Convertible House

Our neighbor sent me a couple pictures from his second story window. He said it resembles a convertible with the top down. I think it looks like a hot mess. 

The Roof Is Gone

Looking at this, it's not clear why we saved any part of this house, but I am sure the logic is there somewhere. This is looking at the house from the back.

Here's the house from the front/street. Note that the roof is missing over the left side of the house.

Honestly, I am not even sure what part of the house this is. The kitchen, maybe?

This is looking from the kitchen, towards what used to be our bedroom, with a view of the neighbor's house.

Ummm. Maybe looking from the front door upwards?

This might be looking from the kids' room down the hall towards the dining room. But does it even matter?

The Levitating House

Okay the house isn't actually levitating but with all of the dirt dug up around the foundation you would mistake it for a house that is either levitating or sinking into the ground. It's a little hard to look at. I can't really see how this project will ever get finished. 

Week 3: Digging Out the Basement

Most of demolition is done, so the contractors have turned their destructive weapons to the basement, where they need to dig out and built a bigger foundation to support the second story. These photos are not very good but they give you a sense of how overarching this project is. I threw one in of the kids just for good measure.

Checking in on the Team

So how is our angry little cat and her stress monster boyfriends L and Q? Let's just say, they are adjusting in their own, punk ways.

Week 2: Construction Gets Real

This poor house is being dissected! Week 2 was really just Day 3 et seq. The window started coming out, more plaster was pulled off. Our house was built in 1922 and the wood inside is still in great condition. Gotta hand it to those old growth trees; they have staying power. 

I have no idea what was going on this basement but you could see into it, and there were dudes crawling around on their hands and knees, so it seemed like I needed to take a picture.

This is not a post-Katrina house. It just looks like one.

Our builders are super-neat. Look at this jenga pile of insulation!

Umm, where are the basement stairs?

Finally, Construction!

After planning to do this for more than a year, it was quite a surprise that this happened in the first two days. Here's what it looked like from the kids' bedroom window, looking in. 

Here's the view from the front door. That guy is standing in what used to be our TV room.

Oh, and here's the kitchen.

Let's just tear the outer wall off the dining room while we're at it, shall we?

Probably nothing will happen on this project as fast as demolition.

More on the Move

So we moved out on April 16, and it was one of the most stressful days of my life. It was also probably the most stressful day of the boys' lives. Partially because it was the biggest change they can remember going through, and partially because they have such awesome, coddled, privileged lives that very little bad enters into. But this is them at breakfast at Mama's Royal Cafe that morning.

Those were two stressed little Rudys, but the hot chocolate helped get us through the morning.

The moving guys from Delancey Street Movers were AMAZING. Incredibly professional, nice and polite. To eachother! They go above and beyond for the people they are moving. Seriously, I wanted to keep hanging out with these guys, they were so pleasant and nice. The guy loading the truck:

One of the guys insisted on laying the carpet squares out in the same pattern we'd had in the old place (which he remembered), and had other, very constructive tips about where the furniture looked best.

Here's a wierd component of our new neighborhood. There is a siege of herons at the KFC on the corner. Here's one on the street sign. It really bums me out that these beautiful animals are scavenging KFC, and it can be creepy when there are seven of them loitering on the one sad picnic table outside, but this one is nice.

I promise, the next post will have actual construction pictures.

The Construction Project

Some people (okay, my mom) have asked about photos of the house as we do construction, so I thought I would put them here. These are from the move out. 

This one shows them staging all our stuff in the living room.

We moved a lot of the stuff into the garage.

This is our angry little cat.

This is the living room, emptied of all the possessions stacked up earlier. 

New Year's Resolution Mid-Year Review

I am planning to start blogging again, on the admittedly low interest topic of our construction project and our temporary neighborhood, but I thought I would do a quick check of my resolutions, since that was my last post.

Looking at the resolutions, it may be that I set the bar too low. I did turn 40 (Res. 1), and it was pretty painless. We spent my actual birthday at Whistler (where, I am told, due to the Canadian exchange rate, I only turned 36) and I did very little skiing and a lot of editing of the novel I started in November (Res. 4). I left my job effective March 28 (Res. 3) and we started construction on the house May 1 (Res. 2). Marriage seems happily intact (Res. 2), in small part due to the awesome birthday party Mr. Scob gave me on May 3 (Res. 1).

What else? I did team penning on April 24 (Res. 5). It was fun. I have read at least one book (Tell the Wolves I'm Home) which I did not really like (Res. 6), but it did inspire my to get back to my own book. I made my first draft changes and my sister and cousin were my beta-readers (Res. 4). They did not hate it and they gave me lots of good feedback. I will keep plugging away at it. I can't remember if I have bought any new music, so I guess that means I did not (Res. 7). I've run 201 miles so far this year, so I don't think the last 103 miles are going to be too tough (Res. 8).  I even finished the Oakland half-marathon on Mar. 23. It was hella fun.

It looks like I should have made flossing a goal so that I had something hard to work on this year.