Tonight on This Old House…

With the drywall in and the mud and tape drying (and hoping that sanding will be complete this weekend and the primer coat of interior paint up on Monday) we have turned our attention to building a new deck off the back of the house.  We’ve gone with a rather aggressive design and when it is finished it will provide about 176 sq ft of outdoor living space to give us a place to relax and grill out.  With permit in hand we’ve started building with the hope of completing the deck in the next four or five days.  So, far we’ve managed to:

Dig some holes:

Pour some concrete footers (complete with shiny new anchor bolts):

And tear some siding off the house to attach a ledger board:

Framing complete!

For the first time something is actually on schedule!  The new piers were built up on Friday – one day ahead of schedule – and the framing was completed on time today (Saturday).  The kitchen has been doubled, the new linen closet in the master bath is complete, the linen closet in the new 2nd bathroom is complete and the archway between the living room and kitchen have been expanded to create the more open floorplan we were looking to accomplish with this remodel.

The expanded kitchen floorplan: 

The new archway:

The new master bath linen closet:

The new 2nd bath linen closet:

Let the framing begin!

The framing of the new interior walls has begun.  The framers made tremendous progress in the first day.  They cut out the larger door opening, as we are increasing the size of the entrance to 36″ from 32″.  They cleaned up the framing around the addition that was put on the front and have framed in the mudroom, new 2nd bathroom, master bedroom closet, 2nd bedroom closet and opened up the entry way inside the master bedroom.  By Saturday the new front door will be completely hung and shimmed and the new header beams doubling the size of the kitchen will be complete.  With any luck the 4 new piers will also be built under the new interior wall load points and we’ll be ready for the plumbing to commence!

The new mudroom:

The new front door:

The new entryway coat closet:

The new second bathroom:

The new closet for the 2nd bedroom:

The new walk in closet for the master bedroom:

The new archway for the master bedroom: