The Punch List

According to Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_list)

The Punch List: A list of tasks or "to-do" items. In U.S. construction industry, a "punchlist" is the name of a contract document used in the architecture and building trades in the United States to organize the completion of a construction project.

According to me:
The Punch List: The list of final tasks that is taking the contractor forever to finish, resulting in me wanting to punch someone something very, very, very badly.


The good news, though, is that after six months of living in a one bedroom apartment with a family of five humans and four cats, we finally moved back home on Memorial Day (May 25, 2009)! Yay!!!

That was over three weeks ago, and the very next day I wanted to make a celebratory post here on my blog to let you all know, but clearly I never got around to it. You have all have been great at showing support, encouragement and interest throughout this project and I know some of you have been waiting for a progress report from me for a while, so I'm sorry for keeping you in suspense for so long. Considering the fact that our house was emptied of everything except the refrigerator, piano, and an armoire for the last several months, moving back in has been a huge project in itself. All the cleaning, moving furniture, unpacking, arranging and rearranging of stuff, assembling furniture (I love IKEA!), not to mention all the regular stuff of running a household, plus the busy end of the school year stuff with the girls like dance recitals, field trips, girl scout camping, an award dinner (My oldest daughter's Cadette Girl Scout troop that I co-lead with a friend-- completed a huge service project they've been working on for two years and consequently earned their Silver Award in May!), has been keeping me extremely busy. Needless to say I haven't been spending time online. I have been reading, though, and actually owe a couple of ARC reviews I promised to authors and publishers, and I feel so badly that I'm late with them. Plus I have no idea what you guys have been up to--reading or writing or whatever. I'm just so happy to be home in my almost, practically, but not quite, finished home. Would you believe the work still isn't finished? Any day now...

It's been nine months this week since we broke ground on our home addition and renovation, and despite the original projection of 6-7 months, work is still in progress. For a while it seemed as though it was never going to end, but at least now there is maybe one more day worth of work on the inside and a day or two of work on the outside. Almost all of the delays on this project can be contributed to electrician issues and as of last Friday, all the electrical work was finally finished. If we fail final electrical inspection on something and that blasted electrician has to come back, I will be absolutely--- I don't even have the angry word to describe how I'll feel. Let's just say it won't be pretty. But the important thing is that we're home at last. What a relief! I'm loving the new spaces and the old spaces and it's absolutely wonderful to be home. Now to finally finish unpacking so I can get outside and do some gardening.

Pictures to come. 

In The Home Stretch

a.k.a. The Rant You've All Been Waiting For

So I haven't posted about the house in a long time. I've thought about posting an update a few times, but I suppose as much as I wanted to share with all of you because I know you'd all be so kind, enthusiastic and supportive and none of you would be thinking, "Oh, God. There she goes again. All she does is talk about her house. blah blah blah BLAH BLAH BLAH!!" (like I'm sure some people in my life are thinking by now... Kate? Amy?), I also didn't want to come across boastful and then other times I knew I'd type a post that was upbeat and excited, but in reality I'd be sitting at the keyboard crying. That didn't sound fun to do. Or I'd start typing with a really positive attitude and my post would quickly morph into a vicious rant. That wouldn't be cool either, because I'm really so incredibly lucky to being doing this addition and renovation in the first place and should NOT be complaining. But now... five loooooong months later, I say, fuck that! I can bitch and complain and rant if I want to and still feel incredibly fortunate and thankful for it all at the same time. Seriously. I can. In fact, I do. Poor Kenda knows I can because she somehow landed the lucky spot a couple of weeks ago as the email recipient of my three day rant on workers using my brand new toilet in my brand new master bathroom, fucking leaving drops of urine all over the toilet AND the floor! Fucking assholes. 

Deep breath.

Today is April 30, 2009. Exactly five months ago, on November 30, 2008 (Thanksgiving weekend) we moved out of our construction zone home into a one bedroom apartment about a mile and a half away from our house. The original plan was for the move to be for a week or so while the heating and plumbing systems would be shut down and replaced, but WE'RE STILL HERE! Five people in a one bedroom apartment for the last five months. And counting. We're finally in the home stretch, hopefully moving back home in 2-3 weeks.

