Stair Dormer Progress

  The dormer is progressing. Wrapped up for enduring winter (it held up nicely with no leaks) The dormer and the new window is ready for some finish work with trim and flashing.

  Here is the inside view. The dormer is all insulated and ready for drywall and finish work. It provides much more light and a better view of the yard. Now on to the stairs.....

Some New Beams and Organization

   I have finished replacing the beams (technically cross-ties) in the ceiling and installing foam insulation. The house is now noticeably warmer and the new beams are much stronger and better looking. In the process of clean up I needed to set all the tools out of the way and it came out a bit more organized than usual.
  Here are two of the beams installed. A little smoothing and some finish and they should be good for another 100 years.

Happy New Year (and the excuse for lack of blogging)

First and foremost, we wish all of you a wonderful 2015. We look forward to the return of blog updates and all sorts of adventures.

The dramatic decrease in blog updates is directly linked to the arrival of our son, "junior", at the end of October but don't fret. We will return to the renovation as we embark on the new year. Until then, enjoy the end of December and don't make too many New Years resolutions.

Let there be Light. . .Upstairs.

Everything is intricately linked so simply redoing the roof was not going to happen as dormers needed to be added on both sides of the house. Our house is a 1.5 story house which means the sloped roof limits use upstairs and as we are adding a bathroom upstairs we needed to create ceiling space for a shower. I have no plans on taking showers sitting down.

It doesn't look like much today but here's our new bathroom!! Nice view of the forest.

Skip begins to create the dormer.

I am certain he is breaking a few codes regarding safety but so far so good. I will be very happy when all the roofing is done and I get him down on the ground again.

The almost finished product!

On the front of the house we are placing the stairs up against the wall in the living room which brings up upstairs just under the eaves of the roof upstairs. Skip, being the tall man that he is, is sick and tired of always having to duck to avoid hitting his head. To ensure that the house fits him, a dormer was added to allow for head clearance as he ascends and descends the stairs.

A small dormer already existed but we wanted it to cover a bigger area of the roof to let more light in and give a longer stretch of head room.

The destruction and reconstruction under way.

We are thankful that it has been a mild fall so far as big giant holes in the roof can make for a very cold house. 

Now Skip just needs to add the window (and the siding, metal roof and a few other things but we wont go there today). 

All of the old tar paper has now been covered by the new roofing material, making our roof completely water proof again!

The windows added upstairs will obviously allow for a nice addition of light. Lastly, Skip will also add a skylight on each side of the roof to the left of the chimney to let light into the two new bedrooms that are being added upstairs.

Upstairs Destruction-The Itchy Phase

In order to finish the outside roof, Skip needs to plan where the dormer and the upstairs bathroom will go. This means removing the inside walls and ceiling to gain access to the roof from both sides. Skip was not looking forward to this as the walls and the ceiling is insulated with fiberglass. Lots and lots of fiberglass.

The planned area for the bathroom contained a few closets prior to Skip attacking the area.

The walls were very thin and it didn't take much effort to remove the doors and shelves. 

What's behind wall number 2? Lots of fiberglass just packed randomly in the otherwise empty space.

Insulating the ceiling. . .more fiberglass. We can't wait to get all of it out of the house and use synthetic/plastic insulation from here on.

What you're looking at is the area of the new bathroom! Looking good right? A dormer will be added between the rafters to the left in this picture. You need to check back next week for that update!

My Dream Stove

The kitchen part of the renovation is near and dear to me (Barbro) as I love to cook and bake. We have been spending a great deal of time trying to figure out how we can get hold of the perfect stove without using the entire budget. It may be obvious by now that both Skip and I are picky about what we want and like and that includes the stove. We want gas burners with an electric oven. Needless to say, most stoves with that combination is markedly overpriced and does not get the best "long term" reviews.

As we are no where ready to start on the kitchen we decided to take a step back and start monitoring blocket-the Swedish equivalent of Craig's list for dual fuel ranges as they are referred to as. It didn't take long until Skip and I, late on a Friday night, saw the ad and we went insane. It was a La Canche, about 7-8 years old (but built to last) with 3 gasburners, 2 electric burners, an electric oven and a warming oven. We called immediately, apologizing for calling so late. Needless to say, Skip and I did not hesitate to drive 552 km (345 miles) one way to pick this stove up as the price was awesome.

It looks like this except we have 2 additional knobs on the right to control the 2 electrical burners.

Here's a close up of ours. 

It is currently stored in our guest house. It needs a little cleaning and a custom built kitchen for it but it is going to be great once we have it in our house!

The New Old Chimney

When we bought our house we were a bit surprised to see that the original chimney was not in use. Instead, a new metal chimney had been installed next to the old chimney. It created a major eyesore as this new chimney came through a hole in the floor on the second story and continued up to the roof. Just bizarre!

Here's what it looked like downstairs. Notice the wheelbarrow. Skip is ready for demolition!

The upstairs view. Love the random metal tube with a hole through the floor.

To  begin, Skip removed the wall behind the fireplace which revealed the original chimney. You can see the opening into the chimney to the right of the metal chimney.

Then Skip removed the whole metal chimney along with the stove. 

This left us with a hole in the floor and the ceiling upstairs which will be dealt with soon!

Skip peeks down through the hole in the roof which was quickly patched as the forcast called for rain.

We then had the chimney repair crew come in and reline the chimney to seal any cracks and to install our new wood burning stove. We can now heat the whole neighborhood!

I wish I could say that it looks perfect now but you will have to tune in for an update once the chimney has been painted! Now we just need to get the chimney certified and we are ready to light the first fire in our new stove.