Renovation Update and a Birthday Shout-Out

This is a renovation update and birthday shout-out all rolled up in one.  My dear husband turns 32 today.  And he'll probably spend it working on the house.  As we push into week 10 of our house renovation, I'm reminded how lucky I am to have married a guy with construction skills and a drive to put in the work.  To cut down renovation costs, Chris has tackled some of the work on his own.  Like ripping down all the siding on our two-story house. 

The job was harder than it sounds because we discovered the original wood siding underneath the metal siding.  The newer siding came off reasonably easily, but they then had to go back and pull out every single nail.  And once the siding was down, they had to haul it to the dumpster in our backyard.  It took Chris, and my equally hard-working brother-in-law and father-in-law an entire dirty and sweaty weekend to finish the job. Well, everything except the very, very top.  As much as I admire Chris for his fearlessness to climb this ladder to pull the siding down, I admire him more for accepting they've climbed as high as they safely could.

For Chris's 33rd year of life, I'm tempted to wish him the completion of all house projects because he's worked so hard.  But that's not Chris.  He's the type of guy who's always gotta have a project.  So instead I'll say that I hope his 33rd year is blessed with a (small) project (or two).  Or at least one that doesn't have him hanging from a ladder.  

Renovation Week #4

Our renovation received another blow this week.  I thought we had passed all our inspections, but then learned that our bedroom windows are two inches too narrow to be a legal egress.  Never mind that the windows in our new master bedroom are big six inches wider than the single window in our current "master" bedroom. In a wise move, our contractor chose to break the news to Chris, (who's better at handling stress) who then called me, where I showed that my way of handling stress is to yell into the phone about wanting to send pictures of our ourselves to the city inspector to prove how not big we are.  

It's ironic we ended up with windows too small. When we were designing the new space, I kept pushing for  bigger windows because I wanted as much natural light as possible.  We're on a narrow city lot and with the houses so close together and a three-season porch on the front of the house, so we rely a lot on artificial light.  It looks like I'm going to get more even more natural light than I had hoped for - at least two inches worth. 

As for how to solve the problem of fitting bigger windows into a smaller cut-out in the framing, Chris and the contractor figured out a plan and even declared it an "easy" fix.  Then we're going to "recycle" the windows by replacing our dining room windows.  Ironically, the windows meant for our master bedroom are wider than the ones in our dining room.  But Chris and our contractor say they have a plan for that too.  I don't even want to know the details.  Once they told me they had it all figured out, I could feel my stress levels dropping.  First a waterfall in our house and now some swapping out a couple of windows - so far, still not so bad. 

Renovation Week #3: Officially Behind Schedule

We've only finished week three of a months' long renovation and I'm facing reality - we're behind schedule.  Sigh. Our au pair arrives in less than two weeks and his room, which was ripped apart during the construction of the second-floor addition, won't be put back together in time. The delay isn't totally unexpected since you can assume two things during a renovation - you will go over budget and the project won't finish on time.  However, just like adoption, where I thought we'd be the exception to what is a long wait for everyone else, I was relying on our renovation to not fall a day behind schedule.  I feel really guilty about welcoming someone into our family for a year and offering him an air mattress to sleep on for his first two weeks. 

Thankfully, our new au pair insists the temporary set-up is not a big deal. But then again, Germans generally are too polite to say otherwise.  Just as thankful I am for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who have offered to put our au pair up in their home and provide him with such luxuries as a bedroom with a finished ceiling, a door and even a bed. 

As stressed as I am about this particular delay, really, in the grand scheme of things, our renovation is on track.  We've passed all our inspections, which means that after a lull in construction, the contractors are gearing up for the next round of work.  They'll finish insulation by the end of this week and sheet rocking by the end of next week. 

Renovation Week #2: Housefly Houses

Oliver loves building with blocks and when I asked him what he was building, he exclaimed/yelled, a housefly house! His house even came with a slide for the flies.  The flies Oliver was trying to accommodate are the ones darting around our house.  With contractors coming and going and the portions of our house still be open to the great outdoors, we have become a haven for flies.  Enough that Oliver could consider building a tract development.

Other than the flies, week two of construction wasn't bad.  But that's easy for me to say since I was away on business during last week's heat wave.  Chris slept in the basement at night to escape both the heat and the dust since our temporary bedroom became a staging ground for punching a hole through the wall to make a doorway into our new master bedroom.  When I arrived home late Friday night, I took my first peek at the new space (and without having to climb a ladder, which is how the contractors had accessed the second-story addition until they created the internal doorway).  The space is still very unfinished, but the walls, plumbing and electrical were all framed and/or roughed in, and a new soaker tub sat in our bathroom.  I haven't taken a bath since we've lived in this house (and honestly can't remember the last bath I took), so that tub upgrade was all for Chris.  Despite the unfinished space, I could finally see how it was all going to come together. 

Chris's other favorite part of the addition is the new windows.  There was no question about what windows we were going to buy.  They had to be Andersen.  Chris drove to the Menomonie plant to pick them up as soon as they came off the line.  Even after they were installed, he checked and rechecked all the mechanics of the windows and proudly explained all the improvements the windows have over the existing windows in our house.

We hope the inspectors make it this week as scheduled so the contractors can finish the walls.  While everything is mostly moving along on schedule, our au pair arrives in two and a half weeks and his room still needs a new ceiling, coat of paint, refinished floors, and most important to him, a door. 

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. 

