Scraping the Surface

When we originally sat down with our contractor, Eric, to go over who would handle different aspects of the project, Randy and I quickly signed on for all the paint work. We've painted entire interior and exteriors before, so we thought we had an idea of what we were getting ourselves into.

Let me take a second to remind you that our new house is 3,400 sqft. The exterior is 4 stories high and according to my best estimate, it has about 100,38o sqft of surface area, most of which is pitched at awkward angles. The process is slow-going, as we have to pressure wash, scrap, caulk, prime, and then paint.

At least there are some good views to be had while dangling from the eaves. The pictures below don't really do the view justice; we look out across an expanse of green (the Arboretum) toward the Cascade mountains in the East.

Water, You're Not Welcome Here

There's a lot going on at the house this week: the last of the lathe and plaster is being evicted, the foundation walls have been poured and the moisture barrier is up, the drainage ditch is being dug and Randy has painted the North wall (except for the miles of trim) and has begun prepping the West wall for painting in the next week or so. I'm afraid I don't have time to write much more today, so I will let the pictures do the talking.

Chutes and Ladders

We went by the house again tonight (7/15), armed with more paint samples. Randy has been busy prepping the North wall of the house for days now, and even did a number on his back while attempting to move a 32-foot extension ladder by himself. Here is a shot of Randy in action "after the fall" (on a smaller ladder, but still an impressive ladder).


We now have a calico house. We were hoping to paint the exterior a deep blue-gray with white trim, but there are a lot of blue-grays out there. We want a dark enough shade that the trim really pops, and we want something more to the gray than the blue. We think we have finally settled on a color. You can guess.

In the meantime, Eric and his crew have been busy gutting the house. The lathe and plaster is completely gone from the main level, except for in the pantry area, and they just started working on removing the trim from the bedrooms upstairs. Lathe is really heavy stuff, so rather than lugging 5-gallon buckets of the stuff, they have constructed a temporary chute to aid in the removal. And while they're busy on the inside of the house, the foundation crew is busy on the outside; today the foundation footings were poured and the walls should go up on Monday.

And the Walls...Came Tumblin' Down

The whole family went by the house again tonight (Tuesday, 7/12) to check on the progress. Randy immediately set to work caulking and masking the exterior North wall, which he pressure-washed last weekend and he and I intend to paint on Friday. I painted a couple of test patches on the wall, and neither of the colors we had chosen seemed dark enough once they were on the structure, so the kids and I made another trip up to the hardware store to get additional samples...we didn't have time to go back and add these to the collage.
Front door
On the inside of the house, the lathe and plaster is coming down very quickly. We have some real worker bees on our team. The house is a mess, but as our contractor said to me, "Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet."

Living room

Bathtub gone!

Progress continues on the foundation. We opted to put a new entrance into the basement...it just makes sense to do this while the concrete is being poured and the drainage is determined. Here you see a shot of the form for the retaining walls around the new entrance. There will be 4 or 5 steps going down to the door (on the SE corner).

A House on Stilts

So we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves after the July 4th holiday weekend. We worked hard, took down 3 trees and cleared almost the entire lot...lugging a total of three 14' Uhaul trucks' worth of green to the transfer station.

On Monday (July 5th...a holiday for most), our contractor Eric showed up with two helpers and also got to work. First up: jack up the house and stabilize it so that the damaged part of the foundation could be repoured and a drainage trench could be put in.

In the meantime, Randy got to work demolishing the bathroom in the evenings, but even he was shocked when we went by the house this evening (Friday), and this is what we saw.We thought we worked fast, but Eric and his crew put us to shame!

Fabulous Finds

Randy and I are secretly hoping that we'll stumble upon a hidden treasure during the rehab process. So far, we've only found about a dozen old bottles, some underwear, some spray deodorant, about 30 plastic plant pots, 3 hub caps, a rotted garden hoe and vine support. But by far the best find during the garden work has been a shoe from circa 1968. We may have to save it and give it a place of honor in the final landscape.

Worker Bees

Okay, I have to admit I love this first shot, taken after about 4 hours of yard work during a Slurpee break. We still had about 3 hours of work left for the day, yet look at these guys! Talk about forlorn. They're sitting in a rental truck in the driveway, because we knew we'd have far more yard refuse than our regular vehicles could handle.

And next you see a shot of the 14-ft Uhaul after filling it with one day's worth of work. It might not look that impressive to you, but let me point out that half of that mess is grapevine and blackberry brambles that had to be cut down and stomped into submission. Stay tuned for pictures of the full front yard...we still have more to accomplish before I take that picture. Unfortunately, we're going to lose about 4 fruit trees during this process, so we'll be looking to replace them with some fast-growing natives once we put in the new drainage and have the soil back in place.

Overgrown

Here are a few shots taken last weekend, as you can see, the house has not received any landscaping attention in a LONG time.

What, really?

It's true. I'm going to start blogging again. Not because I have anything particularly interesting to say, but because my extended family is clamoring for a way to stay abreast of our house rehab. Sometimes I may only manage to post a couple of pictures sans text, so let's keep the expectations low. Above is a picture taken in March, 2010, when we first looked at the house. It's even more overgrown now! It's also colder out now (huh?), but I won't dwell on this.

Work starts this weekend: July 4th, 2010. First up: yard work.