Well the bumpout is going very smoothly so far. They got the panels all boxed out, the MDO all cut to approx size and pre-primed. They have to fussy cut the MDO to install it next but I’m impressed by one day of progress. The goal is to get this part of the bumpout finished, leaving the high part for later (caps and the peak). Next they’ll work on the cupola panels as well as siding the backside. Once the backside is sided they will move the pump station over to the bumpout so they can do the caps and peak with that. The staging will get moved to the roof for the higher part of the cupola. I think it’s a good plan. Hopefully our attic windows come soon (due some time next week), because they will be ready for them by then for sure unless it rains a lot.
Panels all framed out, all the way up. It’s hard to see but there are 3 rows of boxes between the windows. Next up will be MDO to put in the flat sections.It was hard to get a picture of the sides, but I like how the thin vertical section will still have 3 boxes to match the other sections.They rebuilt the structure and patched in the bottom of the soffit nice and tight and puttied it up. Looks great. Scraping has moved around to the bumpout portion now. Coming right along!
They are waiting on paint until they see some good dry days which makes sense.
Also they did 2 dump runs and a recycle run and the yard doesn’t look too bad.
Tuesday got rained out again but Monday the rain held off so they were able to get our bedroom windows all installed and a good start on scraping down the soffit over the backside.
Soffit scraping started, coming along nicelyBack side of cupola window progressFront side – looks good!Bedroom windows from the inside. They did a good job removing the trim and not really messing with the plaster. This is good because it may be a while before we get to renovating our bedroom.
Now the inside work is done, they are starting on panels on the bumpout today. At the pace they are going i’d say they may get all the panels on the bumpout done, maybe not the window cap only because it’s tricky? I’ve got some molding to paint tonight (I want the bed molding to be red and it’s easier if it’s pre-painted). Everything else will be yellow so it’s up to them when they add the molding, they could do it after painting the rest if they want, I just want to make sure I’m not holding them up.
No pictures because it’s raining too hard to go out and take them. I wanted to quick document the progress they made yesterday.
The 2 vinyl windows in the back are trimmed out with sills/casings and the caps were made but not yet installed (the frieze board has to be installed first and the caps modified to fit tightly). On the bumpout they got the sill extended all the way around so the panels can be started using that as a starting point.
The cupola siding is about 1/2 torn off, then they covered what was exposed with tar paper in preparation for the rain. Everything was cleaned up and covered for the weekend, with the rain coming they knew they wouldn’t be coming by today to work.
Monday the plan is to get the panels on the bumpout started, the rest of the cupola siding and windows removed (so our bedroom needs to be emptied out so they can remove windows). Then our bedroom windows will get installed and the panels finished up on the bumpout and then the siding on the back part done.
The whole front of the house minus the actual screen porch will get finished by then, we’ll do the porch ourselves either this summer or next but it’s in decent shape. The hard part is deciding what to do about the floor of that porch and adding drainage before we can re-roof the full wrap around porch roof.
Replicating the original cupola in some form or another is going to be very interesting. I was very excited to get a hint at what it used to look like this morning when they got the aluminum mostly off.
Last night I ran over to home depot after kiddo was in bed and Ryan was home and I ordered some vinyl replacement windows for the attic part of the cupola. We were waiting to see what was underneath and once we knew it was panels and could be rebuilt we just ordered new construction windows. Hopefully they come closer to 10 days instead of 2 weeks.
It sure was nice to come home to some great progress! They got 5 windows flashed and installed today. They also removed some more siding so we could see what the original cupola panels looked like – very interesting. I’m a little worried we don’t have windows for the top of the cupola yet. I’ve been having trouble getting such small double (or single) hung windows. I’m going to talk to our contractor tomorrow about calling Harvey windows and see if they have any, but even then it’s 2 week lead time.
Looking good!bumpout windows are also in!Interesting panels revealed
And the interior….
Bumpout (this will become the master bathroom.Laundry room (left) and bathroom (right).
Well clearly we are not getting work done on the house lately since there have been no blog updates 🙂 The small amount we did get done last weekend was in preparation for our new crew to start work. We hired a crew of 3 to do the exterior work (replace windows and siding) on the right side and front of the house’s 2nd and 3rd stories. This is a HUGE job and the price certainly reflects that. They are hoping to complete in 5 weeks or less although the cost is a fixed price for labor. Since we’re not getting work done I might as well blog about the work other’s are doing 🙂
Day 1 –
Removed aluminum siding on 2/3rds of the bumpout and the back section. Removed the wood siding/paneling on same sections. Removed 4 windows. Reframed 2 windows for smaller vinyl replacements and closed 1 window up.
