Has it only been six weeks?

I haven't posted in six weeks, which has seemed to me like eons, but maybe not so much to those of you who are living in homes with strange luxuries like roofs and a lack of construction debris.

When last we spoke, our house had no attic or roof on the left-hand side, making it wide open to the elements. Since then there have been lots of stops and starts that brought the house to this:

A second story, but still no roof.

Then this:



The shell of a new kitchen, but still no roof.

Along the way, I learned how to hang insulation and I did a lot of clean up both inside and outside the house.

Fast forward (because it's too depressing to relive every backbreaking day, especially for Ken and his dad) to today when the roofers showed up. Cancel Christmas. I have everything I need, a healthy family and this:

Supply your own caption

What else happened while I was gone, and where are we now?

I'm still roughly a week behind so I'll bring you up to speed as quickly as possible.

Last Wed about 40 roof and floor trusses arrived, and Ken and his dad spent most of the rest of the day carrying them from the front yard to the backyard, where they're currently living under another big blue tarp until their day in the sun. We're hoping that day comes this weekend, but it depends on the mason pouring the slab to the new basement room.

During the week the block work progressed:


And Ken rigged up a way to try to keep us from air conditioning the entire neighborhood while our back wall is missing:

The blue sheets are insulation board, which is better than nothing. Still, PECO is making out like a bandit this month.

The mason actually turned up last Saturday to get the block work moving along since he wants to be outta here by the end of this week (something on which he and I completely agree). The same day Ken leveled the sonotubes out front that will be filled with concrete soon and will act as the piers for the new porch.

Sunday the kids and I rolled home from my parents' house and got to witness the week's worth of madness for ourselves. It's a little dusty in here, but my parents lent us an air purifier with a hepa filter, and I turn that on whenever I can to try to relieve some of our allergies that are being wickedly stirred up by all the commotion around here.

Monday through today the mason and crew continued their work, and now the block walls are within a few measly blocks of being done:

In the above photo you can see (somewhat) the two little windows (one near to you and one on the far side) that we had them set into the wall so there's a little light in the new storage room and some air as well should we want some. They put the far window in the wrong place--it should've been in the center of the rear wall, not that side wall--but Ken is already mentally noodling around with how to adjust for that booboo.

Now it's time for a few complaints:
(1) On Monday we returned home late in the evening to find the large two-part gate on the west side of our house hanging wide open. We usually close it because of the dogs, but no big deal since it's not as if the dogs are outside when we're not home. Problem was when Ken went to close the gate and found that the left-hand half had been torn from the fence and was mangled beyond repair. Our guess is that the mason's work truck snagged it on the way out and ripped it off the hinges, but they might have also run over it to cause the damage we saw. Regardless, we now have a yard with a wide open side to it and two dogs who like to chase rabbits and squirrels. Which means standing at the gate every time the dogs go outside and getting eaten alive by the neighborhood mosquito population that is apparently immune to Deet. Ken's gonna talk to the contractor about how they'd like to repay us for the gate.

(2) I just want this part of the job done and all the contractors off my property. I work at home two days/week and am getting tired of the overheard conversations and the constant noise. It was cool at the beginning, and now I'm over it. Please, finish!

(3) I don't have a third point.

I have been asked by multiple people how I am handling having such a disaster surrounding me both inside and outside the house. I have but one survival technique: I picture my enormous new kitchen with its beechwood cabinets, granite countertop, and slate floors, and I remember why this is all worth it.

Anyway, more to come. Ken is currently down in the crawl space dragging the old oil tank out. We had PECO hook us up to the natural gas line last winter (saved a huge bundle on heating), which makes the oil tank obsolete, obviously. He filtered the oil that was left in it--roughly 40 gallons the last I heard--and gave it to neighbors, and now it just remains to get a very heavy (200-250 gallon?) oil tank out of our lives.

Special bonus feature:Monday night we attended an open house at Engine 50 in North Philly to celebrate my father-in-law's retirement from the fire dept after 37 years of service. Here are some pictures to enjoy.

Murphy family photo

The huge crowd of people celebrating Dad's retirement:


Dad receiving a plaque commemorating his brother, Lt. Stephen E. Murphy, who died in the line of duty in winter 1998


And, like a true gentleman, him immediately turning over the plaque to Uncle Steve's wife, Aunt Denise:


As a practical joke, Dad had his twin brother dress up exactly like him and wander around the party confusing people. That's Uncle Den on the left and Dad on the right:


Dad sliding down the fire pole to show the grandkids how it's done:


Padraic and Henry in front of the fire engine:


Henry trying on a firefighter helmet:


Henry tipping over because the helmet was too heavy for him:


Congratulations, Dad, on 37 great years of helping the people of the city of Philadelphia! We have some suggestions on ways to keep busy if you get bored in your retirement!

10 more days and lots more progress

Wow, you go on one little trip to British Columbia and a lot of stuff happens. First, a word about my trip: Over.