The apartment we're living in is actually a co-op condominium that my father-in-law still owns that he and my mother-in-law used to live in before she passed away, but essentially it's one of those two story brick garden apartment kind of places. We're fortunate that we had a place to go, but it has not been easy living in such cramped quarters. The apartment is nice for a single person or a couple. But, uh.... not so great for a family of five. Husband, wife, teen, tween, elderly man and four cats. My 83 year old father-in-law has been sleeping in the living room and the girls, my husband and I in the bedroom. The girls have their twin mattresses from home on the floor and my husband and I are in a bed. Thankfully it is a decent size bedroom, but still. I don't have to point out that privacy is virtually non existent. I want to go home. :(

So why are we still here? We decided it would be easier to live here in cramped quarters than live amidst the construction, and I actually still stand by that decision, but it has not been easy. The renovation was quite extensive, affecting every single room in the house. We replaced all of the windows, so at a minimum there was sheet rock repair around new windows and new ducts installed for the heating & cooling system in each room. We also learned from other people that the sheet rock phase was the dustiest part of the whole job and so we'd be better off not being there for that. Then the whole house would get painted at the end AND the hardwood floors throughout the house would get refinished, so we definitely had to have us and all of our belongings out for that. So why not do it at one time and retain some sanity? At least the apartment gives us a place to be away from the construction and we have a kitchen!

So where are we now? The house is just about finished, but not quite. The final plumbing and electrical inspections are scheduled for Monday. Building and fire inspection will have to wait another week or so until the three new porches and steps get built. A few final touches inside like the installation of the shoe moulding throughout the whole house, the shower doors, and some touch up painting and then I think that's it! The projected time frame for the project from start to finish was 6-7 months and we just passed the seven month mark about two weeks ago. So it looks like it will really be 8 months and maybe another week or two. I guess that's not so bad compared to the kinds of delays a lot of people encounter during construction, but right now, from where I'm standing, it is too long. I want to go home. I want my space, I want privacy, I want my things (clothes, books, a comfy chair, my kitchen things, my cookbooks), I want to do laundry in my own house without needing quarters or having to lug laundry to the basement in the building next door. I want privacy. I want to be able to regulate the temperature of my home. This apartment is like a sauna... continuously at 80 F and the only way to regulate it is to open windows. What a waste of money and energy. My 83 year old father-in-law has been loving it, though. He wears thermal underwear and turtle necks 24/7/365. The rest of us are sleeping in our underwear and constantly opening windows (he's going to think we moved to the Arctic when we go home and heat is set to 68 F and the AC to 72 F)! I want our high speed Internet at home, although I do thank the dude who is allowing us to borrow some of his bandwidth here at the apartment. Did I mention I want privacy? Time alone with my husband? I want to park in my driveway, not a parking lot. I want my yard, I want to garden. I don't want to drive to my house to get my mail at the end of every day. I want to be rid of noisy and nosey neighbors who share the same walls and roof with us here.  I want to move back into the lovely house that we're so fortunate to have been able to expand and improve. I want everyone in my family to have the space we need to be comfortable and happy. I need to go home. 

Okay, I think that's the end of my rant. 

Thank you to the handful of you who have already been subjected to my construction woes, sometimes on numerous occasions, whether by phone, email, or IM, and yet you still keep asking me how it's going. I appreciate your support very much. :) 

Construction Zone: A Roof Over Our Heads

. . . brushing away the cobwebs . . .

It's been two weeks since my last post. I don't know how that happened!?! 

Well, actually ... I have an idea. It's called living and breathing the partial demolition and rebuilding of your home right before your very eyes because you are living in it, making executive decisions on architectural, electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling system changes in the field, selecting roofing, siding, doors, plumbing fixtures, appliances, flooring, tile, etc., packing away your belongings, restructuring your living arrangements and trying to take care of your husband, two kids, elderly and easily disoriented father-in-law, and four cats the best you can so that their lives go on business as usual while you barely keep your head above water. That's what makes days and days and days go by without making a single blog post or finishing a single book. Yup. That would do it, all right. 

The last post I made here on the construction was Sunday, October 26 and the framing of the first floor addition had just been completed. Despite a few delays here and there due to rain, the construction has been progressing really well. It looks as though we are ahead of schedule, which has put a bit of pressure on me to make some quick decisions on things, but I can't complain. I certainly don't want to be the cause of any loss of momentum on this project. Besides, it's good for me to have strict decision deadlines, because I tend to be indecisive and change my mind a lot when I have too much time to think about it.

