In the summer of 2003 I purchased a lakefront bungalow, built in the 1930's, in Sandy Hook, CT. It was not intended to be a year-round residence and was in very poor condition - a rotting, leaking roof, ancient drafty windows, etc. Aesthetically it was horrible as well - low ceilings, dark and depressing inside, with not much of a view of the lake. Energy-efficient it was not - there wasn't even any plywood sheathing under the log-style novelty siding! Here's what it looked like at the time:
I hired a contractor to rip off the roof and most of the upper floor framing and rebuild it all, with a higher roofline, new panoramic windows, and eight new skylights. I lived in the house for three months prior to the demolition, which started in November. Here are some photos of the demolition and reconstruction phase, which took place during a brutally cold winter:
In May of 2004 the house was more or less habitable again, my contractor stopped showing up (without completing the roof, which he was supposed to do), and I moved back in. Here's what it looked like then:
My first project was construction of a large sleeping loft in the living room, under which would be a walk-in closet and the entry foyer:
By the end of the summer of 2004 I had the framing and some of the electrical work done, and it was actually getting to be pretty nice and cozy:
In August I met my boyfriend Jimmy, who moved in shortly thereafter. Jimmy pitched right in with the work; we spent an entire month pulling electrical wires, which unfortunately I didn't take photos of. I made provisions for computer networking, built-in surround sound speakers, a projection TV, and lots of other cool features which resulted in massive amounts of wiring. The wiring was made extra difficult by the stacked-post construction that required drilling sideways through four 2x4's and several layers of plywood at once, it wasn't fun!
Once the wiring was mostly done we started on insulation - winter was fast approaching! Insulation and sheetrocking carried on through the Fall. I'd made an appointment for surgery in Thailand in December, so we really needed to get the place insulated before leaving so the house would be warm and liveable on our return. Here's Jimmy putting up a reflective barrier under the roof deck before installing R-38C insulation between the 12-inch rafters (it only looks like he did all the work because he never takes pictures of me!).
In October I got a roofer to finish the job the original contractor hadn't. They did an OK job on the shingles but it ended up leaking badly around the chimney and Jimmy had to re-flash it later. They also did not install the ridge vents specified in the contract. At least the hideous green tarp was finally gone and we had nice light coming through the skylights!
By the time we left for Thailand we had the sheetrock pretty much all done and all the ceiling insulation up, although the ceiling boards would have to wait.
By March 2005 I was recovered from surgery and we hired a friend to do the sheetrock joint taping, then we started priming and painting. Living in a small house while construction is taking place is a real pain. We used the future spare bedroom as a "workshop" and materials storage area, but mess and dust were always everywhere.
In April 05 we had 1,500 linear feet of knotty pine tongue-and-groove planking milled up for us by a local hardwood dealer and started putting it up. The dream was finally starting to become a reality!
By May the ceiling was done and we worked on trim for a month or two. The lakeview windows were especially difficult because the contractor hadn't lined the windows up perfectly with each other, but we figured out a way to conceal the mistakes. We put up a valence across the horizontal beam to conceal our projection TV screen, and in a moment of inspiration, decided to backlight it with an inexpensive "rope light" on a dimmer. It turned out great, as you can see by the nighttime photo!
In October 05 we turned our attention to finishing the sleeping loft. I designed and made a built-in storage unit, then we had carpet installed.
Jimmy repainted the outside during October and November.
Next on the list is construction of bookcases and built-in storage for the living room and bedroom, then refinishing the living room floors. After that it'll be time to gut the lower floor!