Stairs go all the way up.

When all your workers live at or near your house, you can keep your renovation going! While Lee and I were on vacation, Chris, Easton, and Randy kept up the work at the Pope Residence. They concentrated on the back stairway area. and it was easy to see that a lot got done.

Almost all the drywall is up, and the second set of stairs got completed. You can now get to the second floor from the inside, if you are so inclined (which few of us are; it’s a mess).

Hooray, a bigger landing.

They’re still working on the floor of the upstairs landing area, but what a great surprise it was to find out that they managed to make the area a bit larger. For one thing, since the first course of stairs was taller, there are fewer steps on the second course, so it ends farther from the door. That will give us a little sitting area/balcony kind of deal up there.

A new little window was installed in the stairwell, too. That has made the back part of the house much lighter and brighter. Plus, the windows that were already there now allow light to go all the way down to the first floor.

Bathroom Update

A bathroom ready to go.

Chris decided to put greenboard on all the bathroom walls, to add a bit of sound protection. Some of the walls will be covered with metal, which we are guessing may conduct sound.

Preparation for Flooring

There is a lot of wood waiting to be used. There’s some nice wood that will serve as a stabilizing influence and go under the luxury vinyl tile in the downstairs rooms that don’t have tile or original wood.

And Easton did a great job of getting rid of the bad wood in the main “parlor” room and replacing it with wood from Lee’s office. That’s gonna look so great when it gets cleaned up!

The rest of the wood is all the trim. There is a LOT of trim. It will match what was originally there.

Brick Repair

All bricked up!

Meanwhile, Randy worked on brick. The area in my office with the window into the hallway got bricked up to the height of the wainscoting in the entry hall. And the place in Kathleen’s office that had crumbled now has nice, healthy brick.

Chris says they are going to clean the brick really well, then put on a sealant that will really make the walls look spiffy. Argh, so exciting.

We’re going to keep you updated, of course (and post this info in a couple of other places). It’s fun to see a plan coming together.

Chris thinks about how to best level this back addition.

Since our last installment of Pope Residence updates, there has been a lot going on in the back of the house, as well as important infrastructure work. In fact, so much is going on, I can’t get this article written to share photos with you!

Since our staircase plan got approved, the team has been working to make sure the back addition to the house will be sturdy enough and level enough to make things look right.

No more laundry room, just a wall and a window.

Over the weekend, while Randy is getting close to finishing all the brick repair, Chris and Easton did some impressive house leveling. They also replaced a huge beam that had a lot of rot. I was really impressed that they were able to keep the walls up while doing that. It looked scary, but now looks strong and like it will be at least close to level.

Back of the House Movement

On the other side of the rear of the house, they took down all the siding where the entrance to the former laundry room was and rebuilt it. There is now a window where the door was. The window was salvaged from the room that was torn down, so our commitment to re-using materials is still going well. In fact, when they put the siding back up, they re-used what they had of that, too. We still had to buy a little more wood, but nothing got wasted.

Hooray, door is moved, and so are the stairs!

We have all the material to build the stairs, but first had to move the back door over to the edge of the room, so there will be plenty of stair space.  Easton did a great job making the siding look less awkward where the door moved.

Maybe next week you’ll see new stairs! You may also see more new windows, since we realized we can now add a window to the full bathroom off my office as well as one in the stairwell, to bring in much-needed light. We MIGHT have an old “stained-glass” window to put in the bathroom, if it’s not too broken. That came from the Rattlesnake House way back when and has just been sitting at our house waiting for a good use. Or we might not, so there can be a window that opens.

We Have Plumbing

Office bathroom plumbing.

The past few days have resulted in a flurry of plumbing activity, including new pipes everywhere, so we won’t have iron ones. There was a tree growing right where the sewer pipe came out, too. That is a future nonexistent tree! We don’t want roots in our pipes. All the bathrooms are now ready to get their respective fixtures, which is pretty exciting! To be able to run water will be great. The plumbers will be back later, but the main stuff is done. It gets inspected tomorrow.

We Have Electricity

Light switch!

Another thing that will be great is to be able to flip a switch and get lights to come on. The electricians have been back this week making sure that happens and wiring for all our lights, even TWO front-porch lights. It’s all been inspected, including our new breaker boxes, so all we have to do is disconnect and reconnect to the new service, says Chris. They put up a few temporary fixtures so the workers will be able to see in the house while working on the next phases of the project.

Having these major pieces of infrastructure done is GREAT. All the various subcontractors and our guys supervising the teams are doing a fine job.

Scraping Away

The wood will look much better repainted after getting rid of all the layers.

Those of us who aren’t construction workers haven’t been sitting around doing nothing. Kathleen and her daughter, Nicole, spent a lot of time last weekend scraping paint off the door frames. They found beautiful wood grain and lots of interesting old paint colors, mainly shades of pastel green and blue.

Since I have them, I’m going to include a few more photos of the work done this week, so we can remember where we were, someday when it’s all under control and we are working in our beautiful, climate-controlled offices with great floors, lighting and walls!