Roof up, tree down

The exterior framing for our new addition is now complete!

The roof was built today, and it's getting easier to imagine what each room is actually going to look like.

Here's a view looking towards the new living room extension:

And here is a view looking the other way from the living room extension, towards the new 3/4 bathroom:



The new shower was dropped off today too:

It's a super wide shower (at 48") and needed to get into the room before the interior walls went in, as it likely wouldn't fit through the doorway afterwards.

The french patio doors and windows will be installed in the next couple of days.

The crew plans on breaking through to the inside of the house by Thursday, joining the addition to the existing interior. It'll be so exciting to have the walls down and be able to actually see the new space!

Last week the hated pine tree finally came down too! The top half was carted off, but the bottom half needs to be discarded still. The stump will be ground down and filled in.

I've already noticed more sunlight coming into the living room with the tree down. I'm so, so happy to have it gone. No more pine needles everywhere!

Framing progress!

Most of the exterior framing went up today, and it is really starting to take shape!

It's getting easier to visualize how the whole addition is going to come together, now that most of the exterior walls are up and there are spaces for windows and the french patio doors.

The fireplace, which will be flanked by two long windows, was framed out as well in the living room addition.

The window at the far end will be in the bathroom.

Taking down the siding will be the next step. Then after the addition is fully framed in and enclosed, the crew will break through to the inside and attach the new roof to the original framing.

Lucy is already dreaming about all the time she's going to spend longingly gazing out of these new windows!

Partially framed

Despite some rainy days that caused some delays, work on the addition has progressed nicely over the last week.

After the foundation was fully set, it was backfilled and work started on leveling and grading the rest of the backyard.

A ton of dirt was removed so that water will properly drain away from the house when it rains.

The rest of the yard still needs to be graded. And that pine tree is coming down on Tuesday! Once the tree's out of there, the crew will be able to grade the rest of the backyard without having to work around that.

In the meantime, it's crazy to see how far they've dropped the yard down so far. It's probably two or more feet lower right now in the back. Branden kindly posed to demonstrate the height difference between where the ground level was and where it is now:

(He looks thrilled, huh?)

After the foundation set, the crew started laying down the support beams for the plywood to rest on.

The purple bits sticking up out of the ground are boards of additional insulation.

By the end of the week, the crew had started getting some of the framing up for the walls, and had put down the plywood for the flooring.

It's definitely exciting to have something to stand on out here and to start to get an idea of what it's actually going to look like.

A lot has changed in our plan since we found out that zoning laws would require us to build out 8 feet instead of 12, as we had originally planned on. The biggest question for us was what to do with the new living room extension. We decided that, to give ourselves some more usable wall space in that portion of the addition, we would move the french patio doors to the center of the addition instead.

This illustration (drawn over the image above) might help to visualize what the addition is going to look like when it's done:

Moving the doors to the center of the addition, in the new mudroom, will enable that left-hand wall in the living room addition to be usable. We had originally wanted to put the doors there, but realized that it would mean that the new living room space would be pretty useless--every wall would have either a doorway or fireplace to work around.

We also reconfigured the bathroom so that we can fit a wide, 48" shower as well as the washer and dryer. We're psyched that we have enough space for everything and can add a three-quarter bath instead of just a half bath.

Can't wait to see the rest of the framing go up this week!