Out with the old (porch) and in with the new!!

Things inside are still coming along.  The drywall continues to go up.  It is such a huge job and the guys are working constantly!  Outside things are starting to pick up!  The front porch project is underway and moving quickly!  We are having to use a different entrance because the old porch is gone!  So exciting!  The posts are wooden and wrapped with cedar and then painted and sealed at the shop and then will have minor touch ups done after the entire porch is complete.  This will make it a lot easier to finish rather than painting it all at the end.

  

 Here the first post is going up!  It was quite a chore to get it up there.  Each post is 16ft long and is very very heavy.  

 

 

Here is a view from the top of the stairs that lead down to the bunker.  We will have 6 posts across the front like the original structure.

 2 posts up!  And as you can see the front porch is gone!  It now sits out in the yard!

 Another angle of the missing front porch.  The area looks so much bigger and it will be great to have a huge porch across the front!

 The lonely front door with lower entrance below.

 As you can see in this picture, we will have 2 posts flanking the front door and the front stairs will be the entire length between those 2 posts.  I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but I can already picture decorating the front porch for Christmas!  It will be beautiful!

Slowly moving forward!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post but you can only get excited about drywall pictures a few times before you are over it! lol  Work still continues at the house, it's just nothing too exciting.  The plumbers are still working, the electricians are still working, and the drywall is still going up!  These are all great things, but nothing to take pictures of really! But new, more exciting things are just around the corner!  The excavating for the garage is getting started - they had to wait until the electric company came by and relocated the overhead electrical lines to underground and that is happening today!  Also the front porch project is about to get started!  I am SO excited about the porch!  It will really look amazing when it is finished.  It all will, but the idea of it looking like it did back in 1867 is pretty cool.  Our cabinet sample is finished and I love how it turned out as well!

 

 This is the location of the garage.  The back of the garage will be even with the back of the house.  The driveway will come straight out and meet up with the circle drive in the front of the house.  The light pole on the left of the picture and the overhead wires will be in the way, not to mention aren't very appealing to look at! 

 Today the guys from OGE came to bury the lines!

If you remember from previous pictures, the stairs in the back were about 6-8ft away from the side of the house.  This is where the garage will be so the stairs had to be moved.

 

The stairs consisted of HUGE stones and we wanted to keep them so Spencer and his team made new stairs out of concrete and then are placing the old stone steps on top.  They will look like they have been there all along.  We need the stairs there because there will be a narrow (6ft wide) walkway between the house and the side of the garage and this will be the path from the front of the house to the back, and also access from the garage down to the back door.

 

 This is what our porch will look like!  We will have 6 square columns and a wooden porch that extends the entire front of the house.  Well, almost the entire length.  Remember there is a bunker area that leads to the basement level.  This will be under the porch so we have to shorten the porch a little so you can walk down the stairs without having to duck or hit your head.  So from the front of the house the porch will look as it originally did, but from the sides there will be a cut out so you can walk down the stairs on both sides.  Not sure if that makes sense but I will post pics as it takes shape!  We figure that the stairs going down to the bunker area were moved/changed from the original design because the original porch looks to extend the entire way across.  Either that or they ducked down to get to the basement area.

This is a zoomed in picture of the original porch to show the details on the columns that we will duplicate.  The columns and railing will be painted white and the decking you walk on will be stained and sealed.  The windows across the front(and the back) open up like doors so that will be a nice feature to be able to walk out onto the front deck from any room!

Here is our cabinet choice!  It's kinda hard to tell the dimensions on it but it's white with antiqued edges.  This will be on all of the kitchen cabinets, except on the island, which will be stained to match the wood in the house.  These cabinets are also going to be in the master bathroom, laundry room, and basement bathroom.  The upstairs bathroom will have a different cabinet style.

Tile!!

We are slowly getting to the fun part...at least for me!  This week we picked out our cabinets and stains and finishes for them.  I will post a picture when we get a sample in.  We have also chosen our tile flooring for the bathrooms, basement, and laundry room.  Todd(my husband) works for Dal-Tile so we of course will be using their products!  Along with the tile, we have chosen carpet for the two guest bedrooms in the basement.  If you remember, the concrete slab in there, which is perfectly secure and in great condition, is not level, so we will be carpeting those two rooms.  This will not only solve the uneven floor issue but give some warmth down there for our guests.  Dal-Tile is part of the larger company, Mohawk, which is where we will be getting our carpet from.  I love to buy products from such a great company that Todd works for!  The rest of the house will be the original wood floors and will be refinished in the areas that need it.

