Remodeling (end of month 1...of 5)

Our house was built in 1970. While it had renovations and additions since then, let’s just say they weren’t all done to code (okay, all the wiring was a significant fire hazard). The wallpaper and windows must have been the original and with the height of the toilets and showers being for people much, much shorter than us, we knew a remodel was in our future when we bought the place. What started out as a remodel of the bathroom and floors…well…took on a life of its own.

We’ve taken everything down to the studs! Its terrifying but very exciting as well. While we are not moving the walls (except knocking one down), so the design of the house will remain the same, the house will no longer look like it was built last century. Hopefully.

We are very fortunate to have a place to live during the remodel. The one bedroom studio efficiency apartment, minus a kitchen, has its own separate AC/heat, electricity source on the breaker, and water line…since they have shut off all power and water to the main house. Shawn and I are living here for four months with 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 reptiles (and Jareth comes home from college next month). Its a tight squeeze but we feel lucky to have it and to be able to make our house our own (and not a fire hazard!).

This is one of the openings in the wall that got moved. Our contractor has a sense of humor, this is his way of telling the demo crew to take this section down!

The crawl space is getting renovated as well, with new insulation and a radon mitigation system (because the previous owners opened the windows during the inspection’s radon test, making the radon level seem safe, but during the late fall and early winter it got well above safe levels).

Macchi watched them haul the new crawl space insulation across the yard….I wonder how much of that new insulation has dog poop in it from that?