Catch Up!

Sorry about not posting for some time now. Its partially the amount of work and time spent at the reno and being really tired of all things reno by the end of the day. We will try to catch up in the next few weeks. Since the masonry has been completed, we have had the exterior work pretty much completed for now. That includes having all the new windows installed in the old part of the house and the aluminum trim work completed.



Work on the furnace / laundry room is completed. We had the old concrete floor removed, then new drains installed. Following that, we had John Greco come back in with his crew and pour a new concrete floor and create the basement steps from the old basement into the new basement.
The HVAC equipment is installed in the new furnace room and ductwork throughout the house. That was a big job and took some time. We put in a York 96% efficient furnace and a 14.5 seer air conditioner in order to maximize our energy retro-fit grant. Bypass humidifier, media filter and a really cool thermostat round out the install.

Derock Electric has completed the rough in of the new electrical system. The entire house has been re-wired, no more knob and tube anywhere. We also moved our electrical panel and upgraded our service to 200 amps. The house has been pre-wired for an alarm system, computer network, phones, and cable TV.

The guys from HP house framing have done a ton of work for us. All the interior framing is complete including the basement. We had them open up the wall between the living room and dining room and the crowning achievement of a new Velux skylight at the top of the stairs to the upper floor. It is spectacular and we couldn't more more happier with that decision.

Before After
Most recently the exposed interior walls of the basement, first and second floors were spray foamed insulated. We used both open cell and closed cell foam. The company we used was Air Seal Insulators and we managed to achieve R20 on the exterior walls for the entire new addition. Some of the old house walls were also sprayed with closed cell foam where we managed to achieve R13.

Mixed Bag

We have been working on a number of fronts at the Georgian reno. The demolition continues and we are starting to wonder if and when it will ever end. We ripped all the lathe and plaster from the walls leading up to the second floor and all the walls at the top of the stairs. We also took the ceiling down at the upstairs landing. We had always planned on doing this however the job took on additional importance as we would like to add a skylight upstairs. Our framers weren’t convinced we were going to be able to due to structural issues surrounding the engineering of the new roof on top of the old one. Well the good news is that Halim, our framer is now “99 percent sure” that the skylight can be done after taking a look at the situation. We are really happy about this as it is an architectural feature that will really make the house stand out not to mention give us some much needed natural light to both the upstairs landing and the main floor foyer.






Strassburger delivered the balance of the windows this week as well. Rommel will begin installing those soon. He installed the new window to the old main bath last week.

Strassburger also sent their technician to come in and replace two mistakes that they made with the windows in the addition. See if you can spot one of the mistakes.

Joe and Nando Caruso finished the stucco on the box bay window area. Once the caulking is done we will be able to have Frank come over and take all the scaffolding away.

We hired John Greco to come in and do some more concrete work for us. His crew will be breaking the old concrete floor in the furnace and laundry room, installing steps in the bench footing, and once Tony from Tri-Vent Plumbing comes in and puts in the new drains, they will be pouring a brand new concrete floor.

We went shopping and bought our hardwood flooring. Final decision was 2,100 square feet of brazilian cherry, otherwise known as “Jatoba” in a deep dark brown stain. We absolutely love it. The planks are 4 inches wide. It is going to look fantastic, but meanwhile the old flooring all has to come out. Ugh...more demolition!

We have also been shopping for countertops. More on that later…

Still trying to find our aluminum guy so the outside can be finished…

We have decided on our contractor for the HVAC installation. We anticipate our permit to be issued this week and the work will begin in earnest on that front. More on that later as well…