Insulation Station!

Who knew how incredibly fast the insulators would work?? Not me!

Welcome home - to a hazmat situation!
Apparently it is not good to expose your
skin or lungs to spray foam insulation....

On Friday around 12 noon I went to the house with a wonderful friend, Tanya, who drove in from Iowa. I gave her the exterior tour because it was clear the door was blocked by plastic sheeting. I tried to open the door & shouted hello through it; but the sheeting was taped over the door! Thankfully, this gentleman appeared & let us in. It was time for them to break for lunch he told us. Perfect; given how long Tanya had driven, I didn't want her tour to end at the mud pit yard!

Chris' office was almost done when the guys broke for
lunch. All done in the afternoon.

By that time (12 noon on Friday) the insulators had sprayed the foam throughout the 2nd floor! They worked so fast!

Chris & I went back together on Saturday & the insulators had completed the entire 1st floor Friday afternoon! Lickety split I'd say! (how do you spell lickety? lickity? Spell check doesn't like any of it. Hopefully you get my meaning despite any spelling shortcomings :)

Upstairs bathroom will be toasty!

Yahoo! Our bedroom is good to go!

The only other areas that need insulation are the attic, basement & crawlspace under the future family room. Those areas don't get sprayed; they get the old school batting insulation which apparently takes longer to install. They should be done by tomorrow at noon, meaning we'll have the insulation inspected Tuesday afternoon! Zoom! 

I think Willa was quite impressed with our 1st floor
insulation!

I love the old kitchen exhaust fan we kept -
the Air King! Our bedroom is insulated!

Next up? DRYWALL! Eek! We're chugging along!

Bonjour les Portes Françaises

Translation: Hello French Doors!

Clearly I'm having a French kind of day with the post titles. I do love the language - though my great friend who has been a high school French teacher for years would likely wish I had asked her to translate........rather than Google translate :)

Our master bedroom (and the 2nd floor generally) is going to have a good bit more light now that our French doors have been installed.

Either way, here are our new doors:

Someday we will wake up & look out these doors. Hopefully that day is sooner rather than later!

Opening out to the sun porch; envisioning this in the spring
& summer is making my day.

Assuming we leave our bedroom door open,
we will be able to see out of the French doors
from the front of the house!

A fresh, new face!

Ta da! Our house finally got her makeover, no more black eye look here!

Don't mind the fridge & oven in the 1st floor front window........bit by bit it will become
our living room.

We love our new windows on the 2nd & 3rd floors!

Less impressive, but still exciting? The back of the house is coming along! Not pictured; the new window on the west side of the family room which lets in so much light!

Don't mind the plywood....it will be a sliding door
sometime down the line.

We are so happy!

Also, we have passed our 1 year anniversary of putting the offer in on this house (January 4)! I'm so glad that we're finally seeing major progress & changes. How quickly a year can go by!

Happy New Year everyone!

Update, January 5th:
We have the new door & kitchen window installed now!

After:
Whoooo hoooo! New sliding back door - which, looks quite hazardous since the
new back porch hasn't been built yet!

After:
The new kitchen window is on the far right
surrounded by the yellow house wrap
material. That new bit of house was
just outfitted with a new roof too!

December Framing Progress For Real!

Yay! The house smells like lumber because the framers have been building our new walls! Yipee! Hooray! Hurrah!

1st floor bathroom has fresh new studs.

Oh, strange, there is no floor in what used to be
the 1st floor kitchen. Note the giant hole to
Chris' right!

We have a hallway on the 2nd floor! We have a new
(tiny) linen closet that I am creeping out of!

Look at all those new walls! Yahoo! This is a view from the
sunporch to the front of the 2nd floor. Oven is still a
key feature in our future bedroom. You can see the new walls
for our future bathroom and closet on the righthand side.

The giant hole in the floor is a fancy feature
not everyone can have one of those!

The upstairs bedrooms have the closet wall separating them
now! Yay! The look/feel of the 2nd floor is really
taking shape.

The interior window in Chris' office
has been framed! The office is finally
taking shape!