Let's play catch up. The addition!

Adding on 2 rooms and expanding the existing room on that side. We lost the window and some space due to needing a hall and the window placement.

A lot has happened to my little tribe. I told myself that I would start to post again. It is a way to wind down at the end of the day... or something to do while I am ignored in the morning. Where shall we start? Hmm... How about the addition. A little back story, yes, we are a one income family. We haven been saving for several years now for this addition, basically since we moved into this house and the Elder realized I was right. There wasn't enough room to put 2 bedrooms into the man cave and still keep it for his side's family Christmas party. That was just shy of 4 years ago. This house was originally a 2 bedroom house with an above garage family room and a living room in the main house. We already had 3 minions at that time. We had hopes to have the addition the year after Colonel Sanders was born (we co sleep). Only my van died. So it was delayed. We were trying to do this all without an added loan. This means saving like mad and some sacrifices.

Anyway, IT FINALLY HAPPENED!!!! The hope was it would be finished by Clark's birthday at the end of June. No luck. After many hiccups, scheduling issues, and being at a stand still because the inspector stood us up, we finally had our last inspection this last Tuesday!


Our contractor and his little crew work mainly on the weekends (Fri-Sunday). Sometimes a guy or 2 would come out during the week. It meant slower work, but that was ok. They are great guys and they did awesome with the minions.

We built onto the back of the house. At this end there is the bathroom to the left and on the right was our old bedroom. We decided that our old room would become the boys' new room. We added a slider into the plans for one of the new bedrooms.

The plan was to build as much on the outside as they could before they broke through the existing outer walls to the house to join the 2. The main reason was to keep the house closed up as much as possible since we had little ones.



They framed in the new addition and then put in the closets. Next came another inspection, then taking out the walls between the old and new, another inspection. Electrical was run next... with another inspection.


This picture is of where they took out the 2 walls to what use to be our bedroom. Our bed ended up in the living room for almost a month. You see the beam running across? That is where the old exterior wall use to be. All that was our room. So there is the frame in for the hall and also for the expansion of the old room. They used plastic to keep dust out of the house and minions out.


This view is from the existing room. You can see where they took away from the room to make the hall and made an opening to the main house. Colonel Sanders thought this was the coolest thing ever. That mess of wires is our cable modem and router. It was located in our room.

While we waited for the inspection, to run electrical, and the electrical inspection, the guys did the siding. Notice the 2 colors? Our house has old cedar siding that was in need of being replaced in the next few years. So we opted to have the siding done in the color we want the house to be. Then next year we will finish the rest of the house.



Next came drywall. The inspection, and then the drywallers had to mud the rooms... with another inspection when they were finished. Really. I never knew you needed so many inspections while building. They only inspect on Mondays and Thursdays in our area. So if we were stood up for a Thursday inspection (happened), then we lost a whole weekends worth of work.



See that? Happened as a combo of The Elder tripping (uneven floor) while walking to the bathroom and the minions then realizing the wall could be like clay... Mama was NOT amused. Luckily the guys came back the next day and repaired this before the inspection. They just laughed. I am so grateful for such a great group of guys working on our home!



Next came flooring. First they had to even out the floor. When they poured the new foundation, they had it level on the bathroom side. Instead they should have done it on the bedroom side. Our house is pretty old and was actually built in sections. I am told most of the older houses out here use to be cabins that people later built onto. So the new hall was not even with the new added rooms. There was also difference in the height of the floor in what use to be our master bedroom.



Here it is! Even! We had forgotten to ask them to move the heat vent to another location. See that orange? It's suppose to be lava. We allowed the minions to pick the colors they wanted. Clark wanted blue, Pork wanted green like grass, and Tyke wanted lava. For 3 weeks he told us about how cool lava would be. Ok... We compromised. The ceiling is a blue (looks good), the back of the door is green and so is the dresser (a post in the future), and the spots for the supporting beams from the old outer wall were turned into lava. The rest was painted off white. We allowed the minions to pick the shades they wanted too.


Glow stick did not get a voice in the girls' shared room. The Colonel wanted a pink princess room. That pink was the color she chose. I refused to have a room done in total pink. She also requested a "princess room". The compromise was to let her pick out princess curtains, the one wall painted the pink of her choice, and I painted the remaining walls a color called Soap Bubble. It is an extremely light pink that looks white while there is light on it. When it is dim, it is a very light pink.


Our room did not turn out as planned. I got a green with the same concept of when light was on it, it looked white, when dim it was a light green. Then I opted to paint one wall a "metallic" green. It sounds horrid, but the color is nice... To bad the greens did not go well together once on the walls. They looked good in paint swatches. The darker green makes the other walls appear a mint green all the time. Oh well. It is slowly growing on me. Mainly because we did all the painting (to save some money) and I was tired of painting.

Now comes the task of moving everyone into their new rooms. I have stuff from bedrooms in my living room, it has taken over my dining room, and I still have a disaster area in the boys' old room to clean up.