What did you do on your holiday vacation?

Let me set the stage:

Todd (my husband) and I love working on houses and our current home is our 3rd one. We usually complete a total remodel in 5 years and move on...however this house has such an amazing view and both of us being busier than ever we have not been in a hurry...
So most of the house had been remodeled prior to moving in, except the kitchen and the front and back yards (one day we'll get to those, soon I hope).

We had gutted the cabinets and purchased the appliances some time ago, so long in fact I can't remember. We knew we wanted to add 20 sq. feet to the kitchen and why it wasn't done when the house was first built I don't know...the roof line matches the other end of the house that holds our bedroom, who knows what's in someones mind when building sometimes.

You will notice in the first few pictures of how the kitchen originally looked with the corner sink and window configuration. This is where the 20 sq. feet come into play. Of course all the plumbing, venting and electrical run through this area, so even though it's a tiny amount of space we are adding it's a challenging job.



It was a few days before Christmas when my husband announced that it was time to start the next phase of the kitchen....all I could think of was there went our usual jont to the Napa Valley to my sisters for rest, redrinkification and fun....so welcome to Kamp Kenman!

Here's a run down of the days to follow...
Dec 27th:
Home Depot in my newly purchased SUV we head off for gravel...8 50 lb. bags...then back to Home Depot for concrete. 15 60 lb. bags. I carried my share....

Then it was pore in the gravel, mix the concrete in batches and pore. Then clean up for round 2 of tear out.


This shows a love shot of the newly pored concrete and the temporary drain situation and plumbing (I'm sure my husband is cringing at the site of this photo-I know it's a bit rustic but it gets the job done). It's all going to be pretty in the end....


Dec. 28th:
Calculation of material needs and off to Home Depot. Ordered the dumpster...
So out with the old....that wall is so 2009 well it's really so 1961....but who's really counting.

Dec. 29th:
The dumpster arrived early, up an adam...we continued the removal of the old stucco exterior walls and bit by bit to the dumpster it went...did I mention that we live on a hill so steep that you can't get the dumpster up it....so bucket by bucket down the driveway we went....my poor niece decided to come back to LA just in time to help...yeah for us!!! She was a big help.

After we finished taking load after load down the hill...back to Home Depot and a lunch run. When we came back my husband had reinforced the load and opened up the whole wall and this is what we came back too....wow the view from this side of the house looks great.


So the concrete is pored and the old wall is gone and with temporary braces we move on...

Dec. 30th:
Well, the weather wasn't cooperating as we had hoped. We had no choice keep moving....so we did! This was an important framing day so lots of up the ladder, down the ladder-measure twice, cut once...only one mis-measure.
Now that the framing was getting somewhere we could decide what size window we wanted. We settled on a double hung Pella Architectural series. 4-6 weeks...Plexi anyone???

Notice how wet everything was...


I finally had to start the fire even though there was a gaping hole just feet from the fireplace....


Some what of a relief...plastic for the night yeah!


Dec. 31st:
The start of a new day! Well sort of...we had slightly over pored the concrete and had to rent a heavy duty grinder. So armed with masks, ear plugs and goggles (sorry no lovely pictures of that hot mess) off we went...I was in charge of the shop vac that hooks up to the grinder. You would think this was an easy enough of a job but I turned my head away for a second and I guess the filter was at full capacity and the dust shot right out the back blowing fine concrete dust everywhere...oops!!! what a mess that was....

Back to Home Depot to take the rented grinder and pick up a new shop vac filter to go clean up all the mess, leaving us with about an hour to hose ourselves off and get to the party with the "Crazy Eights". (I'll introduce sometime soon this bag of characters.)

I could barley keep my eyes opened I was so tired...but we still had a great time and toasted the New Year in style...

Jan. 1, 2010:
We slept in a bit...the day would really start without another trip to...you guessed it Home Depot! Yeah! Plywood...thank goodness for a roof rack...of course I had flea market purchase fantasies strapped to the roof rack not plywood...oh well kitchen fantasies coming true...Continue framing and blocking under the eves, reworking the plumbing for temporary purposes, and figuring out the venting etc. Lots of figuring and doing and...throwing the dog toy!



Husband Todd gettin' it done...

from the inside...notice got to have my spices handy remodel or no remodel....

pretty much the layout was worked out years ago when we put the appliances in there respected locations...

Dec. 2nd:
wrapped the outside with paper to get prepared for stucco...


The weather had improved and what a gorgeous weekend it was...


I had one more metro rack we could bring in from the garage....it's serving as visual aid of what's to come...
The rest of the weekend was dedicated to getting things some what back to normal, football and taking down Christmas...hopefully your holiday vacation was more relaxing but as rewarding as ours...a big shout our to my husband for all his hard work.

Happy New Year everyone!

PS the plumber and electrician have been called, the window has been ordered and the cabinet order is almost done. So give it another few months and we might just finish...now back to work and clients!