Here are some sneak peeks of our tile choices!

In the master bath we decided to go with a tumbled marble tile.  It is so beautiful and will give the space a very elegant and inviting look!  We will have a solid surface for the counter but we haven't chosen them yet.

 

  

In the basement, the mudroom, bathroom, living room, and foyer area will all have the same tile(the work out room will have a rubber flooring).  I fell in love with this tile when I saw it.  It kind of looks like wood but also has that great look of tile.  It is going to be perfect for our busy family and I can't wait to see it installed!  The color is called Espresso!  Oh, and the laundry room upstairs will also have this tile.

 

 In the upstairs hall bath we will be going a little less rustic and will have white subway tiles on the walls, from floor to about 4 ft high, and then the flooring will be a black and white octagon tile.  The sink is more of a vintage piece and I think it will all come together nicely.  Oh, and with all the white, there will be a bright color painted on the top half of the walls.  More on paint colors at a later date!

 

 Floor tile.

 

Hall bath sink.  It will have 2 faucets.  The picture below is to show you how the sink will look(although the sink in this picture is the 3rd faucet option).  The underside of the sink will be painted to match the walls, like in this picture.  **Note: this is not the wall color we will be using - although it does look really cute!

 

Outside electrical work and ceiling drywall

Usually by Friday the work week is done and odds and ends are getting finished up before the weekend.  Well, last Friday seemed to be more of a gearing up day for plenty of weekend work!  Outside we have overhead power lines to the house along with a light pole that will be in our driveway area, so we are converting it to underground electricity and removing the light pole.  Spencer Roth started the work by digging a trench to bury the pipes that will hold the wires.  Now OGE(our local electric company) can come in and do their end of the job and then they will remove all of the overhead wires and the light pole.

 These steps will be moved over next to the house because the garage will be right where they currently are. There will be a walk way along the side of the house between the garage and the house and these will be the steps to access that walk way.

 Here is some of the finished electrical work.  There are also some pipes running up the side of the house in the trench that was dug there.


Also on Friday they were getting a lot of the stones and debris from the demolition and filling the cistern with it.  If you remember from an earlier post, we searched the bottom of the cistern and now plan on filling it in with dirt, rocks, etc. and then closing it up for good.  These pictures show a huge piece of concrete, which use to be the top of the cistern cap, carried and dropped into the cistern.  It made a big splash because the hole is filled up with rain water.  I will be so glad when that project is over and that thing is gone for good!

Then, over the weekend, the sheet rock crew came in and really got some work done!  Most the of the walls in the house will be covered with drywall because of the condition of the plaster.  It is too costly, time consuming, and will not benefit us to repair the plaster.  It is damaged in just about every room.  So we are covering all of the walls with drywall.  One upstairs bedroom and then the game room and living room on the main level got a lot of attention and it was a nice surprise to see this morning!

 

These are the pictures from the upstairs bedroom. 

 

 These 2 pictures are in the living room on the mail level.  The ceiling height is still great and it's coming along so quickly!

This is in the game room on the mail level.  I know these ceiling pics probably aren't that interesting, haha, but it is great progress and one step closer to our family living under those ceilings!

Master Bath walls, tub, and faucets

The master bath has quickly taken shape with walls being framed in and the plumbing going in today.  We had to pick our tub and shower faucets so that the plumber could get everything in the right place.  I kind of went back and forth on the idea of a claw foot tub.  It was between that and another type of freestanding tub that sits on a base.  I LOVE the way claw foot tubs look, but the thought of dust bunnies collecting under it bothered me, but in the end we decided to go with one and I think it is going to look great in the house!  

 This is a view from the door into the master bath from the bedroom.  The opening on the left is the closet and it will have a pocket door.  On the other side of that is the shower.

 Here is a view of the closet from the other side of the room.  

 This is the shower.  The shower will have tile up the half wall there and then glass up the rest of the way.  That way the light will pass through the glass into the bathroom and it won't feel as closed off.  This will also allow us to install a seat in the shower on that end.  The shower head and control will be on the wall that backs up to the closet.  You can see 2 shelves will be built in for soaps and shampoo.  There will be a glass door on the shower as well.

 On this side of the closed off fireplace will be the vanity.  The door from the bedroom won't be that large so 2 sinks and cabinets will fit in there nicely.  