Roommates

Oliver and Soren are officially roommates.  I hope they like sharing a room because they're pretty much stuck in the same jail cell-size bedroom for the next decade!

We've been talking about moving Soren into Oliver's room ever since we started the adoption process so we could turn Soren's room into the new sibling's bedroom.  We bought a bunk bed ahead of the transition, but never actually followed through and Oliver ended up sleeping on the bottom bunk while the promises/threats of Soren moving in never materialized.  It was too easy to keep them in separate rooms where we didn't have to worry about one waking up the other or trying to coordinate bedtimes.  The few times the boys had begged for a "sleepover," no sleeping actually happened and we sent Soren back to his room for the rest of the night.  We were finally in a good place with the kids and sleep and we were hesitant to mess up our progress.  

The looming start to our house renovation finally pushed us to make the transition to the boys sharing a room.  The contractors are going to end up punching a hole through the wall of Soren's room, so he (and all his stuff) needed to be out of there.  Chris took the kids up to the cabin one weekend and my mother-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law helped me move furniture, box up outgrown clothes, toys and books a future child will hopefully use some day, and find space for Soren's things in what is already a tiny bedroom.

While I was sentimental about Soren leaving his "baby room," he thankfully didn't seem to miss it.  On their first night home from the cabin, he seemed perfectly happy with his new digs.  We went about our usual bedtime routine read them books on the floor of their new shared room, then tucked Oliver into his top bunk and Soren into the bottom bunk and turned out the lights.  The room was silent.

If only it had been as easy as that!  Not long after lights out, I heard the pitter-patter of feet.  Two-plus hours and about 37 trips upstairs later, both kids were finally asleep.  The next night it only took a little over an hour for them to fall asleep and bedtime has generally gotten better with each night.  

Never Start a Project on a Monday

Our contractor said he never starts a new project on a Monday.  In his opinion, it's a recipe for disaster.  He'll use Monday to set up and make sure all the logistics are in order, but he won't take that first swing with a sledge hammer and officially "start".  Therefore, he scheduled our huge house renovation to start tomorrow, a Tuesday.  But then one of his sub-contractors had a scheduling conflict and in order to keep our project on schedule, he agreed to start the project today, a Monday.

This morning started out beautifully.  It was unseasonably cool, which was welcomed by the framers who had arrived at our house at 7:30 this morning, because they were going to spend the day in the sun ripping off the roof on the back end of our house.  But even more important to a bunch of guys who were literally going to open up our house to the sky, the forecast called for only a 10% chance of shower later in the day. After double-checking the forecast, our contractor gave the go-ahead to start pulling off the roof.  Despite being a Monday.

By the time I arrived home from work, the sun had been covered by clouds and we had already experienced a heavy shower.  I was relieved to see a gigantic tarp over what used to be our roof.  The kids and I sat down to dinner when it started to rain again.  I didn't think anything of the weather until it sounded like it was raining inside the house.  Uh oh.  I peaked through the slit in the plastic sheet dividing the demolition zone from the untouched part of our house.  Water was pouring through holes in the tarp onto what was now saturated fiber boards that our contractor had laid down to protect the hardwood floors.

The 10% chance of showered turned into hours of rain.  Yet every time I looked out the window, I could see blue sky in the distance.  It seemed like a rain cloud was sitting directly over our exposed house.  In a last-ditch effort to try to contain the water, I put trash bag-lined buckets underneath the streams flowing through the tarp.

Never start a project on a Monday, I thought.

Catching Up on May and June

Sometime in mid-May, I finally felt confident that summer had arrived in Minnesota.  Being outside in shorts and a tank top felt marvelous, even when the humid air left my hair a frizzy mess and dirt stuck to my sweaty skin as I hauled mulch, turned over garden beds and dug holes for new shrubs.  The rest of May was devoted to bringing life and color back to our yard and on the last evening of the long Memorial Day weekend, I sat on the front stoop, tired from days spent in the sun, and watched the kids ride up and down the sidewalk on their bikes and wondered, had winter really been that bad? 

Spring brought a number of firsts for the season - outdoor swimming, park playdates, attempts at getting back into running form, mosquito bites, bike rides down to the river to splash in the fountains, the farmer's market, ice cream at Grand Old Creamery and adult rec league softball games.  As spring quickly gave way to summer, we settled into a new routine that involves going to bed way too late since the sun isn't setting until after 9:00 p.m. and letting housework slide since we'd rather be outside instead of staying on top of laundry and dishes.

As is always the case, summer weekends are so precious and few that they fill up fast.  At the beginning of the summer, Chris and I looked at our calendars to see if there was a weekend night we could take advantage of Andy and Danielle's offer to watch the kids so we could get out of town just the two of us.  We didn't find one weekend that would work!  We conceded defeat and asked Andy and Danielle if we could take a rain check for the fall.  

But then again, we have an unusually busy summer and the craziness hasn't even fully gotten underway.  Renovation of our house starts in mid-July and by the time the contractors finish sometime in the fall, we'll have a brand-new master bedroom with walk-in closet and master bath, laundry on the first level and a mudroom.  But until we get the finished product, we're going to see the roof and ceilings torn off the back half of our house and we'll end up bunking with the kids for part of the renovation.

We also have an au pair arriving from Germany at the end of the summer.  He (yes, he!) has agreed to come to Minnesota and be our au pair.  More so than simply being willing to sign up for a winter in Minnesota, he was undeterred about our unknown adoption timeline and knows that when he arrives our house will be a construction zone.  We were ecstatic when he said yes and are looking forward to his arrival.