Part 6: The wall comes down... plus PAINT!

Here is a view of the wall that came down during our remodel.  It is the wall that our front door was on.

These french doors are going to be taken out, and the hole bricked up.  We are moving the refrigerator and some cabinets in it's place so we can demo half of the kitchen wall to make an open concept to our house.

Here's the french doors when it's taken out, studded up, and insulated!

View of the front door- this wall is coming down!

After the wall came down, it was time to start painting- another thing we did ourselves to save money.

Henry helped... a little... haha :)

Wade really did help- he's running the big roller while I'm taking pics.  Henry is "painting" the floor :)

Daddy is doing the "up high" painting.

My job was the trimming- I've got the steady hand :)  So, I took this pic before I did the trim work :)

You can see the bulkhead they had to leave for support from the wall they took down.

Next post:  FLOORING!!!!!

Part 5: Drywall, Friends, Family and a Case of Beer

So, in keeping with last post about saving money- we were able to save a lot of money by 'do-it-yourself"ing the drywall.  When we finished our basement, Ben did it A.L.L.  It was a bare bones basement, and when he was finished, it was his "man-cave" complete with a poker table, bar area, and sectional couch.  (He's still wishing for a big screen TV...)

Anyway, so when we brainstormed ideas of how to save money, drywalling was a no-brainer.

Ben called up some of his buddies (Adam and Adam) to help.  My dad came over to lend a hand- he's no stranger to drywall either.  He's pretty good at it, actually.  My uncles came over for a bit too.

So, with a couple cases of beer, some drywall, and good company... the drywalling begins:

My grandpa Knarr always said "Measure twice, cut once."  

Wade lending my dad a hand.

This is my CLOSET!!!!

Tomorrow:  The wall comes down! :)

Part 4: Manual Labor

So, when I told Ben I wanted to do some of the labor ourselves to save money, this is how he responded:

Haha, no not really.  He was very supportive (and that's good seeing that HE would be the one doing most of the work!)  I've got a great husband :)

Here he is demo-ing the brick on the existing house so the wall can be torn down.  It was a slow process... Ben and I worked on it for about 2 hours one day... and got NO WHERE.  The next day, Ben's sister Jennie plus Walt came over to visit.  After visiting, they left, got about 10 minutes down the road, and Walt convinced Jennie to come back so he could help Ben with the brick demo... boy was I thankful!  

Post brick demo :

M.U.D.

I'm not sure what Ben has in his hands.  I don't ask too many questions for fear he'd make me do it!

Our new master bathroom... 

New master bedroom

Master closet.  It's kinda hard to see because you can see right through to the living room...

More cost cutting by hanging our own insulation.  

Double window in the entry way:

French doors leading to a deck:

Existing house wall- soon to be torn down!  YAY!

Tomorrow: Drywall, Friends, Family and a case of beer :)

Part 3: The Walls!

It's amazing how you can leave for work in the morning and come back to this:

The walls built and Typar'd...

A look down our front porch.

Notice the mud on the soon-to-be porch.  That's the stuff I'm talking about in Part 1 of this addition blog series.  MUD... it was overtaking my life... It was like a 3rd child... cleaning up after it all the time!!

This deck will be pulled off soon.

Tomorrow - Part 4: The manual labor :)

House Addition - Part 2: Foundation :)

So, after all the earth was moved... the porch torn off... the landscaping dug up, it was time to set roots :)

Our current house has a full walk out basement underneath.  We didn't want to spend the extra money to bust out a basement wall to allow for the addition to have a basement, so we settled on crawl space.

This picture is of the footers for the porch - Ben's pride and joy :)

Laying some blocks for the crawl space.  At this point, Wade was convinced he was getting a swimming pool built instead of a house addition :)

Ben's mom and dad stopped by to give us the thumbs up.  :)

Coming up tomorrow:  WALLS!

House addition... part 1... earth work

So, about a year ago, Ben and I started talking about adding on to our house.  Let my first, start by saying that I love my house.  It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, cozy (nice word for SMALL!) kitchen, walk out basement ranch style house.  L.O.V.E.  except... that it really is too small for our growing family.  If you ask Ben, he wants 12 kids... if you ask me, 4 would be perfect.  And, 4 kids, just won't fit into 2 bedrooms, when 1 of those bedrooms is mine.  :)

So, we started talking about it, and around September, I started making some phone calls.  We started getting people lined up to give us bids on how much the addition would cost.  We settled on Scheibler Design and Build - owned by Rusty and Travis Scheibler.  I went to school from 1st through High School with Travis' wife, Natalie, so we were very comfortable giving them our business.

Almost exactly 1 year later, and there are NO regrets, we LOVE every last detail of our new addition.

So, let me walk you through our journey:  (I must tell you, I've been wanting to do this post for a while, but all the pics just kept stifling me... so I'll do it in bits)

The before pics:  They broke earth around mid-Nov.  

This one is where the new addition will sit.

Our new septic... isn't that lovely... :-/  Such a disgusting thing costs SO much money!

Luckily, Ben's brother owns Schutte Excavating, so they were the ones who did all the earth work.

I should tell you,that by now I was SICK of the mud... and was cleaning my floors EVERYDAY- and let me tell you- that gets O.L.D.!!!!

Brad, Ben's brother, cutting away at our existing porch.

This was the view from my former front door... 

Part 2 will be tomorrow!  Stay tuned!