As soon as Ken dropped me and my sister at the airport on Saturday morning, he had his crew assemble and get to work. Don't worry; he supplied them with Dunkin Donuts coffee to get their motivation up before the heat index hit over 100 degrees.

The day started with Ken and the guys realizing that perhaps there should be something holding our house up now that there was the very big hole under our dining room and the back wall of the house was missing. But a pesky concrete block was in the way. Enter Chris B., who with arms of steel knocked that block off. Hee! Then the header went in and our house didn't fall down after all (well, not yet).


Once that important piece was in place, the guys headed up to the roof, where everyone took turns with the circular saw to cut through the sheathing. It only took them six saw blades. Then they all ripped roofing and sheathing off with their bare hands (or so I'm told) and nearly filled the 20-yard Dumpster that had been gracing our driveway.

Since August can be a teensy bit filled with thunderstorms, they left some roofing around the edges and maintained the A-frame supports to have something for ye olde tarp to be supported by. I have this weird thing about it raining inside my house, so they wrapped it up nice and tight. Who doesn't want their home to look like this?

It's a new fad, and I encourage you all to hop onboard this trend train.

But seriously, lots of work happened while I was 3000 miles away, blissfully selling technical books to statisticians. In the photo above you can see that the shrubs in front of the house are gone and there are sonotubes in strategic locations. The shrubs had survived the weekend we tore down the deck because we simply ran out of time to kill them, but they're gone now. They trucked outta here with that first Dumpster load. Yeah, I said first load. We have a new 20-yard Dumpster in the driveway. It's better than pink flamingos in the yard, right? Right?!

There are so many people to thank: Chris B, Mike G, Phil B, Wayne D, Dad M, Jay W, Shawn N, Todd S, and Jim C. And, of course, my fantastic hubby, Ken. I feel like we won an Academy Award, but actually it's even better because I am getting a new kitchen, people. And if you've seen my current kitchen (I'm too embarrassed to post pics just yet--got some reorganizing to do), you know that's a huge deal. The master suite is just gravy. I want a new kitchen so badly I can withstand huge holes being dug in my yard and my house having neither a back wall nor a roof for a few weeks. It's like camping because you can hear the cicadas as if they are in the room with you. And there's a layer of dirt on everything. Neat.

OK, that's all I can manage for now. Lots more happened in the time the boys and I were gone, but I'll have to update you on the rest in another post. I'm feeling sleepy just thinking about all the work those guys did last weekend.

It always gets worse before it gets better. Right?

We had a busy day here today, folks. First, I had the day off because my parents were coming to pick up the boys for their annual Camp Mim and Pip, which my brave parents do the first week of August every year. I leave tomorrow on a week-long trip to Vancouver for a conference, so the boys headed to Mim and Pip's house to enjoy a week of fun and craziness.

Our morning together started out with our Dumpster being delivered at 8am on the dot. Too bad we'd asked to have it dropped off between 4pm and 5pm.



Then the excavation/masonry crew showed up. We started out the morning with the project looking like this:


The crew worked gracefully around the Dumpster that was blocking the dump truck's access to the driveway. The truck driver, Al, as his name turns out to be, was very gracious about it and said they deal with tight spaces all the time. He hauled the dirt out of the back yard one load at a time with a bucket loader. And midmorning he took a quick break and took the boys for a spin inside its cab. I really wish I could've gotten a photo of that experience, but it was an impromptu thing and I didn't have time to run inside and grab the camera. Trust me when I say they had a blast.

Then Mim and Pip and Aunt Malinda showed up, and we came inside to have lunch. Just a quick lunch since Mom and Dad wanted to get on the road back home so they'd miss the heaviest traffic on the PA turnpike around rushhour. Once they had packed up and left, the noisiest part of the job started: concrete saws cutting through the exposed foundation of our house to finish carving out the space for our new basement. Malinda and I had to leave the house because of the overwhelming noise and smell of gasoline. Whew! We ran some errands to stay out of the house and get ready for tomorrow's flight to Vancouver. She gets to be a tourist while I work. Lucky her.

The crew worked hard and made lots of noise, and ultimately their work led to this:


Let's take a closer look:

That's our gas furnace you can see off to the left in the hole. That is our crawl space fully exposed to the elements. And somehow we actually meant for that to happen.

Don't worry; Ken and the neighbors tarped it so critters can't get into the house overnight, but it is quite a mess out there and there is a HOLE IN MY HOUSE. And this we call progress.

This weekend is a big work weekend for Ken and a bunch of buddies he recruited as workers. With luck (I say that with a touch of sarcasm), they'll get the roof of the lower side of the house ripped off so when the lumber and trusses arrive next week (we hope, we hope--the trusses have gotten delayed on the production line) he can have another work weekend where he and the guys frame out the new master suite and kitchen. Malinda and I will be here Thurs night after arriving home from Vancouver, but we will skedaddle on Friday sometime, and I will spend next weekend at my parents' house with the boys so we can miss out on all the noisy, messy fun.

Since I leave first thing tomorrow for Vancouver, the blog might not get updated daily, but Ken will try to send me pictures so I can do my best while away from home. Stay tuned!