So here's what's been going on in the Construction Zone:

October 30, 2008
Second floor walls have been framed. The blue tarp in the background is there to protect the existing structure since the siding has been stripped to the studs on the outside of the house. Remember my 1920s house has no insulation in the walls. We're still at the mercy of the weather until they're ready to put up the new siding at which point they will blow in insulation in the outside walls. 


The side entrance from the driveway. I'm going to love that little covered porch. :) 

November 5, 2008 

Plywood siding has been put up and window openings have been cut out. The roofers are framing the roof for the addition and marrying it to the existing roof line.

November 11-12, 2008

Roofing Day. There was a ton of hustling and bustling and plenty of noise and mess these two days. The roof shingles on the existing part of the house were removed, damaged sections of the existing roof were repaired and new roof shingles were installed on both the existing and new roofs.  The existing roof stripped:

Poof! Just like that... a new roof. 

Note the mattress and box spring ready for the dumpster. My husband and I have no bedroom right now. We'll be camping on a futon mattress on the floor in the living room for a few months. So far it's very hard and very cold. It's only been a week and already I'm thinking of buying a sleeper sofa next weekend.

All the leaves have fallen from the magnolia tree out back and I can finally take photos of the back of the house straight on. 

On Friday most of the windows in the addition got installed, but it started raining so I didn't get a chance to take pictures yet. Next up on the Construction Zone feature will be the inside of the house. Namely the part where I have no bedroom and no kitchen and a skinny piece of plywood between my dining room and the great outdoors. In the Northeast, USA. In mid November. Nice. :) 

Construction Zone: Attic Treasures

Aside from a bit of twittering and a scant blog comment here and there, I've barely been online this past week, and it's been very disconcerting. I really miss blog hopping and reading what all of you have to say--whether it be book reviews, book discussions, author news, as well as those fun insights into your personal lives. As of right now, I see I've got 230+ unread blog posts waiting for me and am already suffering from blog withdrawal. 

So what have I been up to? Well, mostly the construction project at home has me so busy, you'd think I was building it myself! The guys are making great progress. on the addition. The first floor is framed and the framing of the second floor starts tomorrow morning. By the end of the week, they will be ripping off my old roof and joining the two rooflines together as one roof. I imagine this week will be very noisy and very messy, but it will be neat to see the new shape of the house when the roof is finished.  

This is the view from the driveway where there will be steps to a small covered porch. The door will be the opening to the left, adjacent to the existing dining room windows. 

Here's a view of the back of the house, with the first floor framed. The large opening to the left is for the set of french glider doors that will have a full length sidelight windows on other side. The opening to the right of that is for the window of my father-in-law's future room.

So that's what the workers have been doing--what about me? Well, with the upcoming roofing job, we were faced with the gruesome act of completely emptying our attic. Ugh. We had one of those on site pod storage units delivered last Monday, and I started packing up clothes and books. My husband then took a day off and we completely emptied everything from the attic into the pod. Fortunately, when we had central air installed about six years ago, I combed through our things and donated or threw away a lot of items, and I was very good about only putting things in the attic that we wanted to keep. That's not to say that it wasn't a lot of stuff, but at least it was fairly organized. Most things like clothes and holiday decorations were stored in those plastic containers, but there was also luggage, some cherished children's books and toys I can't yet part with (like Goodnight Moon, Corduroy, and the toy kitchen and barbies that got played with daily for six or seven years straight), the girls' bassinet (awww!), craft supplies, college textbooks (Electromagnetic Fields and Solid State Circuits? Please. Like I'll ever read those textbooks again?) and assorted other items like a milk crate of old LPs circa 1975 to 1986. (I think I need to download The Lexicon of Love by ABC, circa 1982, onto my iPod this week. I love that album.) Fun stuff! ;) 

We also started moving furniture and belongings from our bedroom and the dining room into the pod as well, since as soon as the roof is done and the addition space is weather tight, the construction will break through into our current living space and those spaces need to be empty. Of course, the house is a mess right now because we couldn't get it all done in one day, and our weekend was busy with outside activities, so I haven't done any more packing since Friday. From my kitchen, I've only packed up my cookbooks, so I'll have a lot to pack there, too. I'm hoping to do that job at the very last minute, because I plan on cooking until the night before the kitchen is scheduled to be gutted. 

