As you can see in the pictures, week 13 of the remodel marked a pretty momentous occasion: for the first time, all of us were able to make our way up to the second floor and walk around. Admittedly, we had to climb up an extension ladder to get there—a process some of us were not especially excited about—but it was a real treat to be able to explore the space upstairs and get a tangible sense of what it will be like when the project is complete.

One thing we noticed as we looked around is that the rooms felt smaller than we imagined they would. Counterintuitively, we think this feeling will probably dissipate somewhat as the walls are built up and the rooms are enclosed: it’s hard to get an accurate feeling for the scale of a space when it’s open to the horizon on all sides.

The kids had a great time wandering around, seeing how the rooms fit together; the absence of solid walls provided a unique perspective that won’t be available to us once the project is complete. We kicked around a variety of fanciful ideas, like building a secret door to connect Joe and William’s rooms via their closets, that obviously won’t come to pass, but were fun to contemplate anyway.

Gallery: Week 13: Upstairs

Credits: Julia Neva Wong contributed some of these photos.

We’re still catching up, so here’s another brief update, this one with photos from the twelfth week of our remodel.

As I mentioned in the week 11 post, work on the second floor of the house left the first floor largely open to the elements. Seeing as it’s December in California, the predictable happened in week 12: it rained. This left the house in bit of a state. The living room was a muddy mess, and the hall carpet in our master bedroom was completely sodden: we left squishy footprints in our path when we walked through the hall to see what had changed in the bathroom. By the time we returned the next week, that section of carpet had been removed entirely. It’s becoming very clear that we’re going to be replacing big chunks of flooring materials even in rooms we weren’t expecting to be significantly impacted by construction.

Mess aside, the most exciting change in week 12 was the addition of a bit of subfloor upstairs, so you could climb up a ladder and walk around a bit if you were feeling daring. Julie was the only one brave enough to do so this week, but that would change in the weeks that followed.

Somewhat surprisingly, the crew added what appear to be placeholders for the washer and dryer connections in the laundry room. They’re not actually connected to anything at this point, but we didn’t expect to see anything that looked that finished at this stage of the project.

Gallery: Week 12: Rain

We’re a couple weeks behind at the moment, so we’ll keep our comments on week 11 of our remodel brief. This week seems to have been less focused on new construction and more focused on clearing the way for the next phase of the project.

In particular, the crew spent much of the week removing portions of the existing roof where the second floor will sit. This effort actually went further than we naively thought it would: by the end of the week, the entire living room was open to the sky. This was necessary becuase we’re converting that section of roof from a hip roof to a gable roof. The conversion seems to involve a pretty substantial amount of work; our contractor even jokingly (I think) asked if we were sure about making this change when we met with him mid-week to talk about our options with respect to the fireplace.

We’ll cover the ins and outs of the fireplace decision in the next post, as it took us nearly week to figure out what we wanted to do. But the good news is that it’s finally behind us.

Gallery: Week 11: Open Air

Credits: Julia Neva Wong contributed some of these photos.

The remodel has been proceeding apace as winter approaches: we’ve been lucky in that there haven’t been too many rainy days this far, so there have been few interruptions. In week ten, which was shortened a bit by the Thanksgiving holiday, the biggest change was the installation of beams and other structural supports for the second floor. For example, a massive beam was placed across the center of the living room ceiling where the ceiling joists had been cut; it looks as though this will be the support for the front wall of the upstairs playroom.

One of the more interesting aspects of the new construction (to me, at least) is the means through which two beams which meet at a 90º angle are fastened to one another, as shown in this photo. The solution to this challenge is a metal bracket, called a beam hanger, and a boatload of nails. As is likely evident if you’ve been reading these posts, I don’t know anything about building a house, but I can appreciate the simplicity of a brute-force solution.

Gallery: Week 10: Support

Credits: Julia Neva Wong contributed some of these photos.