Our Home Addition: Construction Time

We left off in April, when we finished with our architect. It's a little fuzzy to me now, but I know we signed the contract with our general contractor, Scott, sometime in May. We went over everything with a fine toothed comb because we wanted to include as much as possible up front, knowing that if we added jobs in later they'd be up-charged by 40%. Being aware of that fun little tip made us say, 'We want Central AC in the entire house now', and also 'might as well do a whole new roof since we have to do the back half of the house anyway.' Can I get an AMEN to both of these big ticket items?

One decision that we mulled over for a few days was whether or not to create doors from our sunroom, onto the new patio. At first we definitely wanted to bust through this 'playroom' but then as we talked about moving electrical lines, creating stairs onto the patio that would take up about half of the concrete space, we weren't so sure. Then the logistics of walking from our kitchen, around to the sunroom, and out the door seemed to be exactly the same as walking form our kitchen, out our side door, and around the back to the patio. We decided that we can always add doors and steps later, but we wanted to leave the first floor alone as much as possible and save on space for the new patio.

First up in the long list of sub-contractors was the mason, who came to dig two giant holes in our backyard on June 19, 2017. Porter's infatuation with heavy machinery meant that the entire construction process seemed like we were orchestrating it just for him, and when the masons left their diggers in our backyard over the weekends? Heck yes, we got pictures.

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After they dug the holes, they had to pour some concrete into them for supports. Then the concrete had to cure and somehow this process took much longer than anticipated. STORY OF OUR LIFE when it comes to a construction timeline, right? We were waiting for three giant steel beams to be delivered and there was some miscommunication, which meant that right when I had Wallace there was a lull in the action for the addition. Looking back, it was a blessing to have some silence for the first two weeks of bringing home our newborn baby. Things picked up at the end of July, though.

After the lovely Porta Potty was delivered to our side yard, Scott parked his work trailer in our driveway, along with the massive dumpster that sat in our driveway and blocked our garage for 4+ months. Then the steel beams were finally delivered on 7/31/17. Alllll of the lumber needed for the framing, plus the roof tresses arrived (in our yard) right before that. They used a humongous crane to lift the main steel beam into place, and then started framing in the addition and adding some rough walls. This part seems to go really fast, just like everyone told us it would. Scott, our GC, is a carpenter and he did a lot of the rough framing himself with two other guys.

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On 8/11/17, they first started tearing off the roof and old airing porch. Also, they had to time the tear off with the weather. They'd put a huge tarp down over the open part of our roof, and started with the back of our house. No big deal, except for the night they didn't tarp it because it took about an hour start to finish, to secure the tarp...and the forecast never included rain. Until it started to POUR at about 6am the next morning, and then I saw the first of three leaks into our kitchen ceiling. A low point of the process would be when I saw water pouring out of our kitchen light fixture, the newborn baby was crying, Nate was at work, I was on maternity leave, and the crazy had just begun!!

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End of August meant the roofers arrived, as did our brand new shingles. This was an extremely messy process, if you can imagine, and we are still finding rusty nails in our yard a year later. But I think we had three layers of shingles on the roof, plus the original cedar shakes from the 1920s up there. As the roof was going up, Scott and his guys were framing some inside walls and working on the soffits of the addition. After the rough framing was done, the insulation guys came and we upgraded to extra insulation given that the addition has WI winter air coming at it from four sides.

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Early September brought the electrician, the plumber, Scott ordered our new windows, and Nate and I decided to go with two pedestal sinks in our master bathroom. We just could not find a solid wood vanity that didn't cost 4k, and the more I hunted around the more I fell in love with two pedestal sinks for the clean lines/minimalist look. Scott assured us that he would build a nice linen cabinet in the bathroom for storage and even with the rough framing, we knew it would feel HUGE to us compared to our other full bath. To access the plumbing from our basement into the addition, they did have to tear out part of our kitchen wall to get to the 'stack', and then they had to get creative with where to place the new pipes. We ended up having them put the pipes along our kitchen ceiling and outside wall, and you don't even notice it now--but we were kind of hoping they could pipe off the upstairs full bathroom into the addition instead of going through our kitchen. Ah, well.

