re:roof

we have a new roof!
the roofer had a crew of 8-10 guys working up there today...


...they pulled off all the old shingles and felt...


revealing an old roof in bad shape, so they covered the entire roof in plywood before they put on the new felt & shingles...


yay for a new roof! now we can move on to some interior projects!

re:inforce

soooo...it turns out we have no footings under the existing rear addition. seriously - the combination brick-and-block piers are sitting right on the ground. great! we had a structural engineer out to the house this morning to talk about options for reinforcing the structure so that we can still do the 2nd story addition. there are options (short of tearing down the back of the house and starting over), so that's good. it's going to take some more time and more money to get it taken care of though, so it's under debate...

we have gone back and forth on doing the addition or not, and basically it comes down to the decision of whether we want this house to be a long-term house for us or not. if we can't do the addition, we'll just fix it up and sell it (with only 1 1/2 baths and teeny closets and no room to expand, it wouldn't be a good long-term house). if we do want it to be a long-term house, then we have to commit the time and money to make it so. we're doing lots of fighting - er, talking - about it so we should be moving forward soon. just another hurdle!

re:deem

the past couple weeks we've been working on bringing the house back to the way it was meant to be...

we've been removing aluminum siding:



...revealing some wood siding in really good condition (albeit with probable lead paint):


and also a few boards that will need to be replaced:

and we also took off the metal window awnings:


this weekend we went to a home & remodel show to pick up info on windows, flooring and plumbing fixtures. we're still waiting on pricing from framers, and we need to get a structural engineer to look at the piers & foundation at the existing one-story addition to see if it's even possible for us to do the vertical expansion. but the roofers are starting at the end of this week!

re:evaluate

sorry i haven't updated with the weekend's pictures yet - i haven't had a chance to because monday was anthony's birthday! anyway, just wanted to post something, so we've been meeting with subcontractors to get estimates, and we're anxiously waiting for those to come in. we met with a plumber, a framer, a roofer and two hvac reps. we got the plumber's number and one of the hvac guy's numbers but we're eagerly anticipating the roofer and framer's numbers. keeping our fingers crossed that they're within our budget!

re:paint

so, these are our top two contenders for the exterior colors (both are houses on sullivan's island). we're considering shakes for the upper half of the house, since it has that trim band that breaks it up - but if not we're still considering a two-tone.

so, either a modern white+black...


or a two-tone neutral...


any thoughts? exterior paint is a ways off, but it's fun to think about...

re:veal

demo day 1!
we pulled up the carpet & pad, began stripping wallpaper (revealing some surprises on the walls, much to my dismay), and the kitchen is gone! i like it better already!

bye bye carpet!


stripping wallpaper:




kitchen in progress:
(anthony took care of this one, because it was so gross that i couldn't bear to be in there)
 



kitchen complete:


the dumpster at the end of day 1:

re:treat

day one, and we've gotten the first big expenditure out of the way! mr. pest manager dexter is sending his guys out saturday to start us on termite prevention service, treat the first floor substructure for powder post beetles, remove the wood debris from the crawl space and lay a polyethylene vapor barrier. dexter's hookin' us up.

and without further ado, here are some pics:


*p.s. that tree in the right-of-way between the sidewalk and the street is coming down...it's sick with Formosan termites.



um, yeah...


pecan tree in the backyard:


bye bye funky stair...


and blood red carpet was in style when???...


gross kitchen:


wood paneling is coming back, right? right?


the house of many wallpapers...








weird whitewashed-looking fake wood paneling:



and this makes me happy:


the wood floors under the carpet are in great shape! they just need a good sanding. *phew*
now this blog will get juicy!

re:joice?

we're homeowners (again)! although, i must admit - the place is kinda gross. *think positive* *think positive*

pics to come later tonight.