If you were wondering - here are the plans...

Posts are in, The Cage is next...

So the foundation is almost totally complete. The piers are poured and the 'cage' for the footing is being built as I write this. We finally cleaned out the dining room also and Umberto, our builder on site is officially tearing off the side of the house where the new addition will be. Everything is really trashed right now and it's hard to look at, but we have to always keep in mind what the end of the road will bring.

A New Path...

So here are pictures of the new path I mentioned. It makes getting into our place a lot nicer from the parking deck. It turned out a lot better than I planned 'cause our contractor brought in his stone specialist. Mexican dudes are really good with stonework.

Formally know as a Dormer.

Remember Gigi's loft room? Well we put in a dormer that will add a lot of light and space to that bedroom to make it a lot more livable. The dormer will look west out towards Mount Tam.

Although you can't see the mountain, it will be an amazing view and really open up the space with two large double transom windows that have wood interior frames and paintable fiberglass exterior frames made by MilGard (see www.MilGard.com and look up Wood Clad) as most of the windows will be. Here are a couple of shots of the work being done.

Tonka.

After a two week delay, the digging has begun, and is almost done. The drilling team who is in charge of the foundation showed up with a small front end loader that would in no way be able to reach down to the foundation level. So after a week or so, they brought this big old thing and parked it in our spaces up by the mailbox. Kinda scary, kinda cool. I'll follow up with more photos to try and show just how nutty this process is. The jackhammering this morning was a nice touch and my lead contractor told me about another $1000 'uptick' we didn't plan on. C'est la vie!

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Glad to say that whenever anybody comes to visit us, you will be comfortably warm or cool now that we have a full house forced air Heating and AC system. We went with a high-efficiency York and the brand new flexible ductwork that was strung throughout the whole house looks a bit 'Brazil' (movie reference). The guys who did it were really great and knocked the whole thing out in a few days.

Uptick. Uptick. Uptick.

If you don't know what an uptick is, listen up, tick. Any time your contractor gives you an estimate, it's usually for average finish. If you want to do something a bit nicer or something that wasn't specified on your plans, that's called an uptick.

Day One : Curb Appeal

Day One went fast and furious. Our entire front area was ripped out including all plants. We saved our Callistimon (Bottlebrush), two rose bushes and a small flowering plant Bucko just planted. The saddest part was sacrificing two beautiful Italian Cypress, but we will replace them once all is said and done. Gigi's room is now open to the world 'cause the dormer is going in, and the HVAC system is in place - yes, if you come in the summer, it will be Air-Conditioned! Wheeeeee!

The Big Addition

Well, here we go. Today was the kickoff of our big two story addition of two bedrooms. We've been planning and working on this for years, and now it's actually happening. Gary Scozzava of Arrow Deck and Construction in Fairfax is the lead contractor on the job and things are definitely happening. We are putting a dormer in the upstairs bedroom and a house-wide HVAC system in the next few days. The drilling team shows up on Monday to start drilling for the foundation - yikes!