More work has begun on the house. It’s been almost two years since the first phase of the renovation ended, and then we spent months and months painting the entire first floor plus our bedroom and bathroom on the second floor. Then we took a bit of a break. Money might have had something to do with that. OK, and laziness. We have been trying to find a contractor to continue with the renovations, so that also took some time. The contractor who completed Phase One is, unfortunately, unavailable. However, over the summer Michael just happened upon a contractor at the farmers’ market where we pick up our CSA shares. Now, we’re scheduled to finish the second floor plus do a little work on the third floor. We can’t afford to do everything we want to finish the interior of the house, but this will at least makes things a little more comfortable. So here’s a summary of what’s on the horizon…
Second bedroom:
New floors
New drywall on some walls, to cover electrical stuff
New baseboards
New window
Second full bath:
Everything - Michael already stripped this room down to the studs
Hallway: New baseboards to match others installed during Phase One
New window at the top of the stairs
Third floor: Install HVAC unit and frame a bench around it
Replace windows at the top of the stairs, in both bedrooms, and in the walk-in closet
Of course, this will be followed by lots and lots of painting, something we are paying someone else to do this time. I was really not looking forward to painting the wall that goes up along the stairs to the third floor; we already have 12-foot ceilings on the second floor, which extend to lord knows how high going up the staircase.
An issue we were pretty concerned about was keeping dust out of the spaces where we live. The first time around, we were living two floors above the work, so it was never a problem. Fortunately, Chris, the contractor, has installed some plastic sheeting upstairs to keep our living spaces dust-free. Here's what it looks like going up the stairs to the second floor:
From the top of the stairs looking down the hallway:
Just outside our bathroom and bedroom:
The "doorways" are two sheets, the one on the outside of the work area slit down the middle, the one within the work weighted down, so it's a little tricky getting through them, especially when carrying a basket of laundry. When we came home on Monday, when all of this was installed, we heard a tiny "mew" coming from the other side of the sheeting just outside our bedroom. Apparently Tanga was "trapped" in the bedroom all day before figuring out the new doorways.The plastic sheeting reminds me of that scene in E.T., which always freaked me out as a kid. So it's a little creepy upstairs in the hallway.
Some work has started in the bathroom. This room used to be the bane of my existence. The plan is to move the shower across the room, then put the sink and toilet across the room from the shower. We've already picked out a toilet, pedestal sink, and shower stall and all the fixtures.
This room is awfully tiny, so it's hard to show the work going on. Here we have the framing for the wainscoting along the brick wall, where the sink and toilet will be:
We're planning to keep the brick exposed above the wainscoting, but we'll paint it white. The subfloor is in as well. Funny thing: there's still a remnant of one of the old layers of flooring:
The work is moving along, so it won't be another six months before there's another update.