RenovationsRenovation Progress – Walls Are Gone! May 6, 2015Things are now moving super fast over at The Buffalo Bungalow! In case you’ve missed it, you can see our befores, our plans, and the previous posts about the new place here. The existing house has now been almost completely demo’ed! The screens and wood from the front porch have all been removed. The next step out here is to move the front door to the double window to the right and to fix the remaining siding and windows. Inside, all of the plaster has been removed. A lot of the plaster was in pretty bad shape and we were planning to re-wire the whole house, so we decided it was easiest to start from scratch. We left the plaster around the fireplaces and will tie the new sheet rock into it. You can now see through the whole house. It’s crazy! It has to get worse before it gets better! Like the bathroom… Lovely I know. The sub-floor was really damaged in here, so Chris has to rebuild the floor. We’ve started taking down the walls we need to remove for the new floor plan (here it is again below for your reference with the photos). This wall between the mudroom area and a bedroom has come down to make way for the new dining room. We still have to remove the closet to the left, but the dining table will sit up against this wall on the left. The door on the right will be the door to our master suite. This is the current view from what will be our new front door. We have to remove the brick column (this is where an old wood stove would’ve hooked up and it was closed up in the walls). We’ll also remove some of the studs. There will be a six foot opening here that will be the central hallway to the back of the house. This wall is load-bearing, so we have to insert a header beam and haven’t gotten to that just yet. It’s crazy seeing the new floor plan already taking shape! Chris has already closed up the cased opening between the current living room (new bedroom) and the entry. He’s framed out the two mirrored closets and the mudroom bench in between. My new closet is framed out to the right of the front door. Remember, the door will open on the exterior wall going into the new master bath. The new laundry will go here in front of my closet once we remove the brick column. It’s coming along! The permits for the addition is submitted and we were told that the wait time is four weeks. So hopefully, we’ll break ground on the new part in a month or so. The goal is to have everything picked out and designed so that we don’t experience any hold-ups in the new construction. We’re trying to keep the existing part of the renovation moving as quickly as possible so that all attention can be focused on the addition when it’s time. And if the addition were to not be finished by when we have to move in in August, we could move into the existing finished portion with two bedrooms and a bath. It wouldn’t be ideal, but we could make it work short-term if we had to. The plumber is coming this week to do the new laundry plumbing and the bathroom. The re-wiring is almost finished. The sheet rock will be done in another week or two! Tomorrow, I’m sharing my whole house design plan! I’m so excited to start sharing my vision for this new home.
Baileywife @ IrishmanAcres says May 6, 2015 at 7:37 am Too bad you couldn’t keep that old brick column, so much history and fun texture there! Things are looking great and so excited to see your design plan tomorrow! ~Kim Reply
Lindsay says May 6, 2015 at 9:34 am I know, Kim, we really tried to find ways to keep it. But in person, I’ve got to be honest, it looks pretty rough. The mortar is in really bad shape and we really needed to remove it to open up that opening into the rest of the house. Reply
Blair says May 6, 2015 at 9:58 am Thank you so much Lindsay for sharing this project!. Every morning I look forward to seeing if you have a new post and I’m really enjoying watching this renovation take place. I’m sure the finished product will be amazing. Reply
Krista says May 6, 2015 at 3:43 pm You’re sure zipping along on this! I find myself asking, “Really? You’re doing it this fast? Don’t you feel nervous not taking more time to just “sit on” your ideas to make sure you’re really happy with them before digging in? What if you’ll have regrets later?” Lindsay, how do you find the courage to go forward on any given project? I’m always concerned I won’t like the end result and feel like I have to wait a long time after thinking I like an idea before making it happen. Can you talk us through your thought processes, too? I would find that interesting and helpful. Thanks for including us in your house remodeling process. Some of us may never be in your situation, but learning how you think about decision-making would be helpful. 🙂 Reply
Lindsay says May 7, 2015 at 7:46 am Hi Krista! Great question! We do move fast around here 🙂 Some of that is that we don’t really have a choice on this house. We have a move-out date in our current living situation of August 31st. We really don’t want to rent because it’s hard to even find a 6 month lease, especially with a 110 lb. Great Dane! But some of this is also how we’re wired. I pour and pour over the layout and design in my head and usually, I just “know” when it’s right. That doesn’t mean that I design a room and I’m going to love it forever, though! I’m always changing things around, so giving myself that freedom to change it at some point really helps me move forward. I’ll do a design process post to help answer this better 🙂 Great question! Reply
Corinna - For My Love Of says May 6, 2015 at 9:31 pm Wow! The house is so much cuter without the screened porch. It’s hard to see the vision in pictures since I can’t quite pinpoint where I’m virtually standing but the progress is exciting! Reply
Lindsay says May 7, 2015 at 7:44 am Isn’t it cuter?! I know it’s hard to tell where anything is :\ Bad part about this stage. But hopefully soon you’ll be able to tell more! Reply
RC says May 7, 2015 at 7:37 pm I would love to read your blog but the center alignment text actually hurts my eyes to try and read. There has got to be more potential readers like me, read about your blog in Better Homes and Gardens, came to read, can’t stay. Please consider – Google it inside and upside down – Left alignment isn’t for style – it’s for reading function. Reply