This is More Like It (Or, Stairs and Concrete and More Stairs and Hey! Something Went Wrong!)
Stairs: First Blood
We try to get over to the house at least 1x/week just to see what's going on and keep an eye on things. The progress to remove the big walls was fairly plodding; we saw it unfold in pieces and no single step was a huge shock. Now we've hit the point where, apparently, entire structures materialize. It's FUN.So I walk in to the place last week and trudge upstairs. As I got to the top I involuntarily just started saying "WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW," and it sounded even stupider in person than it does written, I assure you. Anyway, I was yammering to no one because these friggin' guys BUILT A NEW STAIRCASE TO THE THIRD FLOOR!
Originally, when you came to the top of the stairs from the first to second floor, there was a door to a very small bedroom. That bedroom, for reasons I will never be able to explain, actually contained a staircase which was the sole means of access to the attic/third floor AND was a total death trap. So we got rid of that inoperable bedroom and made it in to a good staircase and a bathroom and added laundry.
The transformation is really better than we could have hoped for. The space at the landing now feels really open and the continuation of the staircase feels like it was always supposed to be this way. It's also much brighter thanks to 3x the windows AND the laundry is totally going to fit. Look, did I repeatedly ascend and descend the staircase alone because it was fun for some reason? Yeah, ha, I don't know, right? Haha, right haha lol.
Concrete
Way back when we were still trying to figure out design decisions about this place, we realized that doing any kind of "addition" was kind of a red line. Like, if we were "additioning" anything we were in for many tens of thousands of dollars in extra cost. So, it didn't totally matter if it was a phone booth or a solarium (the solarium got nixed), the budget just kind of immediately jumps in to frowny-face land because doing things like excavating and pouring foundation just introduce next-level cost and complexity and weather problems and so on. So, we basically tried to strategize around NOT doing anything that involved pouring concrete. Then we realized we had to, so yeah cool OK great.The good news was that we just needed to pour a tiny little bit of a staircase down in order to make the back hallway/exit function. Then one day my neighbor sent me a video of a whole squad of guys and the CUTEST LITTLE EXCAVATOR tearing the shit out of our back yard.
The next day, BAM! Concrete! I actually didn't know they were building the new walkway, but I was pretty happy about it. Also, the concrete guys removed the super horrible boulder pile that was blighting the back yard for so long and honestly the level of psychological relief this provided far exceeded expectations. Apparently the rocks were on my brain this whole time.
Before there were two crappy rock piles:
Now there's DIRT! Apparently at this point in my life dirt is an upgrade.
The finished concrete!
Stairs: First Blood: Part II
I always thought it was so weird to call the second movie FIRST Blood Part TWO. Anyway, then, just as quickly, the framers built up the new exterior structure around what will now be our stairs to the basement and the rear exit. So, what once was a super crappy bathroom is now a pretty cool stairway with a mega-high ceiling and some giant windows. The giant windows are currently made of plywood, but that will not be the final window material. |
| New Outside Structure |
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| Old Crappy Bathroom |
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| Excellent New Stairs |
Similar to the third floor stairs, these new stairs are great. It immediately feels awesome to be able to have such quick access to the back yard and the basement, and the exterior stairs are super nice and wide. This will make hiding a motorcycle from Diana in the basement that much easier. In all seriousness, I am VERY excited about the big bank of windows and I can't wait to see them go in.
Haha! Comic Calamity!
Last week I wrote a blog post that was basically like, "weird, nothing super crappy happened." Unsurprisingly, it's clear now that was a moronic poke at the bear. So, during one of my aforementioned house checkins, Diana and I (and another friend of ours, Manny) came in through the back door to check things out. There was a light rain outside; actually, it had been raining pretty steadily for a couple of days. So were checking out the condition of the first floor when we all kind of noticed that the sound of the rain was... kind of loud.A sense of dread crept up inside of me as I honed in on the source of the noise. From Diana and Manny's point of view, it was probably pretty concerning when I just yelled "oh shit" and ran out the back door. It would be reasonable to think that the full weight of this ridiculous home renovation had JUST hit me and I was making a run for the border, but, no.
You see, through the floor boards, I could see a heavy stream of water literally spraying all over the fucking place. Because all of our worldly possessions are currently in the basement, that was sub-optimal. When I opened the door to the room in the basement where the sump pump was located, I discovered something that was simultaneously so funny and so shitty that I couldn't help but strain-laugh. That's when you laugh, but it's like, a cough.
Apparently the plumber, while removing some old plumbing, had cut the drain pipe to the sump pump. So, the sump pump would mightily try to pump the sump, the sump water would then travel up the sump pipe about 5 feet to where the pipe had been severed, then spray into the room, hit the floor and flow back in to the sump where the sump water circle of life would begin again. Foolishly, I didn't take any video or pictures of this utterly ridiculous situation, so I recreated it crudely in MSpaint. It's pretty much just as good. You can still use MSpaint on the internet!
So, I called the GC and he had the guy come out that day (Sunday) and fix it, so, really no harm done.
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