Excavation--days 4 and 5

Yesterday the crew undercut our house's foundation, which is a little creepy. The dining room is now being held up by the chunk of earth left in the middle of this picture:


Before Sonny the excavator guy left yesterday, he laid the rebar into the trough he'd cut for the footer. But it doesn't show up in photos well since it's nearly the same color as the dirt. So just trust me on that one.

Then today they poured the footer:





If the rain stays away tomorrow (please!), they will start laying the block on the footer. If that part gets done, and Ken gets delivery of the materials from 84 Lumber, and the place Ken ordered a Dumpster from drops their huge metal container off, then he is good to go for framing the new second story this weekend. It's looking like the kitchen part will have to wait till the following weekend, though. Not a big deal since the boys and I will be out of the house for both weekends. On purpose. Cuz it's gonna be loud and messy.

The BFH

That's the Big Fat Hole, according to Padraic. Close enough.






The excavators worked all day today and will be back tomorrow. We certainly didn't try to measure it or anything, but we don't think the hole is actually at full depth yet. They've done a great job with carting off the dirt, though, thank goodness. They'll leave enough for the backfilling but take everything else out in a dump truck. So no enormous piles of dirt leftover like we had with the garage project. And to be honest, the first thing I thought when I saw the work they'd done today was how very neat they'd been about it all. Really, not much of the lawn is torn up compared to what I thought would be. So far.

Tomorrow I work from home w/Padraic here with me so we'll be able to watch the progress on Day 2.

Special delivery

Our new weight-loss program

First, let me just show you this because it's a thing of beauty:


Now, with that out of the way, sit back and I'll tell you the tale of our Sunday. It was hot. The end.

OK, just kidding, but not about the part where I said it was hot. I showered three times just to get rid of the soaked clothing and inch-thick medley of sunscreen and Deet on my skin. Ken lost 5lbs and I lost 3lbs. Take that, Weight Watchers. We didn't even have to count any points. We just had to work our keesters off in mid-90s temps for roughly 10hrs.

Our shift began around 8am when we headed out to the backyard to let the kids and dogs run wild while we cleaned up. I'd show you some "before" pictures, but let's just say that I learned a very important blogger lesson yesterday: Put your memory card back in the camera before taking more pictures. Otherwise, you're not really taking pictures; you're just carrying a camera around and making clicky sounds.

My first task was to cut up and bundle the large pile of dead branches that had accumulated along the eastern side of our yard. Every time a storm blows through, the two pines, one oak, and one maple on that side of the yard lose branches like it's their job. You'd see a picture of the pile now, but I hadn't yet noticed that the card wasn't in the camera. But here's what resulted hours later:


Trust me; it's a lot better than it looked before. Plus, Ken added some fresh dirt from his initial task of the day--yanking out all the railroad ties that formed the planting beds between the backyard and the driveway. The excavator is going to need a clear path into the yard with his equipment, so we had to make away with any obstacles. Again, the "before" photo is missing, but here's a snippet of "during":


We often reuse things, so we'll hang on to the railroad ties and see what comes up later that we can use them for. Maybe caber tossing. Those things are heavy!

With the railroad ties out of the way, Ken moved on to his next masterful engineering feat of raising our airborne power and phone cables out of the way so the excavating equipment will have plenty of clearance. Again, "before" picture is missing, but feast your eyes on this marvel of engineering prowess:


Astounding, am I right? Here's a closeup:

Note how the power cable rests gently in the cradle at the top of the PVC pipe, while the phone cable nestles beside the pipe on a screw covered with rubber tubing. Couldn't have done it better myself.

Anyway, the day was moving along and became time to tackle the most undesirable but most important project left--taking down the deck. For this I have a "before" picture:


We cleared all the junk off of it and my biker/pirate husband got to work, first on the rails:




Then on the decking:


At that point we started taking turns inside with the kids. It was too stinking hot to keep them outside to suffer with us. So Ken would pry up a handful of boards, and I would switch with him and go outside to bash the nails flat against the underside of each board with a small sledgehammer. What fun! I didn't even hit my own feet or ankles one single time.

I didn't think any pictures of my bashing existed, but lucky for me (urgh) Ken snuck this picture when I wasn't paying attention:


Slowly, the deck started to disappear (except if you look in our side yard, where all the wood is piled). I forgot to take pictures of the later stages, so let's just skip to the end:


TA DA! What's deceiving about this picture is that it makes it look like we finished dismantling the deck while it was still light out. Ha! We finished with battered bodies around 10pm and then fell asleep, so this picture was taken today instead. But at least we got the job done. That weird piece of railing that's affixed to the side of the house in front of the slider is to keep dogs and children (and even sleepy adults) from opening the door and stepping out onto the missing deck. It will be even more important once the excavator has dug out the full basement below where the new kitchen will be. That drop will be a doozy.

And so ends another installment of our home addition project. Now we wait for the excavator to finish another job and haul his stuff over here to get started. We never thought we'd say it, but we're glad the weekend is over so we can go to work. And rest.