Week 12

Now that the house is wrapped with paper and netting, it's ready to be stucco'd. Here's the first coat of cement applied.

Inside the house, a big pile of drywall has been delivered so they can begin closing up the walls and ceilings...

Ella's room

I'm still playing around with ideas for the tile design in the master bathroom; mostly the bench is what's giving me trouble. I ordered some samples to see how they would look with the tile on the back wall (what will be facing you when you walk in). I love all of these; they are quite pricey and we're looking for green, so I'm going to keep looking.

Porcelain penny round mosaic and glass bubble mosaic
surrounding snow white mix stick mosaic

We ordered our interior doors. Solid wood is not in our budget but Jim found these solid core composite in beautiful Craftsman style, and lucky for us, the door sale at Lowe's had just started!  We were told they would take about 2 - 2.5 weeks to come in (we are not painting ours blue... probably).

Week 11

This week, the workers continued stuffing the walls and ceilings with insulation.

On Monday, the shower was "hot mopped" - thick layers of hot tar and heavy-duty felt for long-lasting waterproofing and for protecting the sub-floor. A layer of concrete will go over this and then the tile. It's a California thing.

On Tuesday, the city inspector came by and approved the shower and left a to-do list with a few minor corrections.

Our roof has been shingled. I had considered having the existing shingles removed and replaced with a different color (gray), but they are not very old and are still in good shape, so since we're on a budget, we agreed to go with an almost-matching shingle. You can barely tell they are different, in my opinion.

Also, the house has been beautifully wrapped, being made ready for stucco-ing, and the eaves have been spackled and primed. The posts in the patio have had caps welded on for the roof beams.

The shingles on the garage (left) are the original ones, they
have a bit more black shading in them. The shingles on
the new building (right) are new.

On Saturday, they added ventilation for our dryer in the garage, running the hose through a soffit and out the back of the garage. That greenish-blue drywall is where the entryway from the enclosed patio to the garage used to be.

Here's what our living room looks like now, with a wide trench running all the way across the ceiling.

Lastly, here's a sneak peek of the tile that is going into the shampoo niches in the kids' bathroom with another vertical ceiling-to-tub band behind the fixtures on the opposite wall.

Next week: closing up the interior walls with drywall!

Week 10

This week, due to the slow structural engineer, work on our house has been pretty much stagnant. He finally gave our contractor the correction notes a week later, and they were able to continue. The city inspector can't come until the following Tuesday due to being short-staffed, but they're going to do what they can in the meantime, which is to start stuffing the walls with pretty fluffy insulation.

What we did get done was the installation of our French doors from the living room to the patio (the green stuff is just protective film):

And we got the tree trimmers out to clear a path for the electrical wire from the pole in the back yard to the mast on the house (#nofilter).

I had a brainwave to ask for the installation of a cat flap in the wall next to the door to the garage, it's the perfect size for it.

Finally, on Friday and Saturday we went tile shopping for the bathrooms. That part has been quite fun but kind of stressful too since we're trying to figure out the whole style and design ourselves. Here's a sneak peek on some of the things that have inspired me, including some of the items I've already decided on/purchased: https://www.pinterest.com/nickifergdennis/

Week 9

We have come to the point now where there are no daily major changes happening and things seem to have slowed down (which I was warned about). The biggest progress is that the concrete for the patio and landing has been poured. I'll miss those crazy 5 foot deep minecraft shafts.

"Only one day later, ants already?!"

Also, the French door in the master bedroom has been installed.

Here's a cool detail: our contractor had this PVC tube installed for running electrical cords through from the wall-mounted tv, so they don't hang down, but go through the wall instead. Brilliant!

On Thursday, the structural engineer who designed the technical drawings came for a site visit and recommended the addition of support beams to the existing part of the house. We now have 1 foot wide, floor-to-ceiling holes in the wall in the hallway and living room. Oh well, we had been meaning to paint those areas ever since we bought the house anyway...

And finally, just a picture of the view from the front parlor/existing living room looking out towards the back of the house. On the left is where the old bathroom used to be.

The following week's update will be equally as uninteresting, as it took the engineer a entire week to let our contractor know what other things he recommended (despite daily phone and email requests), which meant that NO other work could continue until we received these notes. Time is money! Money I would rather spend on other things like tile or lighting, or a week less rent. Ugh. Anyway... onward.

In unrelated, happier news, Ella decided to make this delicious pasta salad for lunch for us last weekend. Felix requested the grapes and she added cherry tomatoes especially for me.

Week 8

I missed one from last week... the shower in the master bathroom is getting framed up - the large rectangular space under the window will be a nice big shampoo niche. I am a big fan of wall niches.

The electricians continued working. This is a recessed light above the bathtub, which you might remember, is in our former bedroom closet. Note the original wood frame and drywall along the back wall from when the house was built (1951), still in great shape.

Our lovely vinyl double-glazed in-swing French doors from Fine Windows & Doors in Reseda have been delivered!

Master bedroom-to-garden doors

Family room-to-patio doors WITH operable sidelights
(the center two doors and the screens for the sidelights
are on the other side of the room, not shown)

Our lovely double-hung vinyl windows, also from Fine Windows & Doors in Reseda, have been installed throughout.

View of the East side of the house

Rebar for concrete patio has been laid

Frame for the concrete landing just outside the master bedroom

The air conditioning units, ducts and vents were installed this week. The AC will run throughout the whole house, including the existing rooms, so they had to cut holes into the ceilings. There's no escaping the dust and debris in any of the rooms.

Shiny ducts snaking all around the attic, poised to deliver
lovely, cool air conditioning

On Friday, the city inspector came by to check the rough electrical and plumbing, and the preparations for the patio.

Week 7

Now the details are beginning to be filled in. Inside the house, the electrical and plumbing work is proceeding, which is all essential but doesn't really photograph well so you'll just have to imagine yards and yards of shiny copper pipes, and electrical wire snaking along the ceiling and walls into where the new vanities, showers, light switches, power sockets and smoke alarms will go.

My lovely new Kohler bath with fancy overflow drain;
the rough shower plumbing is installed. 

The flush mechanisms and frame for one of the WCs

New hole in Felix's closet to access the bath drain

The inspector from the Department of Water and Power came by to tell us where we could put our electrical panel/breaker box. We were given 2 choices: outside the bedroom all the way over to the east side of the house, which will cost a whole lot more in very expensive cabling, or the shortest distance, on the west side outside the family room. This will require us to have our big old shade tree thinned and trimmed, also an added expense but not as high. We're scheduling that for next week when Jim comes back from his Helsinki business trip.

We'll need clearance from the top of the pole...

...down to the mast on the roof (left).

Above, you can also see the posts for the patio have been placed into the 5-foot deep shafts ("Just like Minecraft!" - Felix), and the sand for under the concrete has been delivered (under the white plastic sheeting). There are now two vents in the attic (silver rectangles under the eaves).

On Saturday morning, we stopped by the house and when we came back in the evening, we had a new door from the kitchen to the garage!

Earlier in the week, I gave Felix a Sharpie and let him doodle on the wall.

View from the garage side.

Now that this door is here, we're going to have to figure out where we're going to put our serving dishes, cocktail glasses and formal dinnerware which were in a credenza all along this space. There might be space for a tall, narrow cabinet just to the right of the door.