to start this evening). Hopefully this will also improve the temperature in the family room, as the whole front of the house is now enclosed. The builders haven't cut the windows out of the bedroom addition yet, for overall security of the house.

We also have The Return of The Bob Cat in the back yard. Yesterday they seemed to just run up and down the side yard demolishing camelias and azaleas, which honestly didn't seem to call for a Bob Cat with a jack hammer attachment; but now they are getting down to business in the back yard demolishing the wall under the redwood trees and the brick planters.

More trees gone

It drizzled this morning but the sun is shining now. Myterious thumps and bangs continue throughout the house from both sides.

The Arborist's team was here this morning removing four pittosporum trees from the side yard, in preparation for the BobCat to be brought here by the hardscaping guy. It was extremely loud. I spent a bit of time this morning moving wet objects around in the back yard in preparation, but I don't know quite what to do with them when the whole thing is going to be razed. I put four bamboo sticks around the lemon tree that the kids bought for hubby for his 40th birthday. I'm hoping that will survive.

The pool is now empty.

The worst thing about a remodel

...is definitely the lack of privacy. Or maybe it is the noise. Or could it be a combination of the two? There are guys on my kitchen roof at the moment tearing it off. Other guys are outside the kitchen window. It's like being in the proverbial goldfish bowl, only with sledge hammers instead of an air stone.

Starting to look like real rooms

Rain stopped play on Friday afternoon, so a bit of a hiatus in the recording. On Sunday we took an illicit tour of the rooms under construction. Here is a picture of the new office from the inside. Hubby is worried that the large window is too low, but I expect it will be fine once the window itself is inserted. Also it will be nice to have something lovely to look at through that window. Baggsey that desk for me.

Progress is good on the bedroom/bathroom addition. The guys have started to add hardboard sheathing to the framing. They were about a third done by the time it started to rain on Friday.


You can also see, in this photo, the framing for the closets in the bedroom. Photo taken through what will be a sliding door into the side yard.

Finally, we are now enjoying the health-giving effects of having a number of large holes in the walls of our house. No problems with ventilation for the tumble dryer in the garage, as most of the adjoining wall is missing; and the family room has good air circulation too since the guys pulled the corner of the house. They've also taken out most of the framing from inside the family room bathroom/closet area, and installed a pillar to hold the roof/ceiling up.


I am still waiting to hear from the Arborist about the permit for the Monterey Pine. In other news, Hubby and I finally got round to discussing the landscaping plans, and he doesn't like quite a lot of them, so I shall be needing to communicate that to the Landscape Designer. We have also selected our new washer and dryer (both Bosch, front loaders, to be stacked in the new laundry) and I am deep in consideration of the shop drawings for the new kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately our printer is refusing to talk to our computer, so I can't print out the many pages of plans; which is making the consideration pretty tricky. Tech support - aka Hubby - admits that he has probably done something to cause the breakdown in this high tech relationship, but he was too busy to fix it. Grr.

Hubby is doing much better today and has headed into the office away from the construction noise. Alas Little Starlet is suffering from Mondayitis and is in bed with a declared tummy ache.

And the walls go up

We seem to be spending a lot of time at the doctor's surgery this week, with Hubby's head, so I'm not so quite in the swing of keeping up with this blog. But here's a recap for the past couple of days...

Yesterday the guys from Jim's Bunch finished putting hardboard onto the floor joists of the office/laundry. The framing subcontractors also put up most of the framing for the bathroom/bedroom addition.

Today they are completing the framing for the closets in the bedroom. Today they are working on the framing at the office/laundry, and it is going up very fast. The kids are impressed by the large, loud nail gun - Little Starlet wondered if we could get one for us to use - and are enjoying seeing what a house looks like from the "skeleton" inside.

After the guys had cleared up yesterday I went outside for a peek at what they'd been doing, and was alarmed to see what looked like a gable end going up over the dining room. On the plans the dining room roof is a smooth incline down, no pointy bits.
So I emailed The Architect to register my concern, and she was straight on the phone to the Site Supervisor to prevent any further work in that area until she had been able to see it today. Turns out that they were experimenting: The plans call for a tie in to bring four planes of roof together, and the construction crew is concerned that it can't really happen in the way that the plans envisage. They consulted the structural engineer and he suggested this way forward. Well, this morning the Architect climbed up onto the roof with Achilles and the Site Supervisor, and after some viewing and discussion declared that this additional gable end approach was not the way we intended to go. So they will be dismantling that tomorrow! (I enjoyed watching her up on the roof telling the guys to stick with doing what they've been told - "I have lots of insurance" she said.)

We had our weekly meeting today - including with Jim himself - to discuss outstanding issues. Most of them seem to involve questions around the intersection of the landscaping design with the construction, so the onus is on us to conclude the landscape design discussions. We still need to choose the washer and dryer, and think more about the blessed medicine cabinets.

Lots of activity at the Cardboard Box today. Lucky really, as it is probably going to rain tomorrow, and next week is Thanksgiving, so for most of the week the Cardboard Box will be a scene of silence.

The kitchen toilet is officially history.

