House of Rodgers update:
Our electrical work was completed a couple of weeks ago by our master electrician, Scott Jewel. It is thrilling to have lights in the new garage and lighting upstairs in the bonus room:
He finished installing the recessed lighting, added a heater, a ceiling fan, and all of the outlets:
He did everything we asked for and more! Motion sensor lights inside and outside... so that when we drive into the garage, the lights come on automatically. What fun!
There are overlapping layers of "busy" at the Rodgers household.
One layer has to do with our construction project. Last week, we progressed two more steps towards actually USING the new garage and bonus room. First, we had to have our utility company, Puget Sound Energy come over to transfer our household electrical source from the house panel to the new, upgraded garage panel. On Wednesday, I was in my pajamas in the front yard taking Savannah for a potty break when this big truck rolled in. I waved the driver in, trying to suppress the urge to run knowing I had bed hair and was extremely disheveled. He was early! Mr. PSE came over to confirm the address and (thank goodness!) was soooo distracted by cute Savannah that I convinced him to give me 10 minutes to shower before our power was cut off:
I fed all the animals and got ready for work and caught Mr. PSE in his cherry-picker as he disconnected our house service:
and took his sweet cherry-picker to reconnect the service on the garage:
Our cool electrician, Scott, came to finish our inside panel and said he would be back as soon as we finished painting the garage to install all of the new outlets & lights.
So that was our task for the weekend. On Saturday, Bill and his friend, Brian, donned these expensive (not really), disposable paint suits in order to spray primer upstairs and downstairs:
Bill was going to spray while Brian rolled behind him. When I asked for an action shot, this was the best they could do:
What do you know! It was fast-drying primer, so we were ready to paint a few hours later. This time, I became Bill's painting buddy (otherwise known as "The Roller"). Good thing. All I had to do was adjust my roller stick to go longer for the high ceiling while Bill took on some precarious poses to get those hard-to-reach areas:
Just in case you are wondering what our paint color choice was, it is "Extreme White"...
We finished the upstairs. I felt like I was in a micro-blizzard of white as my goggles were covered with white, all of the windows were covered with plastic and all you could hear was the hum of the spray paint motor. It was a bit "Extreme White" surreal. Or I was in some Arctic cave with a Center for Disease Control suit on.... This shot is pre-painting:
We also knocked out the downstairs on Sunday with even more "Extreme White".
Mission completed.
Yes! Things are still movin' and shakin' on our house addition...
By the end of March, the insulation was done:
both downstairs and upstairs:
The drywall team arrived the next Monday and got right to work:
Last Monday, they showed up to mud, finish all of the edges, and add a coat of primer:
All of the windows and doors are plastic-wrapped:
It feels a bit like an insulated cave... that we can walk through quietly and then retreat.
Except for the propane heaters. Every once in awhile, a heater will blast on and it sounds a scary from inside the house. Savannah is afraid to go out there. I think it she will be happy when the workers take that roaring machine away!
I know, I know... I have been away from blogging.
BUT! There is just SO MUCH going on!
Here is where we are with our house addition:
Ta Daaa! We have garage doors! They have to be manually opened and closed right now as we are in the middle of getting wired for electricity.
And we LOVE our electrician! We hired Scott Jewel for our project and he is fantastic:
He has been busy all week wiring both the garage rooms and the second floor for lights:
Changing out our master panel:
There are wires running everywhere for all of our anticipated needs:
And a zillion (okay, not really a zillion) boxes for outlets and switches:
He has listened to ALL of our questions and provided solutions for everything we could think of. He works hard and is easy to talk to. He has been a pleasure to have around while he drills, digs and threads wiring.
If you need anything done, he is THE MAN to call!
Literally. :)
Coming soon.... electricity! Insulation! And drywall! Woo Hooooo!
Last week's snow slowed down lots of things... including our home addition.
However, our contractor, Dave Mannon (Mannon Construction from Bow, WA), showed up bright & early Monday morning to get our project going again!
This week, they added doors:
and a skylight upstairs:
and windows:
and new siding:
AND finished the roof! Here is what it looks like today:
Hooray!
ALOT has happened to our house in less than a week...
The second floor emerged. And the roof trusses were delivered on Thursday:
We skipped out of town on Thursday night and this is what we found when we returned on Sunday:
And just today-- our contractor filled in more of the second floor and papered the roof:
He also cut out the rest of our double garage doors and all of the doorways too!
It is SOOOOOOOOO exciting!!
We had a nice stretch of weather last week, so our contractor made progress on our house project.
We came home to this Monday night:
By Thursday, the siding was up and the floor between ground and second floor was done:
Which makes me feel like this:
It is soooo exciting!
I happened to be home on cement day...
Some may consider this to be boring, but I was FASCINATED by the process and grateful I was not involved in the hard, physical labor. Instead, I watched for two hours and hid behind my camera:
So, here is where it started. They filled in our foundation with dirt and covered it with plastic:
Cement truck #1 arrived at 9:00 a.m.:
The cement truck started mixing and they positioned the troughs for the back corner. Out came the cement!
They poured cement, sloshed in it, shoveled it, and leveled it:
Cement truck #2 rolled in and waited for #1 to finish up. The drivers chatted until it was time to switch:
The first half was smoothed out before it set:
Cement truck #2 pulled in and positioned itself for the second half:
There was more sloshing, shoveling, scraping and leveling:
It was time to pour the last section:
They worked all of the edges and wet some areas before it set:
They removed wooden section markers and leveled as they went:
Whew! It looked like HARD WORK!The cement truck driver cleaned up his rig and left:
This is what we came home to after it was finished:
Ta Daaaaaaaa! We have a garage floor! We are so excited!
We have been patiently planning a BIG project for over a year now..
What are we doing???
We are adding onto the House of Rodgers! We have been garage-less ever since we bought this house:
We have been very creative with storage space. Our laundry room is behind secret doors in the family room. We have assorted tools stashed around the house. We think it is about time to solve some of these problems with a new approach. We think ~1800 square feet should do it.
Here is a frontal view (in blueprints) for our project:
That's right! The addition will be two stories; the bottom floor will be the garage with utility/mudroom and an extra storage room. The upstairs is a bonus room.
We spent over 6 months shopping for the right contractor. After we found him, we had to wait on the weather. We had snow. We had frozen ground. Finally, one day we came home to this:
Which was done by this:
The next step was this, building forms for the foundation:
Followed by this:
Note: During construction days, my chickens had to be penned up in the sideyard so they would not be in the way. However, one Rodgers chicken is very clever. And always gets out.
Who could that be?
That would be Miss Runt (a.k.a. "Houdini"). She thought she would be the on-site chicken inspector:
Silly chicken. There is no extra $$ in the budget to pay her. But I could make her a salad. ;)