Remodel Day 16 - 2/16/2010

Rain, rain go away. I don't have a new post today. No work. Yuck.

Remodel Day 15 - 2/15/2010

Today's work is hard to explain. This is a picture of the new tankless water heater. I couldn't get closer to get a better picture. So I've added some colored brackets to the picture to explain.


The red bracket shows the size of the old water heater. It stands about 6 feet tall. The green bracket shows the new tankless water heater. It is about 3 feet high and is anchored to the wall. This is supposed to solve all of our problems. Supposedly we will have it officially hooked up next week.

Remodel Day 14 - 2/14/2010

Happy Valentine's Day!

Nothing exciting today except that the rebar work continues. It seems that the vertical bars are being added today. Not very exciting, sorry.

Remodel Day 11 - 2/11/2010

IT'S REBAR TIME!!!

See those metal bars inside the wooden forms? That's the rebar. It's like a skeleton inside the foundation. Cement will be poured into the forms and the foundation will be created with the rebar reinforcing it.

Ok - maybe I've overreacted a little. But each step in the foundation takes me one step closer to a new kitchen. A much anticipated new kitchen. I might have mentioned that once or twice to my friends. And they are sick of me talking about it. Sorry friends. I'll stop talking about it soon.......I hope.

Remodel Day 10 - 2/10/2010

I'm starting to be able to see the addition to the front of the house. I am not good at picturing things unless I see them right in front of me. I guess that's not really picturing things....huh? It's just looking at things.

Tom is the idea man on this remodel. He can visualize what he wants and can look at an architectural plan and see whether or not it works. I can't. As I mentioned earlier - I will stick to my strong suit and focus on Excel and managing the remodel costs.

Here is the progress they made today on the forms. You can see where the new entrance will be. It's to the left of the old door.

We also discussed putting in a tankless water heater. This will be a dream come true. With six of us in the house, we always run out of hot water. We told the contractor to consider that we will soon have three teenage girls in our house. And we asked him to base his recommendation on that. He answered immediately without any hesitation, and told us to forget about the tankless heater ......and get a shotgun instead. Hysterical. A contractor AND a comedian. Awesome.

Remodel Day 9 - 2/9/2010

The addition continues. Here are the "forms" for the foundation for the addition. This is where the new dining room will be. Which is exciting, because we've never had a dining room, just a breakfast nook. Which we outgrew pretty quickly. We went from a married couple to a family of 5 in 4 years. We don't play. Just try to fit 3 high chairs in a breakfast nook. Ain't gonna happen.

OK, back to the remodel . These "forms" are kind of like a mold. Metal bars (called rebar - see previous post) are placed inside the mold and form something like a skeleton and then concrete is poured into the form. That creates the foundation.

Are you impressed that I figured that out? OK, I didn't really figure it out. Our contractor Rob explained it to me. But admit it, you were impressed for a minute. Right? Awwww.....c'mon, you were right? Just a little?

Remodel Day 8 - 2/8/2010

Today the main water line to the house was replaced. It was galvanized pipe and I guess that's not so good. It turns out the old pipe was totally clogged and was only about 1/2 the diameter that it should be.








Here's the new copper pipe they are replacing it with. The remodelling surprises continue.

Remodel Day 7 - 2/7/2010

The work today involved laying the foundation for the addition to the front of the house. We are adding in front instead of in the backyard. Since we don't really have a backyard......thanks to the tiny plots in Burbank....but we do have a pool.....so I'll stop complaining. So anyway, here is the "form" that is being used to create the foundation. Or something like that.

But .....and there is always a but when you start remodelling, we learned something interesting today. As I said earlier, we are adding to the front of the house. Burbank code says the house must be set back 25 feet back from the property line (the line that distinguishes what you own versus what is owned by the town). Most of the time the property line is the sidewalk. But we have come to find out that is not always the case. It turns out we live on a crooked street. The property line for our house actually extends into our front yard. So in layman's terms the town of Burbank owns the first 13" of our lawn. Whoda thunk it? It's confusing. I'm still confused. I had to have Tom help me write this - it's clear as a bell to him. Not so much for me.

The plan came back from the city and now we have to reduce the addition by 13 to 14 inches. Tom worked with the contractors and figured out how to take a few inches out of each closet so that the bedrooms won't be affected. But apparently the kitchen will still lose about a foot. It's a big space so hopefully it won't be too noticeable. Cross your fingers. I need a nap. Just writing this made me tired.

Remodel Day 5 - 2/5/2010

No work today. But materials were delivered, so work can begin again on Monday. Work as in the "rebar" work. I don't really know what that means. But I like saying it. It makes it seem like I somewhat understand what is going on with the remodel......which I really don't......at least not right now. Ask me about Excel and I could talk your head off.

So......in order to educate myself I looked up "rebar" on Wikipedia. At least that's what Emily thought I should do. Here's what it said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebar

So there. Now I know what "rebar" means. And hopefully so do you.

Remodel Day 4 - 2/4/2010

No work today. The company that picks up and empties the dumpster could not empty out the dumpster today. So the workers could not continue to dig. Because there was no where to dump the dirt.

So......no work today. The delays begin.

Remodel Day 3 - 2/3/2010

More of the same today. Except Emily and I went out to explore the port-a-potty. Aptly named the "pork-a-potty" by our neighbor Justin. I guess it was a slow news day.

My friend Jane commented that the front of the house now looks like we are building a moat. So we decided to have the drawbridge and alligators delivered in the morning to keep the theme going.

But seriously - check out the pink string line. That shows the addition to the house. We'll finally have a dining room AND a real live kitchen!!

Remodel Day 2 - 2/2/2010

The demolition continues. Emily is surprisingly the one having the hardest time with this. I thought she'd be the happiest, especially since she will now have her own room. But instead she is going around the house filming the way it is now so she can remember it.

She even kept some of the rubble from the walkway and

porch. Go figure.

Remodel Day 1 - 2/1/2010

It's surreal to believe it's finally here. After 12 years of complaining about my kitchen we are beginning our remodel.

Today is demolition day. The front of the house where we are extending the house is being prepared. I don't really know what that means. They are getting rid of the front walkway, bushes and porch and getting ready to put in the foundation for the addition. Or something like that. I should get Rob our contractor to write this part.

All I know is it is FINALLY STARTING!!!! WOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!