Our Home Transformation Reveal! – Our Dream: Final Part

If you’re just joining us, and would like to see the story of our dramatic home transformation, you are welcome to check out the previous parts of the story at the following links:
Part I
Part II
Part III

Some rain came that late afternoon, as the guys hurriedly tried to get the house covered.  Most of the second floor was completed at this point, with the exception of {A}’s room and the stairwell.

The next morning the crew showed up, took the tarps off and got back to work.   They started on the new cathedral ceiling, and the walls and roof of {A}’s room.

As the day wore on, more rain was coming.  The guys got plywood on the new roofs and tar-papered it.  At the end of the work day, they re-tarped the completed second floor.

But the rain came that night, REALLY hard.  A RAIN STORM.  The house was really not sealed in a 100%, with gaps still between plywood and open walls. At one point early in the night, Michael ran over from the beach house we were staying in next door, to see if things were staying protected, and became really overwhelmed with the drips all over the place.  He was putting pots and pans all over the house, trying to catch the water coming in, some of which was even running off the tarps edges.   There was water coming down from behind the moldings of the doorways, gushing down walls,   even filling pockets of water behind the paint of our existing walls.  I called Michael at one point, worried he had been gone so long, and he was literally so discouraged he was about to cry.  He had run ouf containers, and was running low on hope and high on worry. At one point, where it was 1:00 on the morning, and he was on the roof in the rain, trying to adjust the tarps to save our home.  It was one of those situations that really felt like a nightmare, with no one there to help.  I felt SO helpless, having to stay with the kids, and he was there for hours, emptying pots, pans and pitchers only to be filled again.   It was one of those situations where, we know we have always live a very simple, non-materialistic life.  Expanding on our home was the most extravagant thing we had ever done, out of necessity.  We had been living in a home the size of the little beach vacation homes in our neighborhood, and it was enough.  Even once the babies were born, we remained living in such tiny quarters until they were 4 years old! That is when we started this project.  We knew they were going to need bedrooms, so we could have ours back! Even ourt dining room table was at the end of our living room….as there was no dining room and the kitchen was way too small for even a chair. So…..as the rain poured down our existing walls, and even started leaking into on top of the rooms in our basement, we FELT like we were losing even what little we had before we even started construction.  It was a long, devastating night.

By the time the crew showed up the next morning, with Stephen (aka Bob the Builder), the rain had stopped.  What had happened was not their fault.  The weather forecast had not warned of us of THAT much rain, and we all had every reason to believe the house would be protected.  So there was really nothing anyone could do.  The guys continued on with their work, and they promised they would have the house weather-tight, structurally,  for sure by the end of the day. And they did.  But in the course of the day, they had to check for proper venting through the roof, on the front most low ceiling of our house-which was existing.  As they did, the inside ceiling plaster/sheet rock just started falling to the floor.  Turns out the provious owner did a make-shift-do-it-himself job when he possibly enclosed a front porch.  We’re just speculating but, whatever was done, was obviously not done properly, and until that day we had no problem and never knew it.  SOOOO….there was even MORE house inside to be re-d0ne, that we had never planned to be touched.

From there on out, things went smoothly and really quickly.  The sun room was built.

The roofers came.  The roofing company, Falcone Roofing Company,  is owned by Michael’s brother-in-law.  They are real pros, with John (BIL) having high standards of his work and expectations of his crews.  They banged it all out in a day, and even installed 3 skylights.  It was a beautiful, impeccable job done.

As you can see, all of the windows had been installed too.  We were nearing completion.

Now this all may have seemed like forever to you, and it felt that way to us too!!  But the truth of the matter is, ALL of this construction was done in a matter of 15 consecutive work days, excluding Sundays.   We were really amazed with how fast it all happened, as well as the quality of the work.

A couple of  weeks later, after the vinyl siding was installed, it looked like a completely different house…

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BEFORE

AFTER

 

The house looked like it was ready to be moved right into!!  And we did… to plywood floors and insulation, even in rooms that weren’t supposed to be touched at all.     We were doing all of the finishing inside, ourselves.  Sheet-rocking, plastering, flooring, priming and painting, finish trim on windows and doors.  That process happened s l o w l y, and has been going on for 3 years TODAY. To date, the first floor is completely done, (minus the new couch I want, and a few other furniture pieces I dreamed up that Michael can build.)  The upstairs is getting there now.  But we enjoy the process.  The more work we put into our home ourselves, the more we love it.  As you can see….the yard has some real needs too. : )    Soon, we’ll be sharing the building and creations of our gardens over this spring and summer.  There is LOADS of projects to be done all over our homestead….inside and out.  But that’s o.k…..we’ll get it all done over time.  It doesn’t all need to be completely done, for us to have that feeling that we really, really love where we are, together:  Home Sweet Home.

We hope you enjoyed this 4 part episode of our Extreme Home Makeover. : )

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