Clean Slate

Some recent pictures of the inside of the house...

So Meghan, my sister-in-law, stopped by about 2 weeks ago and was shocked by what the inside of the house looked like. Yes, we have done some major demolition on the inside of the house. So, I thought I'd post some recent pictures of the interior before we start putting everything back together.

This wall in the kitchen is actually going to be demolished and replace by a framed wall.

Looking from kitchen into dining room...which will be the entire kitchen

Future Master bath

Future Master Closet

View from master closet into Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Dining Room (Future eat-in kitchen area)

Same room I'm standing in front of the built-in in previous picture

Looking from dining room into existing kitchen. That wall with windows is coming out!

Main level bath/laundry room

Living Room (we took the arched doorways out)

Stairs...

Family Room. I love seeing the stairs from the front room!!

Family room looking into the living room and stairwell

View looking up from the landing of the stairwell

Upstairs full bath. We are keeping the tub.

Upstairs full bath looking out door

Uptairs bedroom #1

Bedroom #1

Upstairs Bedroom #2

Upstairs Attic space. This is a totally new space we created by taking out a closet that was built inside the attic. Yay!

Attic space looking into Bedroom #2

Well, there you go.You are caught up on the progress on the inside. Right now my Fabulous father -in-law is wiring the electric and then the HVAC guys will be in to install the furnace and air conditioner. I will do my best at keeping up with the inside.  See you next year!

The Back Porch....Gone, but Not Forgotten!

The Back Porch

Well, the construction is coming along. With the roof being torn off it made no sense to keep the back "porch". It was very leaky and closed off the back entrance to the yard.  So...we decided to remove it. I like it more because it lets in more light to the kitchen. Removing the bushes helped a lot too.

Before the porch was removed

After, from about the same view.

Here you can see the entire space (no bushes)

It will be so nice in the summer to come out here and watch the kids play

Another view from in between the houses

We are hoping to eventually have a fire pit out in the back yard area. Since it is right out the kitchen door, I think we will be using it a lot.

Chimney...No More

No More Chimney!

I guess the chimney had to go. It served no purpose and it actually made the roof hang over and extra 2 feet. I have added some pictures so you can see what a difference it has made. Without the chimney we can put some bigger windows in the kitchen. At first we thought we would do it later, but when the roof started getting fixed, it made no sense to keep it. 

Before.....

After...We will remove the rest when we replace the windows in the kitchen

Back side of the house.

In the last picture you can see The chimney is down and the new roof is on. It has taken a few days to remove the old roof because there were 3 layers on it. The first layer was wood shakes. We also have been working on removing a lot of the overgrown landscaping.

Now the fun starts..The inside work will really be picking up.  S

The Porch

The Original Porch is back on....kinda.

We have been seeing a lot of progress lately with the house. We are trying desperately to get it buttoned up tight before the snow starts falling. Then we can start working on the inside. I went ahead and added the old picture circa 1910? so you can get an idea of what the original porch looked like. We are not quite done with it yet, but it is getting there. The new porch is a little wider and they haven't finished the gable end yet, but it is starting to look like the original porch.

Photo taken in 1910?

Beginning of the Porch

The posts are up...

You can see that we stained the floor a dark color to protect it from the elements. I will probably end up painting it one day. You can tell we also primed the new siding. 

I searched a few salvage places for old posts but I couldn't find 4 that were the same and in good enough shape. I would really have liked to have reused old posts...but what are ya gonna do? 

View from Westfield Blvd.


Oh! And if anyone knows where I can get any of the gingerbread trim...I am open to suggestions!

Next Week.... we will have a new roof. I can't wait to share those photos.

Update....What's going on Inside!

Update!

Just thought I would share some of the pictures of the inside of the house. We have been working on taking out most of the plaster. While jacking the house up, we had some major cracks so replacing the plaster with drywall was the only option we had. While removing the plaster we have found some fun stuff! Check it out!

Here is a before picture of the stairwell before we removed the plaster and decided if we remove the wall it would open it to the front room...Great idea I think.

Before

After!

The challenge is going to be to find another post for the other side of the stairs...not to mention the bannister and spindles! Ha Ha Should be fun!

 This is looking from the front room through the "wall" that was there. It will open up the Front room so much!

 I'm standing on the other side of stairs. What a view, I love having the open.

 This was a huge change! Someone, years ago, added a closet the kinda hung over the staircase. It was odd...to say the least. So we decided we could remove it and make the stairs a real focal point. Here is a before picture of the stairs...and the closet.

Before

Before

Here you can see my husband took the closet walls out but left the floor. It's an unusual view but I think you can see how open the stairs will be.

After (I'm at the top of the stairs)

We will now have 2 windows open to the stairs. (the floating floor will be gone soon)

 Here  I'm standing at the landing. You can see how open it will eventually be, and we found 2 chimneys that we will hopefully be able to leave the brick exposed

We will finish the railing to complete the look.

Straight Lines....Not Blurred Lines!

Oh My Look at Those Lines!

I stopped by the house today and I am so happy with the progress. It is amazing what is happening over there. The weather has been great, and the guys have been working so hard....its amazing!

South side of the house

Front

North side of house

The siding looks so straight

Front siding....straight as can be!

And for the inside...

You will not believe the changes going on inside. Plus we have found some fun details that we are going to try to restore.

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Can you see what I see???? Yes that is brick! There are 2 brick chimney's that were used to heat the home with wood burning stoves. We are going to try to keep them exposed.

We realized the wall that the staircase shares with the front room could be taken out (hopefully) to open the stairway up.

I am on the landing of the stairs looking up. I think we will keep the brick exposed here too!

This is the upstairs half bath. We are planning on keeping the tub...I love it!

The "boys" room...Ya the floors are wood but the are so dusty and dirty they look white

Downstairs front room...hopefully we can work it out so the staircase is open to this room too.

The bay window room (south side of the house). The floors are actually wood here too...just dirty.


I can't wait to see if there are any more surprises.