Pile of Shingles

Welcome to Week 4! It's pretty funny to me that one of the contractors I talked to said this was a 4 month project... and while I found that hard to believe then, it's laughable now. Silly you. This week was really all about telling me how things weren't perfect. If the first couple weeks were about taking the house down to the studs, now we are fixing the studs. The house used to stand so straight and strong when it was all covered up (e.g. walls, bushes at the foundation, etc) but when you strip those items away ... you can see the hacky flaws that made it stand straight. Which is fine, this is a 100+ year old beach house. A fact that I'm still singing from the roof tops and... one of the reasons that I'm not looking for perfection. I'm just looking for a happy, healthy house to live in ... where the roof doesn't leak, the foundation doesn't crumble, and the electricity doesn't start a fire. The quick rundown is the crew spent much of this ...

I told my contractor last week that I was a "big front door person". I'm not exactly sure what that translates to but I think it is the truth. Here's how I break down my interest in front doors: I prefer to use them over side doors / back doors to enter a house I really like looking at them. They set the tone for the house. So that's why I care about this decision. But there are several factors that come into which door to pick, some of which are technical and others more aesthetic based. classic // not a lot of embellishment. simple design, but also not boring. Please not boring. amount of windows // enough to see out of ... but for people to see me before I see them.  keypad // I live in fear of a few things - locking myself out is one of them. So the ability to have a keypad is a must. material // The house is a couple blocks from the ocean. The material could make a difference.  Unfortunately for me, the door that I instinctively like als...

I'm losing track of time. I think we might technically have wrapped week 3? Yes, I'm going with that. Week 1 = Demo started on October 6 ... but was supposed to start that Monday Week 2 = More demo Week 3 = Demo finished and leveling began In the last two weeks, we went from a house that looked "dated" but strong and sturdy... to a house that had no walls. And as a result of the no walls, you could see so much of the history of the house but also the weaknesses. This is definitely a cottage house. People used what they had to build in the 1910s. Nobody went to Lowes or Hingham Lumber Yard and then had a pallet of wood delivered. Demo So the demo. Like I've said before, this is not like it happens on HGTV - or it is but it's what happens when all the camera crews go home for the day. The demo was incredibly messy. Yes, of course it is going to be not clean and organized like an operating room. The contributing factors are: old insulation, plaster, sp...

I'm into this thing that I call "window moments". It makes me feel a little ridiculous even talk about. The translation of "window moments" is essentially "beautiful, thoughtful windows". You know it when you look at a house. It either just sings, or it looks like a house with windows. I spend a fair amount of mental energy thinking about not having mediocre window moments. Earlier this week when I was walking the site with Jim (contractor), we were talking about the window order. BTW - windows are not cheap. It's like buying a car but then cutting the car up and putting little pieces of it all over your house. Poor analogy but go with it. Throughout this process, there have been two existing windows that I've said we are keeping: the oversize window in the living room and the bay window in the dining room. Well turns out, the bay window is not "original" so that makes it just a beautiful energy sponge and not something comple...

I still have a pretty big backlog of posts that could be written - but since we are officially one week into this project for real - as opposed to for fake.... let's summarize what's happened. After a series of false starts, the demo officially started last Wednesday! When I had been invisioning this day, I pictured myself with a hard hat wearing leggings, and taking that first ceremonial sledgehammer swing. None of that happened. Turns out renovating a home is not like it happens on HGTV. First of all, I am my only camera crew but secondly, demo is seriously messy and it doesn't happen instantly. It's more like demo week than demo day. There is so much time and effort that goes into protecting the wood floors (THANK YOU) and then all the labor for actually getting these 100 year old walls down. While not all the walls are that old, you can see how much it slows the guys down. Despite really giving it a shot to remove everything from the house, the demo guys did...

As I write this, I'm sitting in bed typing and pretty much waiting for the sun to come up. I need it to come up so that I can go and look at the progress that happened on the house while I was at work yesterday. It's a delicate balance of timing because (1) it's too dark to look at when I get home from work and (2) the demo guys show up so early and I don't want to be in their way. So, there is like a 20 minute window when it can just be me. It took a lot to get to this point. I think some of the stress that happened over the past 6 months has been inevitable - this is a house we are talking about, not a rocking chair. It might have been slightly easier if I had asked for help at certain spots but whatever. Can't look back, can only look forward. Some timeline details... Mid-last winter: the plans for the house were "finalized"-ish. Nothing will ever be final but things felt pretty good. I was ready to get started but my designer pushed me to fi...

That title could be applicable to so many things. But in this case, I'm referencing two. This blog... and this house. After a stressful six months, this project is actually starting. Truth be told we are actually on day four of demo as I write this. There are about a million posts that I could write for what has happened but here is what I have planned: What happened over the last 6 months ... perhaps emotional. Just a heads up. Clearing the lot! ... probably not the most exciting. I'll let you know right now. Cleaning the house ... messy AF.  Picking a Contractor Lessons I've learned so far ...  Demo beginning Going forward, I've got some ideas about what will happen here as well. The introductory posts for this site really helped me to understand what I actually wanted from each space (e.g. mudroom) and specific bigger decisions (e.g. stove). I know that each future post will be valuable in helping me make the ONE MILLION decisions that are coming my w...