Siding removed on this section (aluminum and original) as well as 4 windows on the right.Close up of the shingle damage – those are going to need to be replaced unlike the other side 🙁You can see how far around they got removing siding – started on the cupola.
Attic staircase window closed up, the other 2 windows framed in
Debri was all cleaned up, aluminum is piled up for us to recycle and tomorrow they will start putting up staging so they can access the bumpout and cupola more effectively.
Debri all hauled off already!
Inside shots…
Attic staircase window closed upNew windows popped in backwards for the night (temporary). The left one is our laundry room, the right one is our bathroom. The bump out window just has plastic over it for now.
I’m very happy with the pace they started with, getting the cruddy work over with quickly and cleaning up in the same day. The overall estimate is 5-6 weeks for this job, we all know the finishing work is the slowest part and they are going to be going all the way to caulking and painting with the new siding (as well as scraping any old soffit that remains). So even though things start out fast, they will slow down eventually. For now though the progress is astounding and fun to capture.
Plus – it gets done while I sit at my computer working all day 🙂
Well the painters are officially on the naughty list! They haven’t been over in more than a month, since Ryan’s paternity leave. They never finished stripping, we hired a carpenter to replace the wood they took down when they kept messing it up (and wasting tons of supplies). On top of that they never followed any of the laws with regards to lead paint removal after discussing it with them multiple times.
The bad news:
At the very very least we need to do a few things our selves, we’ve kind of given up hope after leaving multiple messages and trying to get a hold of the owner…
We have bare wood they stripped that needs primer before winter!
We have stripped wood that needs to be sanded before it can be primed, the person stripping was new and did a kind of terrible job chipping into the wood over and over!
We have new primed wood installed that needs caulk before winter!
Our new siding needs to be caulked (4 new sections)
The good news:
We only paid them a down payment of a 1/4 the amount wanted and they have done about a 1/4 of the work if you include materials purchased
We know never to hire them again!
We ended up finding a good carpenter we like for future work
So Ryan is going to spend some time Saturday doing some prep work on the porch (there’s still paint to be stripped, then it all needs to be sanded). We’re really in doubt that we could find anyone that is available next week to get primer/paint on the house! We did put out feelers to some people we know/trust to see if any painters they know happen to have a couple days available but it’s very very unlikely.
I may take a day off (monday) to caulk and do what i can (prime?) if the weather is nice. It gets cold by next thursday so we don’t have long to get this buttoned up. We’ve weathered winters with just primer before but we are trying to be better about this, surely starting at the beginning of august was not too much to ask to get this job done before winter!
(This is from LAST weekend, finally have pictures but it’s written from last week’s point of view).
Aimee, Jason, Jason and mom all came out this weekend. Jason came to work, the rest to play with the kids. So while Ryan and Jason worked (although I did do some electrical and cleanup), Aimee, Mom and I played with Little Jason and Alli-boo.
So while we played with the kids, some actual house work got done. Jason did the rough in for all the drains for the new master bathroom we’ll be putting in as well as got ready to do the little bathroom upstairs (we have to demo it before it can be done completely) and the laundry room next to that.
New drains for master bathroomNew drain on the left, the drains on the right will go away once we demo the little bathroom.
While Jason did the plumbing, Ryan put in the new kitchen window (which is where i light was so i had to put in a quick temporary light over head but at least we have a switch now!). The window is smaller overall but before it was 2 small windows with separation, now it’s just 2 casements together same amount of light.
New kitchen window!
While they worked, the carpenter was here and finished up the siding on the driveway side of the house so it’s ready to be painted!
One side of the house has all ‘new’ siding!
It’s nice having work get done while you’re doing other things. We like this carpenter, he does good work and after our horrible experience with the painters, it’s nice working with someone who knows how to work. FYI the painters haven’t shown up in weeks or stopped by when promised.
With rain coming today this may be the progress that’s made. Luckily it was good progress. Ryan made window caps (we couldn’t fit our entire window cap like we made for the lower level windows but he made some nice caps that fit perfectly and since it’s the second story I think it looks great! Then he finished the siding up around the caps, getting the last piece in last night just as Alex and I got home.
Last piece going onThe right side is finished
As you may notice, the crown molding was also finished up along the roofline! The carpenter we hired and the carpenter from our painter’s crew worked together and managed to get all that molding up (around the porch and then the roof) in just 2 days. We liked the carpeter’s work and we’ll probably hire him in the future for more exterior work. Unfortunately, aside from the carpenter (subcontractor) of the painters’, we haven’t seen any other painters around. They still have some sections to strip and then painting to do. The owner was supposed to stop by last friday but Ryan never heard anything from him. If i have time today I will call the office again but that’s never helpful since it’s just a receptionist. I doubt they’re coming over the next few days with rain forecasted.
