Problems, the Nature of the Beast

We have been running into some problems these last few weeks (months really).  That and finding some framers that will give us a fair price.  The Utah building market is booming, which means that bids are sky high because there's so much work out there for builders.

After we hired our crew of framers, we ran into a lot of engineering problems.  Our architect (California based) drew up our plans based off what he could "see" while drawing up our existing home, but for those of you who have gone through a remodel know, there are many surprises to be found when you start opening up walls and ceilings.  

I don't want to bore you with the details, but long story short, opening up the ceiling has been the biggest problem, and right now there's a hole in our roof to allow a crane to place the beam that will support our entire roof.  Yikes.  Here are some pictures of the progress.  

Here are some before pictures to remind you of what the space used to look like.  I can't believe how much bigger it feels with all of the walls and ceiling knocked down!

The view now without the trees! 

Looking out onto our courtyard, where some windows and a sliding glass door used to be.

Exposed trusses, that will soon be removed once that giant beam is in place.

Tearing out the rickety old deck

We are gaining ten more inches of window height!

Putting things in place for our new stairway to downstairs

Temporary supports for the beam

The hole in our roof where the crane will place the beam, ugh.  So much more work than you always think.

The location of our new stairs.

The open view we now have down to the downstairs, love that design feature.

So as of now, we're about 2 1/2 weeks away from finishing the framing, and then it's on to electrical, plumbing and HVAC.  All the stuff that costs a lot of money, but no one sees.  Getting excited with the progress though!

Next week, I'll show you the difference with the trees now gone, you can tell already with the view from our deck!

Progress

Here are the pictures of the current state of our house.  We began the demo work over a week ago now, and will probably continue through the end of the week.

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We've had some very interesting workers in the house for the last week.  We have discovered that the demo guys we hired were pretty much all talk, so now we've hired one workers who is a beast and can do the work of four of our former demo guys.   

Each day I went to the house to check on the progress, and one particular worker seemed to reveal a lot of personal things to me each time we talked, which I found a little uncomfortable.  Here are some quotes from him during some of our conversations:

"I took a two hour nap today because I was up late last night talking with a girl.  I know I probably shouldn't be telling my boss this but..."

"Your baby is as pretty as they come.  You're lucky because she could have come out looking all retarded."

After cursing..."Sorry I'm not all Mormon and stuff."

Yikes.

We still have about 25 hours worth of demo work that still needs to be completed, as you can see by all of the remnants on the floors.  We are currently getting bids from the construction company that we've hired, so the real work won't begin for another two weeks (approximately).   

Trees

Our home was built in the late 60's, and as you've seen it really hasn't been updated or had too many improvements made to it since, including the landscape. As with most neglected homes, the landscaping gets out of control and starts to overrun the home.  Our home is set up on a hill going up toward the mountainside so we are lucky to have views of both Salt Lake Valley and the mountains. Unfortunately, our trees are so overgrown that we can't see either view all that well. So now we have to go through and cut back and remove many trees.  I really hate the idea of killing so many large trees that are so mature and full, but they block our views and really hide the house making it look sad and heavy.  And to be honest, we are putting a good amount of money into this house, inside and out, and we really don't want it to be hidden. We've gone around and marked all of the trees we are removing, and we'll be having them removed by the end of the month.  Here are some pictures of all of the trees around the house, can't wait to see how much lighter the house is once they're all gone.  

***I know this is a boring post and these trees aren't too exciting to look at, but this post is more for documentation than anything else.  Feel free to wait for the "after" photos, unless you really want to look at a bunch of overgrown trees :)

  

And there is our dumpster in our driveway!  We started demoing today!  So happy :)