Renovation Rewind

Our contractor warned us about planning too far ahead. His point is, that with existing houses, particularly old houses, you never know what you're going to find until you open them up. We've all see the remodeling disasters on TV.  And therefore, you can never be confident of a project's budget. Remember that "rather unfortunate" sleeping porch turned bathroom that we are reconfiguring?  Here is the before pic:

10 days later this is what it looks like:

 



 

 What a difference a few days makes! Here is what we have learned about our project:

• First, the old bathroom (and laundry room in the other end) was constructed by cutting through the floor joists to run the plumbing into the area. So today when I went over to meet Chris, our contractor, he walked across said joists and one of them gave (flexed, bent) about oh ... maybe an inch? Yes, that meant the ceiling for our den below gave an inch and the plaster probably cracked down there. Yikes!

• Second, in addition to compromising the structure and stability of the floor, the drain line for the washer ran the full width of the house and it had no pitch - meaning there was no way for gravity to do it's thing. Yikes! 

• Third, the electrical wiring was connected to the old knob and tube wiring.  Chris says either one is fine but never marry the two types! Another yikes!

So we had potential cave-in,  potential flood and potential fire! Yay!

 

Another two days and ... 

 

 

The "potential cave-in" and the "potential fire" issues have caused our contractor to have to work from the top down (in the floor of the bathroom) AND from the bottom up (from the den on the first floor). The result is yet another room that is not usable. 

 

So .... I have mentioned that downsizing, while really, really what we want - is not that simple?  Case in point, we are now down to about 1200 usable square feet in our 2400 square foot house that is 1000 square feet smaller than the one we came from.

 

Unusable den space on the first floor 

 

 

 

It is true that old houses have character! It is!

But, apparently character can be either positive or negative or both.

 

 

Stay tuned for a future post about the roller coaster ride of moving day!