Demo has started!

The crew started demo on September 1st and they quickly starting removing drywall, old hardwoods, plumbing and some electrical.  After just a few short weeks you can already start to see how wide open the space is going to be.

Before anyone becomes upset about us removing the original hardwoods, you have to understand that they were too damaged and they were installed incorrectly therefore, there way no way to re-finish them so that they would last.  If we worked with what we had, we would have had to make repairs to the floors for years to come (which it already looked like the previous owners had tried to do!)  However, good news was that we were able to give away some of the old oak floors to be used in other home projects.

Family Room / Great Room - The room on the left is the sunroom

View from the kitchen looking through the half bath and into the Family Room

Entry Foyer

View from the hallway into the kitchen - Door on the left is the half bath

View from the mudroom in the kitchen

Plan for 2014 - Phase 3

So we haven't done much since we semi-finished our master bathroom and laundry room, but here we are in September of 2014 (2 1/2 years since we purchased our house) and we are FINALLY ready to renovate our first floor and pieces of the 2nd floor and basement. 

This was the renovation that was previously scheduled as PHASE 2 and planned for 2013 but was pushed back to PHASE 3.  As a recap, PHASE 2 was the master bath and laundry and now PHASE 3 is the first floor /second floor. This will be the biggest renovation for our entire house project. One of the main items on the list for this phase is the kitchen. Up until this point we have had NO KITCHEN.  People  always ask us,"What do you mean no kitchen?"  Well, it's exactly what we said, no kitchen.  Here is a picture of our "kitchen" below. As you can see, it's lacking a few of the essentials, a stove...a real-sized fridge...and cabinets.

We haven't used our first floor at all up till this point, and we've pretty much lived entirely on our third floor.  So this renovation will be very exciting for us since it will finally allow us to enjoy the rest of our home.  Here are our plans:

2014-2015 PHASE 3 Renovation - Scope of work

First floor
- Demo current powder room 
- Tear down and expand current kitchen
- Build addition and move current mudroom
- Knock out most of the walls in the back of the house to create open concept 
- Open up existing back staircase
- Tear down exterior wall and build half-wall leading to sunroom

- Build new powder room in first floor

- Waterproof entire backside of house and install sub pump

- Replace and level all of wood floor on 1st floor (floors are too damaged to keep original)

- Replace some windows (some too damaged to keep)

Second floor

-  Replace and level all of wood floor on 1st floor (floors are too damaged to keep original)

- Demo 2nd bathroom and run all plumbing (may not finish depending on funds)

- Build hallway closet at the top of back staircase

- Install tile in laundry room

- Raise handrailing and balusters on second floor landing. The handrail is about 10 inches too low

Existing 1st Floor Plan

New 1st Floor Plan

Some 3D renderings of what could be!

Want to know what's left? A WHOLE LOT .

2015-2016 PHASE 4 - Renovation - Scope of work

Completely re-side the outside of the house with cement board

Tear down and rebuild front Porch

Build back deck

Build Back Paver patio

Install new Paver walkway in front of house

Install Outdoor Kitchen

Install Outdoor Firepit

Install fence for backyard (remember when I posted that this was 10k alone?!?! Insane!)

Landscaping for the front and back

2016-2017 PHASE 5 Renovation-Scope of work

Renovate basement

2nd Floor Reno - Week 13

We now have a working master bathroom and a laundry room. All of the fixtures were installed in the master bath, however a few things still remain.  

For the master bath we still need two mirrors, three sconces, chandelier, towel bar, glass shower enclosure, hardware for the cabinets and shower door handle, and to install the rain shower head. OH and new windows plus some shutters for the windows. So although it looks like we are almost done we still have a long way to go.

Shower Bench, Toilet, and Vanity. As you could see the walls look bare. 

Shower fixtures. We still need to install the rain shower head.

New Washer and Dryer.  As you can see there is no floor, sink or cabinets yet. All things to come. We wanted to get these hooked up as soon as possible so we didn't need to continue taking our clothes over to my parents house.

Its finally coming together but still so many things left to do in order to make these two rooms complete.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 12

Now things are really starting to come together.  This week the marble countertop was installed, the vanity hutches were built above the counter, the marble backsplash was put up and the walls were painted.

Here's a closeup of the countertop and backsplash. The sinks were also installed :) For the backsplash, we repeated the brick marble that's on the shower walls and we topped it off with a marble chair rail.  

And here's the marble for the shower seat!

