Renovation Week #1: Musical Bedrooms

Week one of our house renovation is complete.  Whew!  It was an exhausting week and I wasn't even the one doing the heavy-lifting. 

Aside from the first day of the renovation when the contractors pulled our roof off and it rained inside the house, the rest of the week went as planned.  It was quite amazing how quickly these guys can rip apart a house.  My brother visited this past weekend and stayed through Monday.  The bedroom he woke in just that morning had been completely gutted and roof removed by the time I arrived home from work in the late afternoon.  By Tuesday night the back end of our house had a roof deck on, which provided a feeling of reassurance even though no rain was forecasted for the rest of the week.  By the end of the day Wednesday our new second story was completely framed in.  We could finally see in real life what we had until that point only seen in blueprints.

Our contractor called that night to tell us the sub-contractors were ready for the chimney demolition.  Previous had owners removed the fireplace long ago, but kept the chimney, which runs through the center of our house.  Because of the chimney placement, the wall between the kids' bedroom and ours jutted at an angle and used up precious square footage in already tiny bedrooms, so we wanted to remove it as part of the renovation.  So the contractors would have space to work the next day, Chris and I hauled our bed out of our room after dinner.  We had assumed we'd end up sleeping in the basement, but were delighted to learn that our queen-sized bed actually fit in Soren's old room.  Soren's old room will now be our bedroom (well, until the contractors need to bust a hole through the back wall) and our current bedroom is now our dressing room.

We also learned that night that Soren was sick - again.  The next morning I dropped Oliver off at daycare and took Soren to the doctor.  By the time we returned from the doctor's office and pharmacy with a diagnosis of strep throat and an ear infection and a prescription of antibiotics in hand, the contractors had ripped down half the wall between our bedrooms and were about to start on taking down the chimney.  The one day I was home with a sick kid and the whole second floor was off limits!  The contractors had already sealed off the second floor, but halted demolition so I could slip upstairs to grab Soren's blanket, pillow, pacifier and stuffed polar bear.  We set up camp in the living room basement and despite electricians traipsing through the room, bricks flying out my bedroom window into the dumpster that sat right outside the basement window and lots of drilling, sawing and hammering, Soren napped soundly for over three hours. A couple of times he woke up, rolled over and looked for me and then drifted back off to sleep.  By the time he finished napping, the contractors had finished taking down the chimney and a hole in our bedroom wall was in place of where the door had once been.  (Again, these guys are quick.)

After the impressive transformation this week, our contractor warned us that progress will slow down.  HVAC contractors, electricians and plumbers all come next week - all important, but not as awe-inspiring as watching a new structure go up.  Then it really slows down as little work can continue after that until the city inspectors pay a visit.