Progress at last!

After many posts about little steps and about not much happening, it seems things are finally coming together!  The workers have started tearing apart the kitchen walls, floors, and ceilings and preparing to rebuild it, finally.  In addition, the brick wall is almost done, just about all the materials for the bathrooms are in, and we've got a plan for the fireplace.  And to top it off, we've finally resolved the issues with the exterior work, and will soon be submitting for the second permit!  So I'm happy to report that we're finally making progress!

A makeshift door-turned-table for reviewing plans!

The kitchen:

The first work in the kitchen was the brick wall.  Once the cabinets and old appliances were torn out, The sheetrock and plaster on the left wall was removed so they could get at the brick wall.  This was done what seems like ages ago, now.

The kitchen with all the cabinets removed, and the appliances still sitting in place.

All the cabinets were placed in the basement, because I'm planning to reuse them to convert the existing basement kitchen into a bar.

The existing countertops waiting to be disposed of, along with a few other now useless items...

The kitchen with the brick wall exposed and doorway wall removed.

Once we got the approval to do so, the next step was to tear out the false wall on the other side that was put in to make the kitchen square (remember, the house is wedge shaped), and pull up the flooring to get to the walls and floor boards.

Walls, floor boards, and ceiling exposed

A small piece of the original plaster ceiling of the house can be seen above the newer framing for the current ceiling.

Next, the floor boards and sheetrock were removed to expose the beams and structure for inspection, as well as be able to work with the electric and plumbing.

All the guts in the kitchen have been uncovered!

I noticed one day a while back that on the outside, there's a window that's been bricked up that would otherwise lead into the kitchen.  Turns out, the molding and trim for that window still exist on the inside behind the walls!

Through all this, we discovered a few things.  First, as expected, the addition was done poorly.  It's not exactly properly bolted to the existing structure, and is far from level (just under 2" over about 11', which is significantly off).  Additionally, it seems the deck is actually pitched towards the house, causing water to pool against the back door and seep in, as there were large water stains in the floor boards!  All this means that the contractors will have to do extra work to level the floors and fix the gaps in insulation.  It's expected that the kitchen should be done in about 2 weeks time!

The dark spots on the floor boards are water damage, where water has seeped in from outside.

Also, the half bath in the kitchen has been removed, since leveling the floor and installing the tile requires doing the same to the bathroom floor, but will be reinstalled when the kitchen is done.  This is just as well, because it turns out the bathroom wall wasn't plumb!  It was leaning slightly!  So this was removed, giving the contractors a chance to fix it.

The half bath, without the toilet, sink, floor, ceiling, and even one of the walls.

The brick wall:

The brick wall has been a significant challenge.  As soon as the workers removed the plaster on the wall, they discovered that the entire wall was covered in thick black tar.  This means that it wasn't as simple as cleaning the grout and sealing the wall.

One of the first holes in the wall, just to see what's between the sheetrock and the brick.  You can see the black layer of tar. 

The wall in the kitchen as they were tearing the sheetrock off and trying to chip the plaster and tar off.  Some of the sections of tar came off easier than others.

Instead, they had to go through, brick by brick, and strip off the tar.

The brick wall going up the stairs, after removing the sheetrock and plaster, but before they started cleaning it

The wall in progress of being cleaned.  The top right shows a section that's been cleaned a bit, most of the wall is still dirty and dusty where the tar has been chipped off, but the bottom section is still covered in tar.

Additionally, the wall is about 100 years old, and was likely never intended to be seen, so there's lots of chipped and cracked bricks that need to be turned around or repaired.

Some of the crumbled bricks have been removed, to be replaced with new bricks.  This picture also shows some of the chipped and broken bricks that will also need to be replaced, or at the very least turned around.

All this work chipping away at the bricks, tar, and grout is what's created so much dust.

A pile of dust at the bottom of the wall in the kitchen

An even larger pile of dust the collected at the bottom of the stairs!

The wall is mostly cleaned off now.  There's a few remaining bricks with an excessive amount of tar, which give off an undesired shiny effect, and a few cracked or chipped bricks which need to be replaced, but it's close to done.

The wall's almost done, just a little more cleaning and straightening to go!

And amazingly, they were able to take out the little stubs of the original back wall of the house that were left during the last renovation.  This only cleared up a small area, but eliminated an awkward, artificial division in the kitchen and master bedroom, which is really nice!