Needless to say, I still have major work cut out for myself tomorrow and the weeks to come. I hope to catch up with all of you during the week! :) 

Construction Zone

I thought I'd do an info dump regarding the big project going on at my house these days, because I have the feeling that I'll be posting more about construction than about books in the coming months. Of course, I won't be able to NOT read during this chaotic and dusty time, but honestly, I'm thinking I may only read one or two books a month for a while. Well, not that I've been writing a ton of reviews, anyway, but that's a different story. ;p  This is kind of a long post, but if you're nosey curious about my little world, read on. Otherwise just skip down to the pictures --you'll get the idea. ;) 

A bit of background regarding our current living arrangements. On December 6, 2006, at age seventy-six, my mother-in-law passed away fairly unexpectedly, the day before she and my father-in-law would have celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. Almost exactly a month prior, she had had open heart surgery to repair a valve, and a double bypass. She recovered very well at first, but then her recovery sort of plateaued. She was complaining about feeling weak, so was being seen by her infectious disease doctor again, who ordered blood work and other tests. Sadly, the following day she collapsed in her home and died in the hospital later that day due to sepsis. She was survived by her husband and her only child--my husband.

My father-in-law was 81 years old at the time of his wife's death and had previously suffered a massive stroke in 2000 that left him fraile and with some permanent memory loss. In addition he has extremely poor vision that started when he was in his late teens and stepped on a land mine in the Philippines while hiding from the Japanese in the mountains with his family during World War II. Since then his vision has been deteriorating significantly over the years, leaving him legally blind throughout his adult life. Essentially, he cannot take care of himself without assistance on account of his deteriorated health as a result of the stroke, his lifetime of near blindness, and his general old age, so we decided to have him come live with us. I just could not, for the life of me, after living eighty-one years, put him in a nursing home to spend his remaining years. A nursing home just wouldn't be a good fit for him. He's a friendly person and is always upbeat, but he's not very social. I think that it's due in part to his poor vision and hearing that he has difficulty interacting with others and also in part to the fact that he just enjoys his own company. So we decided to welcome into our home. Into our small, three bedroom, one bathroom, one living room, one dining room, one non-eat-in kitchen 80+ year old home. I just realized our house is practically the same age as my father-in-law! :)

This is a photograph of my father-in-law on his 83rd birthday this past summer. 


Our house is a great little starter house in a wonderful suburban community with great schools and lots of parks. Perfect for a young family, but the kids are growing up, getting bigger, needing more space and privacy, and when my father-in-law moved in, the house went from cute starter house to an ack!-this-is-so-cramped-help!-I-need-breathing-space house! On the second floor, we have three small bedrooms, each about 10 ft. x 10 ft. and one bathroom about 8 ft. x 10 ft. Thank goodness the bathroom is a decent size, so at least two people can easily be getting ready for bed or school at the same time. But yeah. One toilet. Not counting the new Johnny On The Spot, of course! :) My oldest gave up her room for her grandfather and the girls --ages 9 and 13-- have been sharing a small 10 ft. x 10 ft. room together for almost two years now. In their room is two twin beds with barely three feet between them, one nightstand, one armoire on a wall and one tall chest of drawers in the closet. They're so cramped, but they have been such great sports about it. Our bedroom is called the 'master' bedroom because I think it is closer to 10 ft. x 12 ft. Ha! We have a queen size bed, two small nightstands and one long dresser. I also have a narrow bookshelf behind the door --the best part after the bed. ;) There is about 18 inches clearance around one side and the foot of the bed and maybe four feet between the other side of the bed and our dresser. Very cramped cozy.

So what are we doing to our house? Well, we currently have a total of 1170 sq. ft. of living space and we are adding a whopping 996 sq. ft. to that along with some renovations to our existing space. We are renovating our 1970s kitchen, rebuilding our garage, and off the back of the house, we are adding a family room, a bedroom for my father-in-law, and a full bathroom (handicap accessible... just thinking ahead). I think this will make a world of difference for us not just in terms of space, but in lifestyle as well. Since my father-in-law cannot go up or down the stairs alone or find/prepare/heat up his own food, our freedom to be spontaneous and or to be out of the house for long periods of time is extremely difficult. As it is now, during the day when my husband is at work and the girls are at school, I have these little windows of opportunity to go out on errands, to the gym or what not, when I know my father-in-law won't need to go up or down the stairs. Fortunately for me, he enjoys keeping a consistent daily schedule of naps, meals, walks outside, and reading at his electronic magnifier, so I've been able to predict when he'll need my help and I just go out when I know he'll stay put in one place or another. When he has his own room and bathroom on the first floor, the danger of the stairs will be non-existent, and I'm hoping we can leave a thermos of coffee and lunch on the table for him, and he'll be able to be on his own for longer periods of time during the day. Even if I need to hire someone to come in to take care of him now and then, I'll feel like there will space for the aid to do their thing without being right on top of me, too!