Everything looks so good! Just need all of the plumbing fixtures installed and we'll be in business! Adrian and I started cleaning so that we can move back in soon.  There's a LOT of dust everywhere.  Before the demo even started, Adrian and I thought we were so prepared. We closed every door and taped each of the doors off with plastic.  We rolled paper out on the floor and draped plastic over furniture.  That dust is crazy sneaky though because it still managed to get EVERYWHERE. Mental note for next time, tape off all vents so dust can't travel.

A few things need to still be completed in the laundry room as well.  Those photos will be posted soon. Keep checking back for updates!!!

2nd Floor Reno - Week 11

Shower is all tiled and grouted! Just need the marble for the bench.

The base of the vanity has been installed and we're selecting paint colors.  The four colors above the vanity are the same as the four colors on the lefthand wall.  They were on different walls so that we could see the options in both natural light and under artificial light.  The two green samples on the left are for the laundry room, and the two grey options are for the bathroom.  We selected #1 for the laundry room and #3 for the bathroom.

Trim was installed and painted white.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 10

This was a short work week since we lost a couple days to the holiday. All tile is laid, and grouting has started!

Here's a closeup of the niche 

We carried out the accent band to the other wall as well

Photo on the left was our inspiration shower. 

We saw this at a tile showroom and really liked it.  

Photo on the right is our shower.  

Like I mentioned previously, our niche had to be on the opposite wall as the inspiration shower in order to minimize noise outside of the bathroom (because of less installation).

 

Here you can see the shower bench and the other side of the bathroom

Half of the tile is grouted.  We went with a light grey grout which matches 

the marble really nicely.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 9

We're getting closer! This week, the contractors waterproofed the shower and started installing the tile.  Here's a pic of the lovely herringbone shower floor! You can also see the linear drain that was installed.

And here's the shower again, a couple of days later. We went with a 2X3 subway marble tile for the walls.  You can also see the niche built out here. Originally, we wanted the niche to go along the longer wall (to the right), but after discussing it with the architect and contractor we realized that if we put it on the longer wall you'd probably hear the shower from the hallway a lot more since we'd lose some installation/soundproofing. The shorter wall  that we went with is up against our closet, so there's still a sound barrier.

Here's a picture of the bathroom floor.  LOVE the large hexagon.

PICK US for America's Most Desperate Landscape!

Every now and then Adrian and I visit the DIY and HGTV casting call pages to see if they're looking for folks from the Chicagoland area to be on any of their home makeover shows.  I mean, we all know WE could use all the help we could get, plus, who wouldn't love a home makeover? So each time we visit the sites we see the same thing, casting calls for everywhere BUT Chicago! Well, not this time! Last Monday, I happened to search the DIY website like I normally do and saw that they were looking for people with ugly front yards to be on their America's Most Desperate Landscape show.

This was perfect!  Our front yard sucks!  Just one issue, the casting call had been going on for 2 months and was coming to a close on Friday. We had about 4 days to pull together some of the best (worst) photos of our yard.  Ones that showed how awful our porch, stairs and lawn were. We soon realized our pictures weren't that great, so we decided we would take some new ones since we had to go to the house anyways to check the bathroom progress. 

Luckily, the porch looks even worse than it has previously this year because Adrian had  plans to redo it this past summer/fall, but didn't get around to it.  He did most of the prep work by scrapping all of the spindles, and had even started to take down one section of the railing (shown above). This is probably the ONLY time I was grateful that Adrian didn't finish a project he started.
 
So we submitted our application just in time on the final day of the casting call. We're keeping our fingers crossed!  How cool would it be to have the front yard fixed?!?!

2nd Floor Reno - Week 8

Here we are, Week 8.  This was my "Worst Case Scenario" timeframe...double what the contractor had projected. Yes, we had delays because of the structural concerns, but this is taking forever. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but it's difficult.  There is progress being made...it's just slow progress.

Here's a photo of the drywall in the 2nd floor hallway, all taped and sanded.

Here's the bathroom

This is where the shower will be. The shower bench is framed, and IT'S HUGE!  It's over 4 ft long...I could almost lay across it :). You can't see very well, but we have a linear drain installed under that piece of white foam.

Laundry room is all taped, sanded and primed. Undercabinet lighting is ready to go.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 7

This week drywall went up.  Here are some photos showing the drywall on the first floor where they had replaced the headers.

New drywall for where the door to the bathroom used to be.

Patched drywall for the new hallway electrical

Drywall in the master closet

Durock cement board for the master bath. Now it's starting to look like a room.