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I have in my notes that our roof was totally done on 9/6/17, the plumbing to the new bathroom was finished on 9/10/17, and the HVAC company first came on 9/18/18. It took them awhile but they installed central AC in our whole house, creating ducts from a unit in the attic. They went into each room on the second floor, and then piped down to the first floor through two closets. This was a no-brainer for us, although Scott thought we could get by with just having one vent on the main level. I knew if we were converting to central AC and saying goodbye to window units forever, that we needed to do this right. And so they put a vent into each room on the first floor, too.

Scott installed the new windows on 9/20/17. And then began the saga with the plumbing inspector from the city.

The plumber was awesome but the plumbing inspector was not awesome. The inspector wanted the plumber to tear out an extra part of our kitchen wall, so that he could see if we had a vent to our half bathroom downstairs....which seriously has nothing to do with the addition and was SO ANNOYING to me. And tearing out plaster walls in the one room I didn't want to touch was the messiest, and this came at a time when Nate was traveling and I was hormonally charged at about six weeks post partum. It ended up being fine, and there was a glorious vent that the inspector needed to see. But it was highly inconvenient to lose our cubby storage and hooks during the first week of school. We didn't get them back until the drywallers came and fixed the huge hole, and we just learned to live without our little mudroom area in the back of the kitchen.

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Early October brought the drywall company, which was rumored to be the messiest part of the gig. Newsflash, they aren't lying. Hanging the drywall wasn't too bad, and it just took them two days to hang it all (delivered with a crane, through our new windows, super cool). They taped and mudded, then sanded, and textured the walls a bit. This part was horribly dusty and it was during a time when my mom and Memaw were here visiting. We had to exit the house and go to the playground to escape the dust, and although the main drywall guy 'cleaned' after they finished, it was certainly still messy as heck.

View from the top, our lovely dumpster that STUNK and sat around for way too long.
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Begin mantra: It will be worth it when it's done. Repeat forever.

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We did get to write our names in sharpies before the drywallers were finished, so that's good.
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At the same time as drywall going up inside, Scott and his guys were installing the new siding to the exterior of the house. Because we have both plank siding and also cedar shakes, it kind of took forever to get it looking authentic and like the rest of our house. We interviewed three exterior painters, as we were going to paint the entire house outside of the construction loan. We picked our guy in August and hoped to have it painted in October, but then winter hit hard and fast, and the new siding wasn't fully installed. So we opted to wait until Spring to paint everything, which was a bummer to push off but the right move. Low temps can't dip below 40 degrees so that the paint sticks well, and we knew it could be well into April or May before we saw warmth like that again. Oh, Wisconsin winters, you are ridiculous.

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Since the drywall was ready to paint, Tony, Lois, Nate and myself got to work at the end of October. Painting wasn't included in our construction contract as we've already painted every square inch of our house and I actually enjoy painting. Come to find out that brand new drywall, compared to old school plaster walls, sucks up paint like none other! I picked two grays for the addition: Behr's Dolphin Fin for a lighter gray (which is already in our kitchen and hallways) and Behr's Pencil Sketch (which we had in our previous master bedroom and full bathroom). Then for the ceilings we did Dolphin Fin at 50% white. We painted, and painted, and painted for a whole weekend and even into the week. It was quite the job but looks so amazing now!

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The gutter and downspout guy came at the end of October, and Jim the tile guy started at this time, too. Because I completely blew our budget with the black and white hex tile for the bathroom floor, we decided to have Jim tile the pricey floor for us but we would tile the shower stall with white subway tile ourselves. Jim added the concrete board for the shower but then spent about four days tiling the floor for us---and he was not shy about telling me how much of a pain in the rear this hex tile was to lay. Ahem, WORTH IT.

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Scott's main guy, Bill, was working away on all of the trim inside the addition: baseboards, window casings, and trim around the doors. This 'finishing' stuff was really labor intensive and lengthy but they wanted to do it right, and match the rest of our 1920's trim that is pretty thick. We wanted all white trim so much of what Bill installed was already primed white, but we had to paint it all with two coats. Filling all of the nail holes and caulking around the trim was a huge job, too---mostly done by Bill but we also did some of it to help speed along the process.

