Attic Hallway

Look at the little landing at the top of the third floor stairs!

View from the stairs

Our contractor still needs to build a step to go up to the storage room door.  In the meantime, I put a little rug up there (which I had from my college dorm room days!)  The table was given to us as a wedding gift by Mike's parents.  It fits perfectly in the little spot!

View from the end of the hallway, near the media room door.

We painted the walls the same gray as the foyer and second floor hallway.  We found all of the door hardware pieces we needed for all of the new doors (the doorknobs and we're swapping out most of the brass hinges for brushed nickel).  I'm in the process of getting stuff up on the walls, and will post about that once the contractor finishes the step and we can call it done!

Pulling things together

Back when we refinished the attic into the media room, I think I neglected to mention an interesting construction detail that was under the floorboards up there... luckily, with the opening up of the ceiling in the master bedroom I was able to take better photos to document with!

There are several heavy duty cables that are added support for the sides of the house...

Our guess is that since they put the slate roof right on top of the shake roof (about a hundred years ago), the weight may have been causing bowing sometime after that.  So they added several of these contraptions to help hold things together.  The architects said that everything is sound- so nothing to be concerned about. The county historian had toured the house last summer and said that she's seen this method used on old houses before.

Sheet Rock- Day 4

The doorway between the Master Bedroom and the Master Bath came down...

This was taken on Day 6,
so you get a little preview!

Day 3 photo

The third floor sheet rock is up!  That was only the stairway/hallway, but the odd angles made it a bit tricky!

This is taking longer than I had expected, but at least we're seeing progress each day!

More Electrical Work

The latest status on the electrical is that the electrical panels are installed, the new smoke detector wiring has been run, all switches and outlets have been roughed in, the outlet in our bedroom has been completed.

I just took photos of the new electrical panels.
Here's the basement...














A smaller one was placed in the attic space...

As mentioned here, we took care of the cable wire that was running across the opening to this room.  No more playing jumprope! The ethernet cable is also hooked up, and working great in the media room!

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

As far as the project goes, there is still a bit more electrical work for them to do... we added on running the electric to the garage.  That required Mike digging a trench from the house to the fence (where the pipe then runs under the driveway).  Good thing I had the post about digging that trench- it helped us locate where exactly the pipe ends!

We are also having the electric re-run to the well house.  That pipe already exists, they just need to run new wires through.

Attic Landing

We were super pleased when we came home and saw what they did for the doorway that goes into the new attic space... we were thinking that it was going to be a rather small door on the existing landing between the second & third floors (which has a sloped ceiling due to the roof line).

We thought doorway would go somewhere here

We came home to find out that they had framed out that whole landing, and it feels SO much bigger!

Here's the new view, taken from the same spot as above...

We were happy to see that the hardwood floors reach all the way back to that sill!

Here's the view looking up the steps from the second floor:

There will be a full sized door, and an arched window on that back wall.

There's even enough room to put a chair or little shelf or table on the landing in front of the new wall that will be to the left of the doorway!

Here's the reverse view from where the new window will be...

We thought it was going to be an under-eve, crawl space for storing bins, so it was a huge surprise to see how much space is going to be here!  It's now got me thinking of uses for it other than storage... sitting room? sewing room? library?  Who knows... finishing off this space is like #142 on our list of things we need to do around here!!!!

Enough daydreaming, back to the present... 

Another exciting thing for us was that we got a peek at the original shake roof that was under the existing slate roof.  

They had put a wood frame on top of it to attach the slate:

We love seeing the history of the house and how it was constructed!

So, this was our last great surprise before the rain... 

which was not a great surprise (especially since the roof is not yet on)!

More to come on that!

Break Through- Second & Third Floor!

The dust is now throughout the house, since there are holes everywhere.

Oh well- at least it's progress!

Here's what's going on for the second floor...

Main Hallway Opening

This opening will be into the laundry room

Master Bedroom Opening

This will open into the Master Bath & Closet

They have put the plastic up, but are holding off on braking through on this one.

Here's the progress up on the third floor...

Attic Opening

Looking up from 2nd floor landing

Ugh, these photos remind me of all that wallpaper removal & spackling we did!  

Looking across from between Media Room/Linen Closet doorways

 This was exciting because we got the first peek into the new attic space!

Media Room- Window Safety

The media room is on the third floor, and the windows are quite low to the floor...

I've been having nightmares that the boys will begin wrestling and fall into (and through) the windows.

We quickly decided that for piece of mind we should install window guards on both windows.

Here are the ones we picked:

We selected them for their size (wanted it to be large enough to secure the entire bottom of the window) and also for their emergency open feature.  (Another one of my fears is a house fire).

Mike installed them last weekend, and although they aren't pretty- I feel much better having them!

Window Guard Closed

We showed the boys how to open them by removing the black "key", then pulling the guard up & toward them... stressing this is only to be done in an emergency.

Window Guard swings open for emergencies

I also put one of those emergency window ladders in the storage area right next to the window, and made sure the kids knew how to operate that as well.

Now that our big safety concerns have been addressed, we can rest a little easier when the boys are playing up there.

Behind the Scenes... er... Eaves

We're wrapping up the media room project, and I hope to have a Before/After post ready soon, but in the meantime, here's a peek behind the knee walls.

We had the electrician install lights back there, so we could easily see the labels on the storage tubs.

The light switches for these are right inside the doors on each side.  

I've also typed up a quick reference list to which tubs are on each side.  This will hang under the light switch.

The lights were ones we picked up at Home Depot.  We didn't need anything fancy.

You can also see the outlet that we installed back here- that's for the TV & it's components/accessories.

Here's the front where the cables enter the wall...

Don't mind the debris on the floor- this was right after
Mike cut the opening.

We picked up the little cover/access port at Home Depot or Lowes (after so many trips to each, I forget where we ended up finding this!)

Here it is again from the back, this time with the surge protector all hooked up:

We also re-routed the cable from the DirecTV dish through the eaves- the guy was so happy it was already run when he came to install the new receiver.  

Certainly made for a faster install!

I like that everything is hidden back behind the wall- no more bunches of wires collecting dust under the TV console!

Attic Drywall

Once the insulation was done, we jumped right into sheetrock.

Last Friday morning, the crew showed up with a lift truck and hoisted the sheetrock in through the third floor window.  I wish I got a photo, but was busy getting the kids to school!

About three hours later, we had this...

They came back for taping & spackling on Saturday, Monday and this morning.

And now it really looks like a room up there!

Here are the before/afters for this phase...

Before

In Progress

Before

In Progress

Before (but after the insulation)

In Progress

Here's a shot of how they handled the peak of the room:

 

I think I'm most thrilled with the difference in the hallway... Raising that ceiling made all the difference in the world!

Before

In Progress

So, now we're ready for painting prep!

The flooring is on back order (grrr....) but hopefully it will come in soon!