Monday, November 17, 2008

the state of the house, part IV

I've tried getting new pictures to post a couple of time but I always seem to think to visit when the worst possible lighting for photography is present.

Every time I go by the house for whatever reason Kate and Allison always exclaim, "Our house! It's all fixed!!!"
"No, girls, there is still a lot of work to do."
"Well, it will be all fixed tomorrow then."

A new porch and wider walkway were planned and we decided to just replace the whole driveway as well. It had several huge cracks and it looks nicer to have everything match. This was done last week--I think it looks cool. And just as cool is the fact that our weird shaped driveway, which was wider at the top and narrower near the sidewalk, which meant we couldn't park two cars there and/or one car effectively blocked the whole garage, has been widened to now accommodate two cars. Brilliant!

I don't think the color of the comes out well here. It's kinda brownish and greyish, made to look like stone though it's colored concrete.



The new roof is done (I think). These photos were taken on sunday so I think today the rest of the wood siding was finished. John and a friend spent all day sunday at the house, in the attic, under the house, re-wiring the whole place for phone, internet, and cable and bringing those to each bedroom. We don't intend to use these in each room but John thought it would be better for resale this way.

He also worked on the wiring for the sound system/TV he is planning for the living room. He was thinking about his theoretical new TV as far back as when we were first talking about plans with our architect. He wanted to make sure the long wall in the new living room was properly reinforced to accommodate a large flat screen. She designed a wall there so strong that he could hang as big and heavy a TV as he could possibly imagine, she told him. This was a challenge John didn't need.

The plans for this week include beginning exterior painting and finally some (visible) progress for the interior...drywalling. I don't have any interior pics to show you because there is really nothing new to see. It's still just frame and subfloor in there. And dust. Lots and lots of dust.

2 comments:

Trish said...

Hugh told me the other day, "If there is an earthquake, get as close as possible to the wall holding the TV. It is the strongest wall in the house." He was not joking. I feel you on that TV-reinforced-wall thing.

Good luck!!!

Trish

nb said...

We also did "structured cable" (phone, cat5 + cable) (only to find that cat5 is now obsolete), in several places in each room to give options for placing computers or other Internet "appliances" without cables crossing doorways. Sure wish John were on the job, 'cause it turned out to cost a small fortune to pay an electrician to do it!

AWESOME driveway. Way better than standard boring poured concrete.