House Project

Last summer, we purchased this house and added on to it. The great (and crazy) thing about it, as most of you know, is this house is one we built 16 years ago and lived in until we moved to Virginia. So I guess you could say we're back where we started from. We added 2,600-ish square feet, adding 6 bedrooms, 2 baths in the following way:
3 bedrooms and a walk-in storage closet over the garage;
new family room, mudroom, 2nd staircase, and master bedroom on the main level going out the back of the house, with a 2 bedroom apartment underneath that addition.
We also converted a former bedroom upstairs into a wonderfully big laundry room. Our builders were great and we really liked working with them, however, it was quite an adventure to live here while all this was going on. The bulk of the project was completed at the end of 2008, and the laundry room conversion was done by early February. We still have a lot of projects to do as we get "unpacked" and settled, and try to get rid of the construction dust, but we LOVE our house! We've been very blessed!

Our friends from Virginia, the Caudill's, were visiting us and helped us take out some trees in preparation for the construction. Gotta love the chainsaw vacation package!

Steve is in this photo with a sick tree that had to go.

We also have a picture of him helping to plant it when he was about 3 years old.

With some trees gone and brick removed, they're ready to start digging.

Nothing says cool like construction trucks right in your yard!

Please note that amid the missing wall, the insulation on what's left of the floor, and the general construction debris and power tools, that I had the classiness to keep a tablecloth on the table!

A trench was jack-hammered in our basement at the bottom of the stairs so they could run the plumbing lines to the addition. Ryan enjoyed sitting on the stairs and throwing rocks in the comfort of his own home.

Trusses going up....which was almost as cool as seeing the crane take the roof off.

The new back of the house.

I must say the tarp wall was an improvement over the plywood wall as it let in more light and air. And as an added bonus, we could enjoy hearing the construction guys sing to the radio a lot clearer....and they could hear our commotion clearer too.

They were fun guys who did great work and became part of the family for 5 months.

It's coming together!!!

We were surprised at how much backyard we still have....or maybe we're just getting older and yards all look bigger to us. We are very happy with the curvy, new patio and I can't wait to landscape around it!

Everyone got in on the painting....from choosing colors to applying them...usually in the wee hours of the morning. Here Ryan is painting his room and later he was quick to give us painting tips based on his experiences...like "You're leaving globbies, mom." We knew he'd been hauled to too many Lowe's stores to look at paint chips when he decided to re-name his room's paint color....."Ryan's cookie dough."

Ta-Da!!!!

This was as things were finishing in late December.