It has been a while since I've posted! I'm not going to update the pictures but I will add our for-sale realtor's address in: http://www.gatewaycityrealty.com/properties/brown.html

Let it sell, let it sell, let it sell... ;)

Sorry about the sideways pictures! Here is the new closet-sized pantry in the kitchen beside the stairway into the addition. The old pantry room is going to become an "office/future master bath" since we didn't have time to make it into a master bath ourselves. This picture shows the wall color, completed kitchen floor, as well as the completed countertops, the new cabinet hardware, and the new sink (okay, so you can't really see that). It looks GREAT!
This picture shows a mid-way point of construction on the old pantry room. It now has a door on it, more electrical outlets were run to the walls and the wall has been refinished, it has a new light with an actual wall switch, and in the back you see the door to the water heater/pump room.

The front landing and stairs...nearly finished.
The front side of the house, with both stairs and the deck in back.

And here is the back deck. Looks awesome!

Getting ready for the siding... Starting the siding...
And the fabulous-looking finished product.
Thanks to our friends, Ken and Aaron Kiffer, Chris and Mylin Barry, and Hans Hjort for helping Creighton and Britton with this job!

The cabinets were paited white and the counters are a beautiful black granite look.

Well, a great deal of work has been completed since last I posted! I'm sure I'll miss some of what was done between posts, but here are some of the most recent updates...
These are pictures of the kitchen and its new ceiling, recessed lighting, and new walls.

SUCH an improvement!

These are some left-to-right shots of the addition with some furniture in it. They probably won't come up on the screen in order, though! A picture of the dining area (left), center of the room (with the stove), and living area (right) housing my big furniture and STILL with plenty of room to run and play for the kids.

A picture of the flooring, the painted walls and trim, and Creighton and Britton texturing the walls and ceiling --forgot to add it earlier. Doesn't that look great?!

Well, it has been quite a while since I've added pictures to our blog! Here are pictures from the previous months' work: A picture of Emma hammering the drywall corner...she did an amazing job, though we didn't need a nail in EVERY hole!
Creighton (Britton's brother) helping putting down the underlayment. And a picture showing the walls primed and underlayment down on the floor!

November 29th and 30th: Wednesday ended up being a bit of a snow-day for us, as our homestudy writer was stuck in Juneau due to the weather and wouldn't arrive till Friday. So, we took our chance to play in the snow and relax a bit.
Catherine ran the wiring and insulated the new 3rd bedroom wall, then Thursday evening Britton and I filled up the truck for our dump-run and cleaned up a bit in the addition. Talk about saw dust and drywall dust everywhere!

November 28th: Britton and I finished framing the walls that are separating our current living room into a hallway and 3rd bedroom. We'll be leaving the door open for now and using the smaller space as our new mini-living room untill the addition is finished. Above you can see the electrical boxes in place and the back side of the drywall. Today (the 29th) needs to be atleast somewhat of a cleaning day with our homestudy visit tomorrow (Thursday, the 30th), so we'll see how far we get with the wiring, insulation, and inner drywall before then.
Above you can see the framing completed and the sawdust mess I clean nearly every day! It is worth it for the work we're accomplishing. Soon we'll have a very nice living and dining area with a third bedroom to boot!
Here is the framing, showing the door and the new hallway, as well as the drilled holes for our wiring to run through. Time to rearrange the living room contents! Our house is quite disheveled with all the changes.
And lastly, the hallway with the new drywall in place. We aren't going to bother with trying to mud and tape by Thursday, we'd rather get the wall completed with drywall on both sides and some electrical (Maybe even lighting?) first. We are sure making progress!

November 27th: We marked the 3rd bedroom wall layout on the floor of our current living room. For now, it'll still be used as a living room untill the addition's interior is finished. Look at the lovely "matching" flooring under that carpet and pad! LOL

Here is the start of the first wall and the placement of the door. The bedroom's closet will be where you see the piano, on the far left outside wall and the current front door will become the back door with a hallway through the bedrooms.

Emma loves to "help" us build!

Britton completed the lights and electrical just before Thanksgiving, and Mark Shaw came out Friday evening to help him actually hook them up. They look great!

Then over the Thanksgiving weekend we started the work on removing the once-exterior wall that devided the exhisting house from the addition. There it is lying on the floor of the addition! Boy does it open up the kitchen.
In the words of Britton, "Now we're committed!"
The pictures, once again, didn't load in order despite my efforts. ;) Here is the "before" picture of the wall, as we started stripping it down to the bones. We'll also be tearing down the suspended, false ceiling in the kitchen and replacing the lights with recessed lighting there as well...though that may have to wait for another week.

Lastly, here is a picture of the nearly finished ceiling transition between the addition and the kitchen. It looks great! Britton spent a great deal of time and effort trying to get the framing for this section to work and also be level...hard to do when working in a confined space and matching a level wall/ceiling to a not-so-level one. Kudos to Britt!

The new windows are going in!
Look at that beautiful white vinyl... Thanks Otis, Philip, and Britton; they're great!

Here goes the sheathing!
Grandma Marion, Britton, Otis, and Philip all helped to get the wall sheathed (we'd already completed the other side of the house) and to replace windows.
Notice the black, metal-clad windows. Half of their seals were broken, some of the windows themselves were broken, and because they were metal, they sweat like crazy.

Philip, Catherine's brother, requested a "siding party" while he and his family were in town...as we started removing the old siding, we realized that wasn't going to happen!


How do you like this "exterior wall sheathing?" No wonder the living room walls seemed so cold! There were large holes, as you can see, and much of the ship-lap wasn't actually "lapped" either.

This is the wall of the exhisting living room under floor level. OY!