Modern on Meadow remodel tour - week 8

We visited the house this week on a wet and gray day. The site was very muddy, but I'll take wet and mud over the cold from last week any day.

It may have been wet outside, but inside it was dry and warm and perfect for installing what I think of as the guts of the house. We stripped things down to the bare bones, changed and built up the existing frame to create something new, and now its time to add in the working parts. Things that rest within the walls and out of sight, but are essential to a home's function -  like HVAC, plumbing and electrical work. The HVAC system was going in as we toured the house - more progress!

With the plywood down, the space for future windows and doors (in white) was really visible. This picture shows the living room windows and sliding doors. Did I mention I'm excited for the windows to get here? Two more weeks!

Master bedroom windows look huge...

I told Ryan that if he didn't look happy, I was going to push him down the opening above our basement stairs...

They removed the wall completely and now it looks like we have a crypt or cellar in our house. This is the basement stairs, the door will remain off and a screen-like element will frame the long side of the stair opening. Can't have kids falling down open stairwells.

How many architects does it take to determine where the thermostat will be located?? Apparently, 4. We will be using the new Nest thermostat. Have you heard of it? It is a 'Smart Thermostat' and unlike a programmable thermostat (which most people never program) you don't set any parameters, but rather it senses when you are home and away and adjusts to your patterns and routines over time. Pretty cool. And it looks much sleeker than your average bulky thermostat box.

The HVAC work was going on upstairs when we were in the house. Adam explained where the intake and outtake locations would be and I did my best to appear interested. I love how much I am learning from this process, but there are some things that interest me more than others. I think HVAC and plumbing are going to be close to the bottom of that list.

The view out the upstairs windows over the empty lot next door was nothing but mud...

Have I mentioned that I am so ready for Spring?

Ryan was pretty impressed with this HVAC unit, so thought I should include this picture. It was lost on me.

This is a view of the vaulted ceiling over the kitchen while standing on the stair landing. Our architect Dan recently suggested that we continue the vaulted ceiling all the way over to the garage (it was originally just supposed to be over the kitchen). So now we will have a loft-like feeling over the pantry and mud room space by extending the vaulted ceiling. This is an example of a feature that our architects didn't envision prior to seeing the space and as a result, changed up the plans on the fly. I love it.

Standing in the kitchen and facing the wall that will be the pantry, with the ceiling extending up above.

Smaller changes to the eye, but big changes still happening in terms of getting the house to the next stage. Once the house is plumbed, wired and vented, dry wall will be going up. We're going to do an extensive walk through of the electrical plan soon (may need to change the location of switches and outlets now that we can walk through the space) and the wood siding is supposed to arrive this week.

It was too rainy to get a good picture of the new roof, so I will include that next time. I am amazed at how far we've come when I look at the previous tours. Come on Spring!