After the aluminum siding and clapboard were removed from the house it got wrapped in Tyvek building wrap; covering the fiber based Homosot and the holes where we had insulation blown in during 1982.

The east wall of the foundation was dug out and parged then tarred for waterproofing.

The footings have been dug and forms built for the concrete to be poured.

Wednesday they dug out the east side of the foundation, replaced the drainage along the footing, put in stone, and pressure washed the concrete block in preparation for parging the blocks on Thursday.

They removed the aluminum siding and clapboard from the north and south sides of the house.

Step 1 of the new construction is to remove the siding from the east side of the house – revealing very ugly yellow clapboard riddled with holes from the blown in insulation.

Step 2 begins tomorrow as the east side of the foundation is excavated.  New drainage goes in along the wall, the concrete blocks will be parged and a basement will be dug for the mud/laundry/bathroom.

As part of our home remodeling we ended up with new hardwood flooring where they did the wall removal work. This is where the old bathroom was at one point and where we ripped up the carpet in the living room.  It was a lot of work to move all our furniture out of the house and stored it in the upstairs or barn.

While we were vacationing at Keuka Lake our floors were refinished.  They are bright and clean.  Below looking both ways up and down the hall.

The living room and bedroom showing Kathryn’s new closet.

Our living room is opened up now.

The new 12″ bearing beam can be seen at the top of the picture below.

We have been planning our home re-modeling for the past couple years. This remodeling breaks down into two major projects.  One major project is to built an attached garage with a mud room, pantry, laundry and 1/2 bath connecting it to our house.  This past summer we began contracted to have our basement drainage re-done, brought in a lot of fill to begin that project.  We are letting the fill settle for a year (or two or three) before building the garage.

The other major project is to remodel the interior of our house.  This project includes:

• Using 1 of the 3 first floor bedrooms for a new, larger, more modern bathroom
• Expanding the size of our master bedroom
• Opening up the entrance way to the living room and installing pocket doors.  Our living room faces south with a large (9’x6′) picture window. Going through nu-eco.com.au/ helps in getting a lot of window design options. The view is nice and the solar gain is great during the winter.  We want to allow this warmer air to circulate throughout the house.
• Opening up closets in foyer and Eric’s bedroom
• Along the way we will be moving electrical switches, power plugs, and telephone jacks
• Finally we are removing our cast iron steam radiators and installing a new hot water boiler and radiant heat for the 1st floor. You must have a look at the new boiler cost and know which one to get.

In the past few weeks we have been trying to move furniture, weed out books, clothes and nick-knacks.  It will probably take a couple of months to complete the structural items to be followed by weeks of painting and wallpapering.