In early November, our solid wood doors were delivered. I thought one of the lumber guys that delivered them was going to have a heart attack carrying the doors up our stairs. I finally had to remove all of my photos from our wall gallery in the stairway because the doors were going to knock them down. Surprised the wall gallery made it that long, actually!

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Also, once the bathroom floor was tiled, the plumber came back to install the sinks and toilet. Bill started working on the hardwood floors in our bedroom, hallway, and Wallace's room. We went with solid wood, pre-finished planks that are very similar to the rest of the house. But the new floors are a standard width for planks and our originals are really narrow, so we knew they wouldn't match perfectly. The architect briefly talked about finding reclaimed, narrow wood planks to use instead but we didn't think it would be worth the hassle and we really like the gloss/newness of the wood we chose.

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Bill was installing floors but also finishing up all of the trim, which was taking a million years. Nate and I ordered all of the light fixtures and a new KING SIZED BED for our bedroom in mid-November. He and Tony tiled and then grouted the shower in November and it turned out awesome! Also, the HVAC guys came back to turn on the heat to the addition this month, and having in-floor heat in our master bedroom is the greatest. We used our existing radiant heat system for the addition, with Wallace's room and the new bathroom having baseboard heat but our bedroom with in-floor heat. I'll never get an area rug for our bedroom because I am obsessed with stepping down on the bare, WARM wood in the winter.

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Right before Thanksgiving, they poured the concrete for the patio outside. JUST before the ground froze.
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Thanksgiving was the target 'move in' date for many months preceding November, but of course it came and went without much fuss. Scott installed the doors right after Thanksgiving, then installed the knobs we picked, and the mirrors in our bathroom. The trim was super close to being finished but not quite yet.

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At the beginning of December, Nate and I spent every free moment painting trim. We even got the kids to 'help' us on the weekend, which was hilarious. The electrician came and installed all of our light fixtures and ceiling fans. The cleaning lady that was a part of the contract, came and worked her magic for about three days in early December. I was SO hoping she'd show us some mercy and clean not only the addition, but the other parts of our house that the construction mess touched (basically all of it, with the central AC holes in ceilings and people up and down our stairs for months). Deb the cleaning lady did end up deep cleaning most of our first floor plus the addition, which made me so happy.

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Scott installed the bathroom linen closet and then on 12/9/17, we moved into our new bedrooms! This was a big, tiring weekend as every kid got a new (Craigslist) bed or got shuffled around into a different room. Truman kept his room that he used to share with Cecelia, but T got a new loft bed. Cecelia moved into our old master bedroom and also got her own loft bed. Porter kept his 'nursery' but it became a big kid room when he got the bunk beds from T&C's old shared room. His bunks just happen to be Nate's from childhood, too. Then Wallace FINALLY got his own room, after sleeping in our bedroom since he was born. Also we set up our king size bed in our new room and just stood back in awe at the size of it.

After nearly eleven years of marriage, we have finally arrived. ;)

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Wallace's room:
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Bathroom:
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Once we moved into the addition, I think there was less pressure for Scott to finish 'quickly' outside. But he hired a helper to work on the siding of the addition, and worked on that for all of December and into January. We had the HVAC guys return right before Christmas, to make the baseboard heater in Wallace's room larger, as I felt like it was always cold in his nursery. Also, Scott and Jim the tile guy installed our glass shower door the week before Christmas which was huge, because we could actually start using our new bathroom after that.

I stopped taking notes after December, but I know Scott was finishing up the siding as it was snowing and horribly cold. He had to build the columns to cover the steel vertical beams. The electrician had to come back a few times to do some work on the patio ceiling, the HVAC guys had to do some stuff to the AC unit outside, and the gutter guy had to install a gutter on our garage. I believe we officially signed for our final installment of the title company payment in February and began paying our new mortgage payment in March. So it was about 8 months of actual construction time with a few lulls here and there, and Scott initially told us 4 months. Twice as long as expected? Seems about right!

Here is a video tour that I did of the inside, through Instastories. I'm sure that's somehow better than this lengthy post for 'reveal' pictures.


Next up: exterior finishes (painting the entire house!) to complete the renovation.

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