Well, dear reader, you may have noticed that I haven't written for several days, which is quite unlike me. Hubby had a cycling accident on Saturday - no major injuries, some cuts and bruises etc - which resulted in us spending most of that day at the local ER, then Sunday was back to back soccer, then Monday we toured the local dentist and optician facilities, then today we were back at ER... So I've been a bit focused on other things.

Anyway. Time to catch up.

The guys from Jim's Bunch, with the assistance of the framing subcontractor, have been adding plywood boards to the floor joists, so there is now the appearance of a floor over the office/laundry addition. They started doing the same at the bedroom/bathroom addition today. Before that, the heating ducts and some plumbing pipes were run under the office floor, insulated, inspected by the City and passed.


The washer and dryer are in the garage and working just fine. Shame the same can't be said for the water dispenser on our fridge-freezer, which stopped working on Friday. I presume that is something to do with the water having been turned off -maybe there is an air lock or some valve needs to be turned back on.


Meanwhile, up on the roof, the shingles are flying off, along with some of the framing. The guys have opened up a big piece of the roof over the dining room, and some over the kitchen, and they have also opened up part of the wall of the kitchen (on the outside only, for now) in order to be able to tie in the framing for the office.


We have a comfortingly large blue tarpaulin over the roof void and a promise of no rain for a couple of days.

Still waiting to hear back from The Arborist about the Monterey Pine.

One interesting side effect of having Hubby at home - the way he looks, he can't go into work - is that the Site Supervisor is not coming in so much to chat. So although there is a lot of noise, there is a lot less disturbance to the day. (I confess to being glad that Hubby is getting a taste of what it is like noisewise.) And, perhaps needless to say, with all that happened over the weekend, we haven't quite managed to choose a washer, medicine cabinet, etc etc. Still on the list. We're both feeling a bit frazzled.

Hammer, Saw, Drill, Hammer, Saw, Drill

Plenty of activity around The Cardboard Box today.

In the new bedroom/bathroom area, the guys from Jim's Bunch have demolished some of the existing framing that separated the old bathroom from the family room, and they have installed a post to hold up the ceiling/roof in preparation for rebuilding the walls.


(The new bedroom starts to take shape.)

Out front, a couple of Latino guys are crawling around over and under the new floor joists of the bedroom addition, hammering, drilling and generally making construction noise which I presume has some overall purpose.

In the office/laundry addition, Azmir (who is Bosnian) and Senmet (who is Egyptian) are installing floor joists under the supervision of the framing subcontractor (who seems to be from Texas). In the kitchen, a plumber and a gas engineer are working together to move our washer and dryer into the garage. There is currently a large man lying on the kitchen floor with his head, arms and shoulders dangling down into the crawl space through the hole that Azmir cut a couple of weeks ago.

Much drilling and sawing and hammering noise throughout the house.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the Site Supervisor saying we need to have selected our new washer and dryer by the end of the weekend, so that they know where to put the dryer vents etc. So that's on the list for the weekend, along with making a final decision on the medicine cabinets for the new bathroom (do we want them custom made so they are flush with the wall, or do we want to buy ready made from Restoration Hardware which will stick out a bit).

Over the weekend we will also need to make some decisions about the landscaping. I had a good meeting with the Landscape Designer yesterday. She proposed raising the sides of the pool by three inches so that the grade of the lot can be altered, with the effect that water would drain away from the house instead of towards it, as it does at the moment. (Hm, does that sound expensive to you?) Also, she brought estimates for the work to put the pool cover box under ground instead of on top, which would allow the cover to have runners under the coping and thus hidden out of the way, instead of on the surface so that they run along the coping. (Are you keeping up?) The estimates for that specific piece of work run around $40,000. Hubby swallowed quite hard when I told him that. He was thinking, maybe $10,000...

Day of Reckoning

I'm back from my trip and, as you can see, Hubby totally failed to keep the blog current, so I'll bring it up to date...

The wood encasing the concrete foundation footings on both additions has been removed, the footings have been inspected and passed, and we are good for the next stage. As I write, Azmir and a couple of other guys are installing the floor joists across the foundation footings on the bedroom/bathroom addition. Gentle sounds of sawing and hammering in the background. Nothing happening on the office/laundry side.

The lights throughout the house are now working, though we're not sure why.

Installation of a new furnace and ductwork was completed on Friday. We now have a new thermostat in our bedroom hallway, and a defunct one decorated in blue builder's tape in our living room. The furnace seems to be working well.

The Landscape Designer and our Site Supervisor met last Wednesday to discuss issues like grading, drainage, landscape lighting conduits, and the location of the "backflow trap T connector". No, I don't know what that is, but I'm sure it's important, or she wouldn't have come all the way from Oregon to discuss it.

The Arborist has applied for the permit to remove our second Monterey Pine. He expects to get it next week. In the meantime the debris from grinding the first stump is sitting in two mounds that look for all the world like a termite holiday camp. The Arborist says they'll dispose of that when they come for the second tree.

We have started to receive and pay the bills for the construction work. Largest check (for over $47,000) to Jim's Bunch for work completed in the first month plus supplies on hand. Also checks for $5,000+ to The Architect (on top of $30,000+ we have already paid for the design phase); $1,300 to The Surveyor; and $3,300 to The Arborist. And there are probably others I've forgotten, but those are the big ones I wrote this morning.

Now I need to think about bathroom medicine cabinets and drawer pulls.