So a bit of the story with this painter. We hired him to strip and then paint a few sections of the house including:
The soffit and frieze board on the driveway side of the house
The soffit and posts on the porch, all the way around (top part of the posts since we are re-doing the lower sections)
The siding next to the side door
The shingled section in the peak on the driveway side (he didnt have to strip this section, just sand/prep for paint and then paint.
The quote is not tiny, mostly it’s for the stripping which is understandable and it was very clear that everything was covered except for the shingle section since that wasn’t getting stripped he didn’t write that part out explicitly like the rest.
Well they stop by the first day of the job and I talk to the owner (who did the quote) and turns out he didn’t realize we needed the whole soffit of the porch done, he thought it was just the posts and the board the posts touch (or something like that) so he wanted to get back to me with a new quote. At the time i didn’t have the quote in front of me so I didn’t argue but was concerned about how much more this would cost.
So I get the new quote and the wording ‘soffit and frieze board around the porch’ is the exact same wording as the original quote so we mention this to him and he admits he just screwed up. He asks if we’ll work with him, it would be cheaper for him to have his guys remove most of the wood instead of stripping it and put up new wood. Fine, as long as they can make it look very close to the original, that is fine with us.
So they get to work, they have 1 guy stripping the posts (and man is he slow) and another guy starts taking apart and rebuilding the soffit around the porch. Well it became clear pretty quickly that a) the stripping is going to take forever, the guy only showed up sometimes and he was ridiculously slow at stripping (he had the wrong type of scrapers mainly and he kept dinging up the wood). I mean it’s nothing compared to the work I did stripping the soffit outside our gym. ho hum.
Then it became clear that the carpenter he hired is not a finish carpenter, he can’t do moldings well, not only does he waste tons of material cutting things wrong, he leaves corners with gaps and broken tips and he puts up the moldings in small sections because that’s all he can manage by himself. One corner in particular was really bad so we complain about that and the owner decides to get another carpenter he hires sometimes to come fix it. Meanwhile the first guy is still working on other sections.
In the mean time, they started this job in August (13th), they worked that first week then showed up sporadically the second week then stopped coming until this past week, right when Ryan was off and needed to do siding on that side of the house (we had anticipated that the main work would at least be done and they at the worst would be painting at this point – nope).
So Ryan and the guys are stepping on each others’ toes and Ryan is catching them doing all manner of stupid things and ends up helping them (when he needed his time to do siding etc.). Finally the owner basically fires the first carpenter and wants the second carpenter (who admits freely that he is not a finish carpenter and it took him so long to do that one corner of molding he doesn’t feel comfortable doing the larger molding by himself). He however knows a real finish carpenter and we decide to just hire this other guy to put the molding up and the painter’s carpenter can help him (the painter is paying him to put up the molding so that works out). So we will be out an extra thousand probably when this is all done but the large molding is coming out SO much better and we are finally happy with the work.
The stripping is still taking forever! The same kid (whom we found out was hired at the time of this job starting so this is his first time doing any type of construction and no one is overseeing him!), is still working on stripping the porch. They replaced almost everything but he’s got to strip the moldings at the top of the posts and the moldings in the front of the house/triangle/peak. The soffit along the driveway hasnt been touched yet and has a large section to strip as well. No idea when this project will get done.
Today however Ryan got a few more pieces of siding up and the window installed! He’ll be continuing siding this weekend and next week before he goes back to work on wednesday.
And now some pictures, we walked around the house today after everyone left.
The last window is in on this side!The peak, they had to replace some rotted wood and the first carpenter put in the small molding. Ryan agreed to put in these small blocks to save the carpenter from having to do these outside angles on the molding which saved probably a day of labor.The large molding is done – all around the porch, they just have to do the one at the second/third story of the house next week.They even did the peak because there was no way to meet up the new trim with the old. Notice only 1/2 of the peak is stripped, the kid started this in the morning and must have got bored because he then swapped to doing other parts instead of just finishing it for some reason. This whole triangle I could do in an hour easily, took him 3 to do half of it.The painters showed up one day this week and started priming the molding that was up, Ryan mentioned to them that the stripping still had to be done and would mess up their paint so they stopped. I hope painters are coming next week now that it’s almost ready for them!The back corner. We are so happy with this now, thank goodness something is finally working out.
So this will cost us but it was worth it to find a local finish carpenter that does good work on historical houses and he’s not slow about it either. He also brought his dog (he brings here everywhere) and she hung out in the back yard and even met Fitz for a bit 🙂
Replicating the original cupola in some form or another is going to be very interesting. I was very excited to get a hint at what it used to look like this morning when they got the aluminum mostly off.
