Magic Steps

The stairs heading up are, we hope, going to be unique and quite beautiful- looking like the just come out of the wall like magic posts... this appearance of magic is much trickier to manifest than I'd anticipated. "make it so" does not necessarily do the trick. But still, they come along. Until then, we use the ladder.

A view

A new space is created where before there was none. Empty spots in the sheer-wall become views from our windows. The best news is that the top level feels like a tree house of sorts, complete with a beautiful view of the cemetery to aid in our daily contemplation of living & dying.

That shouldn't be a problem

Who could this be- this jolly looking man? Why that would be none other than Peter Sontag, our chief framer-man. Is Peter truly as kind and enjoyable as he looks? the answer as far as we can tell is a definite yes. Of the folks we've met through doing this project, Peter is one of the finest. I would probably have vomited most nights if it were not for his kind easygoing nature, exemplified by the phrase most often heard from his mouth as we pulled him aside to question a detail or to make another small change in the plans... "that shouldn't be a problem."

From the Road

How quickly things move right now... the living room framing had to be replaced, which led to a few last-minute design changes- and now here all is coming to life, able to be seen and look- it looks quite a bit like those drawings we kept staring at...

Framing!

Framing for the upstairs. Pretty exciting and wild as we watch the ideas that we'd come up with become a reality. The framing goes quickly and suddenly we have a floor, holes for windows,  views, doorways, corners... 

A top to this thing

Not only do we have a second story to our home- or at least the beginning of one- we also have a framing crew that has been steadily lead by this happy looking man here- George. Except you have to say George with a hispanic accent so that it sounds more exciting and authentic. He now teaches Sean to say strange things in spanish. Not to mention consistently inviting us to eat the food that his cousin Roberto makes. Delicious.

Becoming a reality

Hey- look at that. The house that we'd talked about building has suddenly emerged from the rubble of our home. Huh. It looks kinda big. And, well, it looks kinda cool too. Yeah. That could take a little getting used to. 

Lunch time

This is our framing crew, eating. The reason I must show them eating is because they are very generous about sharing their food with us. Not only this, but the food is impressively good authentic mexican food. They bring a small gas range and their own tortillas and then things  that they've made that morning before work to go inside. It's pretty great. One day I called Sean to discover he was trying cactus without me. damn. 

So far the only way I've figured to get them back is by supplying them with plenty of popsicles. Paletas, actually.  It's a paletas for tacos exchange system. Good news. 

Garage

The framing for the garage is pretty much done. to your left is an image of the framing for the stairs- meaning that we now have interior access from the garage to the rest of the house- pretty fancy.

The lower photo shows the "sistering" of the beams for the ceiling of the garage- which is also the floor of our living room. for every one existing 2 x 4 (the darker colored wood) there have been two more added. Elephants could walk on our floor as far as I'm concerned. & when this whole thing is done, you're darned right I'm going to be inviting one over. 

Closet

Because of this framing replacement business, much less of the original house is sticking around than we had planned on. Still, we are determined to keep this one closet in place and as is. 

Wish us luck.

Newer framing

Again, here is the back of the house, but a week or so later. Amazing how time flies. The big surprise for us has been that the framing of the house, which we had designed the remodel around, was old style 2 x 3" fir. Unfortunately the insulation and doors and windows are all made for the contemporary 2x4" framing, so all of the exterior walls have been replaced with new walls in the exact same shape and place as the old ones...  not exactly what we were hoping for, but well, I guess it's not so bad either. 

From the back

Here is the view from the back of the house once most of the demolition had been completed. Kind of shocking, kind of cool. 

See right through

I will try to catch us up to the present moment. Here are two more photos from the demolition. I really wish I'd had the time to take some 4 x 5 photos at this point, but things have been pretty crazy just keeping on top of the basics has been busy. Still I do find a special beauty in all this madness.

Dikeman Rocks

We have not really included much of the design decision making into our blog. I'd kind of assumed that the process of talking and then thinking and then changing our minds wouldn't seem all that exciting to anyone but ourselves. Still, I thought I'd include this image here - hot off the presses.
As mentioned earlier, our wonderful home designer Jen has become our friend. And so when we want to discuss making changes and we need to make them asap she's been really very kind about putting up with us. It's a long story, but it seems that we are "re-visiting" (an official term that Jen taught us) the windows for the front of the house. And so late at night Jen sends us images of how it could look and then we manipulate them and send them back to her. Meanwhile we talk on the phone. Sometimes we make jokes and then laugh. This image here is kinda how it will look out of the windows that we now think that we are going to put in the house. Daring asymmetry. The funny part is Jen actually went and put a picture of the house across the street into her software so that we could imagine it better.

The bones

We had two ceilings. the original ceiling was a higher one because the house was older and that was the thing then. But at some point in the 50's or so someone put a false ceiling in, at the (now) more traditional 8' height.

To make room for this (major) renovation, both of these ceilings are coming down. More and more has been coming down than we'd anticipated- can't wait to start putting some new things up.

Kitchen

It turns out this  stuff is not for the faint of heart. Sorry we've gotten behind. All is well, but it is a little hard to see these photos of the demo- which was really beautiful in it's own way. Things came out faster than I could shake a camera at, really.