The Kitchen Walls are Up

The sheetrock was put up in the kitchen last week and the spackling started. They also completed the other half wall/book case between the fireplace room and the new room. The new siding arrived and so did the new kitchen cabinets.

The new siding is now in the backyard. They may start to put this on the house next week.


Our garage is full of the new kitchen cabinets. They expect to install them next week after they finish spackling the sheet rock in the kitchen


The kitchen now has walls


A new sliding pocket door was installed between the kitchen and the living room

They also installed pocket doors leading into the living room in the front part of the new kitchen

Now both half walls/book cases are installed and the columns are complete

Here is what the bookcases look like from the other side

The Temporary Wall is Down

This past week saw the removal of the temporary wall. Now we can really start to see how the new room will fit in with the existing house. They also continued work on the kitchen - finishing the wiring, lighting and miscellaneous framing. The insulation is back in the exterior walls of the kitchen and the sheet rock will be added next week.

Our cabinets are also meant to arrive next week so once the sheet rock is complete the hanging of the cabinets will commence. Here are some updated pictures:

Standing by the fireplace looking towards the front of the house:


Standing by the new bay window in front of the house looking through the kitchen to the new room:


In the following picture you can see the half wall on the right side that will separate the fireplace room from the new room. A similar half wall will be built on the left side


Standing in the new room looking back towards the dining area. Here you can see the other side of the half wall:




A closer picture of the half wall and the column with some ideas on molding around the column for us to think about over the weekend:

A closer picture of the book case on the half wall:

More Progress on the Kitchen

There was lots more progress on the kitchen this past week in preparation for the cabinets which are meant to be delivered to the warehouse next week (March 10th to be exact). In addition Leslie and I (and three relatively patient little kids) spent consider hours shopping for new appliances. We have nearly decided. Who knew there were so many different options.

The new heating and cooling unit was installed in the attic and new vents were installed in the ceiling of each of the upstairs rooms. The upstairs of the house is now being heated by the new unit. The old floor vents have been disconnected from the downstairs unit.


The remaining windows were installed in our master bedroom and the trim around all the bedroom windows was also installed.

Additional framing, wiring, and lighting was installed in the kitchen. They also reduced the size of the heating and cooling ducts (seen in the top left of the picture below) since it no longer needs to feed the upstairs.

The wall between the kitchen and the old family room was removed and replaced with the framing you see below. This is where the bar area will eventually be.

And finally, the new bay window/window seat was installed in the front of the house.

No More Kitchen

A lot was done this past week. The kitchen is now completely gone. Installation of the new heating and cooling unit in the attic is planned for this weekend.

This is what our living room currently looks like - the sheet is covering the entry into the old dining room.


The kitchen removal in progress - they removed most of the stuff through the front window.


A picture from the old dining room - looking in the kitchen during the work.


Some colors Leslie is trying out in the new room - I dont think any of these were liked so an attempt at a blue color is next

New windows installed over the fireplace to bring some light into what will become the eating area.

This is what our temporary kitchen looks like

Picture taken from the fireplace looking into the old kitchen - not much is left - just a big (or not so big) open space

The new wall built between the old dining room and the living room - there will eventually be a sliding door in the opening.

The front corner of the old dining room - window looking towards the street

Standing in the front corner of the house looking back into the kitchen

Looking back towards where the sink and stove used to be. The sink is actually shifting towards the front of the house a few feet compared to where the sink used to be. They installed a new window that will eventually be over the sink - bigger than the old window we had and moved a few feet towards the front of the house.

Doors Installed

Its been two weeks since the last post so I wanted to give everyone an update. The sheet rocking is complete and some of the finishing work is now being completed in the new room and basement. Two doors were installed in the basement (one leading to the bilco doors and one leading to the old part of the basement which we plan to use for storage). The hardware on the french doors leading into the new room has also been installed.

The trim is partially completed in the basement and all the electric and lighting is now installed in both the new room and the basement. Since none of these updates make for particularly exciting pictures - there are no pictures with this post.

Later this week the demolition of the kitchen is expected to start and next weekend they will begin to install the new heating and air conditioning unit in the attic. This new unit will serve the upstairs of the house and the existing unit will serve the downstairs (including the new room and basement).

The Sheet Rock Is Installed

They sheet rocked the new room and the basement this past week. They also put on the first coat of tape and spackle. They still need to apply another coat of spackle and do the final sanding early next week.

The basement - looking towards the back of the house. The stairs on the left lead to the Bilco doors.


The basement again - stairs leading towards the Bilco doors.


The basement - looking back at the old basement - stairs in the background leading up to the kitchen.


In the basement - picture taken from the bottom of the kitchen stairs. Looking through the new hallway in the old basement - towards the new basement.

The beam in the new room - will be covered with wood eventually

The new room - looking back towards the house. The temporary wall and yellow insulation is still up.

The new room, - looking towards the back of the house

The Giants are Superbowl Champions! ! !

The Giants won the superbowl and lots of things happened last week.

The windows arrived and were installed in the addition:

Insulation was added to the addition and the new basement. A cabinet to conceal the sump pump was built in the corner:

They removed the sheet rock in our bedroom so they could install the new windows. As a result you were able to see into the new room from our bedroom (only temporarily):

Another picture of the new room (from our bedroom):

A picture from in the new room looking back at the house (you can see right into the bedroom at the top of the picture):


The new windows being installed in the bedroom:

Sheet rock is now back on the walls in the bedroom. They still need to cut out two bigger windows on either side of the three new windows they added: