Manic Monday.

Wow! WHAT a crazy day at the house today. It was by far the most 'chaotic' day we've had on the project to date - simply due to the number of crews we had working. My friends, we are 18 days from our completion date and there's a lot to do! So, let's take a look at the chaos of the day.

On the interior, the painters began today. They really only have about a day and a half of work they can get done this week as we are still waiting on those pesky cabinets and there's only so much they can do until those are installed. But, knocking this 'prep' day out now will help them cruise come next week. So, they filled and sanded holes in the woodwork, taped the windows for painting, caulked all of the crown moulding, casing and base. It doesn't sound like much, but they were here from 8am-5pm and still aren't done.

Having this work done means they'll be able to come in and start spraying all the woodwork without much time spent prepping. Rolling the ceilings and walls will be the easy part once they finish up enameling the trim.

Our exterior crew was here today continuing work on the garage. The siding is more than halfway up on two sides of the garage.

They were slowed down a bit by the chaos ensuing out back with the concrete crews work, but hopefully they will be out of the way soon and the garage can get wrapped up. They also put the downspouts up on the house today (which will be painted the body color of the house and virtually disappear into the siding).

I actually find them rather charming on the front facade and plan to add these decorative gutter clasps (painted the body color of the house) for charm.


The new guys in town were the concrete crew from Pietig concrete. 5 of them...yes, 5...and at times there were more of them. It was truly insanity. To start things off, the fence on the back of our property had to be taken down to allow room for the destroyer (as I call it).

Not sure what the destroyer technically is, but it's a machine that spent the better part of the day ramming into our foundation literally SHAKING the girls and I. It also completely destroyed our lawn, hence, destroyer of mood and all things aesthetically pleasing. It's purpose, however, was to remove the large concrete patio on the back of the house that had cracked and sunk causing water to pool against our foundation and creating seepage in our basement (here's an MLS shot from prior to us purchasing the home).

This was disclosed to us prior to us purchasing this house and is a big reason we are opting to not touch the basement at this time. We'll wait to see if regrading the yard and removing that sagging concrete will eliminate our water problems. If it doesn't, we'll have to look into resealing the foundation and putting in some sort of drain tile system. In the meantime, let's hope our less invasive, less costly approach does the trick! I won't get into too much detail of what the steps and walkway will look like because believe it or not, they'll be done tomorrow! So I'll leave you on edge to await the official 'after' photos tomorrow. In the meantime, here are a few quick descriptions and photos of what's going down.

Sight of the devastation:-(

Spray painted outline of new back steps and sidewalk

Footings poured to support new back steps

An idea of the new gradually curving walkway to the garage

Part of the existing walkway on the side of the house had to be torn out and raised to meet the new elevated stairway out back (where it previously sloped down contributing to the water issues).

Also on the side of the house, the old doorway that used to lead outside (that was closed up by the exterior crew) will get filled in with concrete block and skim coated to match the rest of the foundation.

Here is one of two window wells that were closed up to accommodate the new deck that will be built over top.

60" deep footings for the new deck were poured off the back of the addition.

So, that makes for one crazy day! It was virtually impossible to be in the house today with the swarm of chaos and noise going on around us. So the girls and I spent the morning on a coffee date, had lunch with Jeff during work and met a few of our best gals at a park in the afternoon. Here's one final shot of one of the cutest girls I know watching the destroyer at work out back. More tomorrow!