Originally we were only planning on doing this first floor expansion, but everyone kept telling us that we should consider expanding the second floor over this new space. We were afraid a second floor expansion would put us in over our heads financially, but apparently the biggest expense and effort is putting in the new foundation and first floor, and that adding another floor and three more walls above it before you put the roof on is more cost effective at that point. So we looked into it and decided to go for it. Of course, this was nine months ago, and I now wonder if we would still have decided this as confidently given the state of the economy today, but oh well. We'd lose money and sanity if we backtracked now. Thankfully, my father-in-law is generously funding a significant portion of this project with his retirement money, so I think we'll be okay. Better he invest his money into the equity of his son's home than paying for nursing home care, right?

On the second floor, the existing bathroom will be made about a foot or so narrower, which still leaves it a generous 7 ft. x 10 ft., and the extra foot along with two feet or so from our existing master bedroom will be made into a hallway leading to the second floor addition which will be all master bedroom! The remaining space in the existing master bedroom will be made into a narrower bedroom that will gain a bit of length --maybe 2 ft.-- into the new space. The new master bathroom will be an amazing space for me and my husband. We'll have our own bathroom and a big walk in closet with a window in it! That seems so surreal to me after having had a bedroom only a bit bigger than that for the last 12 years. The room will be about 25 ft. x 12 ft. and it will also have an additional 4 ft. x 6 ft. nook that will be a perfect reading corner. I'm already thinking about what kind of bookshelves to get and the chaise lounge I want to put next to the window there. I feel a little guilty about having such a decadent master bedroom like this, but at the same time, I think my husband and I really need it. Taking care of an elderly parent full time is very demanding and challenging, that I think having this little oasis will give us the respite we need to recharge and rejuvenate ourselves, and in turn allow us to be better care givers.

The design phase took a while, as did waiting for the township to approve of our application for the addition and renovation, but now things are finally taking off around here, which is both exciting and scary. I'm so excited I think I decided on the siding, trim, and roofing colors today. Three decisions down, five thousand eight hundred twenty-seven to go!

The project is anticipated to take six or seven months to complete, and for the majority of that time, my husband and I won't have a bedroom (we'll be roughing it in the living room), and I think if my estimations are correct, we won't have a kitchen for Thanksgiving or Christmas!? omgwtf! Think of me as I'll be grilling turkey tenderloins for Thanksgiving and baking Christmas cookies in an EasyBake Oven.

Ready for some pictures? I started a separate blog to document the progress of the construction in pictures, but decided to do it using a different profile than I use for this blog because the purpose of the construction blog is to share our project with a few close friends and my husband's relatives who don't live close by and if I used my happily ever after blog for it, (a) some of them are so NOT computer savvy and they'd just get lost trying to find the actual construction posts here, and (b) I'd have no place to complain about them! LOL! Just kidding! I'll probably post the link to my construction blog here soon as well, but in order to protect the innocent, I first need to photoshop a few of the photographs I posted to blur license plate numbers, our house number, the contractor's name and number, etc. I'll try to do that soon, but in the meantime, I have a few pictures I can share here.

Note: You can click on the photos to view them enlarged.

Before shots of the back of the house, taken in August 2008:
 

I let my vegetable garden become a haven for beneficial insects this year.  In this picture you can see how the goldenrod pretty much took over. There are also three different kinds of mint, lemon balm, lamb's ears and alpine strawberries in there somewhere. It was pretty, but I'm looking forward to growing vegetables again next summer. 

This is after the demolition, when the foundation is being built:

The cement is being poured into the crawl space foundation. We opted to save ten grand by NOT digging out a full basement:

The new garage is on the left and the living space is on the right where the floor joists are shown. This picture was just taken today.

And that's it so far. On Monday, I think they are laying the plywood for the rough floor and I'm going to do a little walk through with my contractor and the plans to make any last minute adjustments on door and window placement. We're also getting one of those on site Pod storage things delivered on Monday, because we need to empty our attic and basement this week, and probably the master bedroom and kitchen soon, too. So much work, but I'm so very lucky to be able to be doing this addition in the first place, and it's going to be so, so, so worth it in the end. :)

A Second Bathroom

We have it.