The brick wall in the kitchen as it stands now.  They've removed the extra stub (which can be seen in the previous pictures), which will make the walkway to the back door just a little clearer.

The biggest change by removing this stub of the back wall is in the master bedroom.  There's no longer an awkward protrusion right in the middle of the room, which will make it much easier to position furniture in the room.

The next steps are to put new grout in between the bricks and clean up the wall to a finished product.  Since the bricks ended up being so dark due to the tar residue, we're going to use a light colored grout to balance the color of the wall a bit.  It will then be sealed with a matte finish so that the wall will stay in tact, but won't have a reflective or shiny sheen to it.  So ultimately, the entire left wall of the living room, kitchen, stairs, upstairs hallway, and master bedroom will be brick!

The living room:

Most of the work so far has been on the brick wall and kitchen, but we've made some progress in the front rooms as well.  The initial layout of these rooms was essentially two rooms with an open walkway in between.  When you walked in the front door, on the right was one room, and in the back was another, with a small column in between.

The front rooms before any work started, as soon from the kitchen doorway.  There were some questions regarding the structural significance of the column in the middle, and whether it could be made smaller or even removed completely.

Well, it turns out that column has no structural reason for existing, which is great news!  It means that the contractors were able to easily remove it!

With the column gone, the front rooms become one large, open room (once the massive cabinet boxes are gone, of course!).

This will be followed up by removing the rest of the bulkhead in the ceiling over the "walkway," making it one large room.  This will give the whole first floor an amazing open feeling.

The front room seems much larger with the column gone, as the "hallway" created by the column is now gone, making that space all part of the now large living room.

In addition, the extra time waiting for the permits gave me the opportunity to figure out more details for the fireplace, so I have an updated design of what it will look like when it's done.

Updated fireplace design

Upstairs:

The main work done so far upstairs has been the brick wall, which looks really good.  And getting rid of the stub of the old back wall makes the shape of the master bedroom a lot less awkward.  But the bathroom work hasn't been completely ignored!  While the actual construction of the bathroom won't happen till after the kitchen is done, all the materials are in.  The fixtures for both bathrooms, as well as the new toilets, are all in, and the tile is sitting downstairs.  So once the bathroom work gets started, it should move pretty quickly!

All the fixtures, toilets, and sinks for the bathrooms are sitting in the basement, ready to be installed.

The tile for the bathrooms is also in.

In clearing the brick wall, we found this oddly positioned gas pipe.  The builder suspects it was an old pipe put in for gas lights.

With the kitchen ceiling and the upstairs trim, the downstairs lights actually shine through the worn floors upstairs!

Outside:

There's no work that's been done on the exterior yet, but we've finally resolved a variety of issues that were holding up the permits.

First, the historic preservation board objected to the siding to be used on the new garage.  The existing garage has corrugated metal roofing and siding, which they claimed to be a historic material that needed to be preserved.  I ended up speaking with the board directly, and it turned out the issue was not so bad.  They did not want me to use modern vinyl or hardiboard siding, because they felt it was out of place, but they said that any number of alternatives were acceptable.  I eventually settled on doing stucco, because it's cheaper than doing brick and looks nicer than the metal.  It may not be as durable as some of the modern options, but it should do the trick.

The existing, rusted corrugated metal on the side of the garage, which would be ridiculous to save and reuse!

The other concern was the deck.  I have my suspicions about why, but the deck was poorly built and doesn't conform to code with regards to the required spacing from the property lines.  To replace the deck all together would require the new deck to conform to the modern codes.  This wouldn't be too bad if it just meant taking a foot or two, or even three, off one side, but after much effort to get the actual number, it turns out the deck would be essentially cut in half.  Based on this, we decided the best course of action was to just leave the deck and make what repairs we can to ensure it's safe.

So with these issues resolved, we can finally move forward with the exterior work permit, and the sooner we get that issued, the better!

The backyard also looks a lot less overgrown now that the banana trees are dead for the season!  Hopefully they'll be removed before they start to come back!

So overall, it looks like things are finally looking up!  The kitchen and brick wall should be done in the next couple weeks, and I'm hoping the rest of the interior work will be done by mid to late February.  That way we can move about the end of February or early March!