January 24-25, 2011

We've got roof trusses! This post shows the progress on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

Master Bedroom

Upstairs looking out at the family room.

This upstairs area will be Connor's room and a common area with a desk and TV ~ a cozy den.

Master Bedroom ~ we really hope the tree out the window makes it!

The back of the house.

The side view - Master Bedroom.

Another backside view.

The front foyer stairway ~ they will be gorgeous!

Great progress is being made and the framers hope to be done by the end of this week... tomorrow. We will take more photos this weekend. It looks like a "real" house more and more everyday. Yay!

January 17-23, 2011

Last week was soooooo incredibly cold! Carey even witnessed a drill bit shatter and no one could work on Friday due to windchill factors that were well below zero. Oh, the joys of building during a Wisconsin winter! A few pictures of further progress...

This photo shows a bump out that will be in the dining room half of the first floor old stone house. In the 50's a "re-modeler" choose to put a large window in this spot, knocking out the old stone. This bump out is our solution to the "hole" ~ it will be really nice in the space.

Carey on the stair well that runs between the old stone house first and second floors ~ it is on one end of the dining room and meets a landing upstairs right outside of the girls bedrooms.

Upstairs gets a floor and the wall that will be between the girls bedrooms.

The view from upstairs ~ This is over looking the living room.

Looking back at the stone house on the second floor.

Looking out over our master bedroom and at the barn.

And my personal piece of heaven... my studio will be above the garage... I simply CANNOT wait!!

The roof trusses that were scheduled to go up last Friday are finally being put in place as I write this. The roof makes it look so "real" again... just like when the hole was dug and the first walls went up. Our home is being born and it's really, truly exciting.

January 10-16, 2011

This post comes almost a week late as some pretty big issues were discovered over last weekend. So this past week has been stress laden and sleepless as Carey and our builder worked hard to straighten things out and work with the '"charm and challenge" our Old Stone Farm House has presented. These photos are from almost 2 weeks ago now... so much has happened since then. The trusses are already going up today - despite the predicted frigid high of 3 degrees!

Working on interior walls.

This door way used to be the back door and is now the passage way from the first floor of the stone house to the new construction off the back. There will be exposed stone down one hallway ~ love that detail!

Outside looking at the back of the house ~ this is the living room and off to the right is the master bedroom (fire places in both!!)

Looking from the new basement up through the house.

New basement.

This is looking from the new living room down the hall to the door into the old house ~ that door leads to our dining room and kitchen which will be the whole first floor of the old structure.

This will be the stairwell in the foyer.

Looking from the master bedroom...

This opening will be a bump out in the dining room. The stone has been reinforced with steel beams. It all feels like "a can of worms" when working with the old stone but there haven't been any MAJOR issues yet.

We will head out this weekend and take updates shots. I will also be adding a resources list and will start to share our picks as we go. Windows and doors are first on the list....

Happy Weekend! GO PACKERS!

January 3 - 9, 2011

WOW! We actually have building going on... shock and awe. After 4 years of waiting, we have to pinch ourselves when it comes to believing that this project is truly happening...

This angle shows our bedroom - we will have a fireplace on the outside wall.

They GUTTED the whole old stone house this week....

BARE FIRST FLOOR - this is where our kitchen and dining room will be.

Starting to take out the upstairs floor - this is where the kids rooms will be.

Looking out from upstairs... the curve will be the screened porch.

We've got basement walls!

And a sub floor goes in for the first floor addition.

On Saturday we took the girls out to see the progress...

Elle and Sophie

Checking out the master bedroom view.

The stone house is completely gutted - it looks HUGE!

For perspective... Carey in the basement.

After checking it all out some mistakes have been made already - walls aren't tall enough so they will have to be re-done this week. Hopefully it won't hold up progress too much . We are working on door and window picks right now and spent time choosing fireplaces this weekend. So many decisions to make! Will post more updates soon...

Six weeks later...

So, how is it that almost 2 entire months have past since my first post about this project?!? Oh yeah, well... issues with the loan set us back a few weeks (there simply are no "comps" to this property and apparently underwriting has NO idea what to do when that happens) and then a month of solid holiday preparation and celebration and voila - here we are... January 2011!

Here is a little photo journalism to catch you up on the last 6 weeks of activity starting with November...

They started by clearing a few trees (*sob*)

The cistern was dug up. It was below where the summer kitchen once stood.

Good bye back porch!


Putting in the driveway. This photo was taken from where the driveway will enter. The garage will come off at an angle from the old stone house.


On to a few shots from progress made in December after some snow and then artic temps. Not ideal for pouring a foundation but Carey did loads of reasearch and got lots of opinions and it seems all is well...

Finally... FOUNDATION!

There will be an addition straight off the back which will be our family room. Off the two opposite sides will be the garage and our master bedroom.

GARAGE SIDE

The front porch got a new foundation as well.

Another shot of the garage - it shoots off at an angle.

This weekend I will post the huge amount of progress that has happened over this past week. The old stone house has been totally gutted and the new addition basement walls and first floor subfloor were put in. We felt bad all week for the workers - it is soooo cold but we're happy that no more blizzards have plauqed the project.

Happy New Year... a little late! Of course my resolution is to keep up with this blog...

Cheers!