Bringing our 1936 home into the 21st Century

“[T]his old one” is the old 120 power box that was on the outside of the west side of the house and had been dangling (see photo below) in the newly expanded kitchen and bathroom. An electrician from a subcontracted electric company was charged with removing the old power box and reconfiguring the new power…

At this stage, it can be hard to see what our new reality might be like except in our imagination. Today, our new kitchen windows were installed in the addition and even when tarped over to protect the unroofed and un-sided new area, we see what kind of light might flood the kitchen! Here are…

This week concludes four weeks of the renovation and the end of the semester at my University. The latter meant week four of our reno, for me, was filled with grading papers, final exams, and dealing with student angst when they realized despite months of reminders, that not going to class or doing assignments have some consequences…

As winter ignores May in South Bend, week four begins on the renovation. The snowy rain, freezing temperatures, and wind cut into the finishing of the exterior of the addition, assuming that the team had planned for it today. In the past three weeks, we have essentially moved into a weird “townhouse” portion of our…

Even though she is nearly three years old, Saoirse (Sir-sha) still acts like a puppy–particularly one who desperately seeks affection from nearly anyone. Right now, the cool people are the workers in the house. They are very sweet with her and she loves them. Unfortunately, that love-seeking-missile-Saoirse managed to injure her leg Monday when workers…

The kitchen is about 80% gutted, including the soffits that I despise, which revealed yet another failure that we expected, but is nonetheless a serious drag: the master bathroom toilet is leaking into the kitchen. That means we can’t use the only toilet on the second floor until that room is finished–likely not for many…

The early cool feeling has transitioned to the super disgusting, and will likely continue in this mode for a while; but it had to be done! We knew the plumbing to the kitchen and bathrooms were, at 77 years old, failing and had to be replaced. Both the kitchen and the bathrooms had been DIY-renovated…

The day started only a few hours after Dan went to sleep, finishing up emptying the kitchen. At about 7:30 a.m., the builders came to finish framing the addition. Then plumbers arrived with their 350-pound tool to clean out the flooding basement drain. Then the wrecking crew arrived and we started to learn a ton…

We had major progress today including the major framing of the addition installed, a new and updated wifi system, nearly completed power update and almost (so far, we will finish tonight) storing everything we want to keep from our kitchen and powder room. Dan took the day off to pack up the kitchen and keep…