 On the other side of the fireplace will be the tub.  It will be centered in the space and will have 2 wall sconces over it, equally spaced on the wall. 

 

This is the tub we chose.  It is a cast iron tub and the claw feet will be finished in an oil rubbed bronze color.

This is the tub faucet, which I fell in love with!  It is so fitting for the house I think!  It will be mounted on the top rim of the tub with exposed plumbing.  It will also be in the oil rubbed bronze color to match the tub and the other faucets in the bathroom.

Drywall going up!

 I first want to say a big thanks to all of the workers over at the house!  I am amazed daily at not only how quickly they are working on things, but how nice and helpful they are when I am over there.  Spencer Roth and his crew have been great to work with, along with the guys from Wofford Electric, in Muskogee, lead by Jack Wofford, and also all of the other people in and out that play an important part in making this whole project come together.  So far this whole process has been really easy and enjoyable and I credit it to all of the people working on our house!  Thanks!!

Ok, back to business! Haha!  

Yesterday we drew out(literally drew on the floor with sidewalk chalk!) the master bath and decided where everything was going to go.  I am a very visual person so this helped me see how it would all work together and I am so excited to see the finished product!  It is kind of an awkward space with a closed off fireplace, 18" stone walls(which can make plumbing and electrical tricky), windows, and a sloped roof, but I think we will fit it all in and it will look great!  The door from the master bedroom to the master bath has also been cut out.  The drywall on the ceilings has gone up on the other side of the house and it's so nice to see the 2 rooms looking more like bedrooms and less like an attic.  This process will continue for several days to get the entire upstairs level completed.


Here are a few different shots  of the new opening from the master bath to the master bedroom.  

 We will be using the existing closet but expanding it because the majority of the closet has been taken up by HVAC.  We will take off the door to the current closet and use a pocket door on the expanded closet to help save space.


 In the master bedroom there isn't much wall space for furniture and because of the old fireplace, one of the 2 main walls isn't really usable for furniture placement, so we have decided to close off the wall to make it a straight even wall.  Unfortunately we are losing a little space due to the new wall, but we feel it is the best solution to accommodate our furniture(or any furniture really unless we wanted twin beds!).

Todd said it could be our "safe room" for bad weather, but we are pretty sure our entire house is a safe room given how long it has been standing and that the walls are 18" thick stone!  And a side note...it's only about 2ft deep so it would be more like a safe "crawl space" rather than a room!


Here are a couple of views of the 2 upstairs bedrooms that have drywall up.

Master Bath and Laundry Room taking shape!

 The work has been nonstop but a lot of it lately is behind the walls stuff.  Electrical, plumbing, gas, etc.  If you remember from earlier posts, we are only restoring 3 of the fireplaces in the house(there were originally a fireplace in every room!) - the living room, dining room, and basement living room.  We will have gas in all of those but only the basement living room fireplace will have the gas logs.  The other 2 will be wood burning but will be able to be converted if we ever want to do that.  Also we will have gas appliances and heating and ac so there are a lot of pipes going in to accommodate all of it.

Upstairs in the 2 bedrooms the closets are getting framed in and wired for lights.  Because there were no closets upstairs we had to add them and decided to do a corner closet with an angled front so it doesn't stick out too much in the room.  I think it will look great when it's done!  The other bedroom has the exact same closet on the other side of the wall.

The room that we are turning into the laundry room and master bathroom has started to look like 2 rooms instead of 1.  You will see in the pictures that the wood floors are covered with a new plywood of sorts and that is because of 3 reasons...first the floors were in pretty bad shape and needed a lot of work to not only be repaired but also leveled, second they were covered with lead paint, and third they are going to be covered in tile.  We hated to cover up the original wood floors there but given all of the issues and decisions going into it we feel that this is what was needed to be done.

 In this picture you are standing at the door from the hallway looking into the laundry room.  It will not have any windows but I don't plan on spending much time in there. ;-)

 This view is looking into the master bath with your back to the front of the house(where the windows are).  That pink door leads to the closet, but since the HVAC is taking up most of the closet we will have to reconfigure it so that will most likely be moved.  

 In this view I am standing in the same spot but turned to the right.  This area in front of the window will be the toilet room - don't worry we will be installing window treatments!  There will be a door on that room but it hasn't been framed in yet.

Here is a nice picture to end the post with.  These are on the neighbors property(which is for SALE if anyone wants to be our neighbors!!) and they are purple and gold(LSU colors!) so I will take that as a good sign!