Addition!

[shazapple]

It has come time to put the addition on our house! It is a typical 100 year old 1.5 story house with central stairs, no closets, and no accommodations for modern appliances. After living in the house for a couple years we've had a chance to get used to some of the quirks and plan fixes to the rest. This is our house as it is now. On the back is an existing attached shed which will be demolished to make way for the new addition.

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This is the layout of the new addition, it's approximately the same size as the current attached shed (which I'll show in later pictures):

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Hallway: The garage is behind the house, and currently we walk through the attached shed and into the kitchen. This will serve as our new entry, as well as a much needed mud room for coats, boots, etc (which will be way better than in the kitchen where they are now). We'll also use this as a breakfast and break area, since it faces east.
Master closet: Our bedroom is downstairs, and surprise: there are no closest! Actually, there are no closest in most of the house, so this will serve as our linen closet as well as.
Master bath: The current bathroom is upstairs, and only has a bathtub because of the sloped ceilings. People look at me weird when I say I haven't had a shower in 2 years There will also be access to the laundry room from here (very handy!)
Half bath: The original plan had the master bath with two doors, but I wasn't a fan of a 'Jack and Jill' style bath, and as a guest in other people's houses I find it a bit weird to use the master bath. The powder room gives us a bathroom on the main floor of the house as well as one close to the outside (without tracking mud through the house!)
Laundry room: Currently our washing machine is in the kitchen pantry, and the dryer is in the unheated attached shed (which makes it hard to dry things in the middle of winter). We have a full refrigerator, so once the washer is moved out of the kitchen we can finally have a freezer!
Stairs: There will be stairs to the upstairs and basement. The existing stairs to the basement are under a sketchy floor hatch in the current attached garage.
Upstairs: This isn't shown because it's not very exiting. This will be a rec-room type area for entertaining, children, etc...
Basement: Also not shown, but there will be the modern equivalent to exterior cellar doors so we can toss wood in.

Here is the plan for the outside. Right now the house is covered with fake brick material and metal siding, which will be removed and replaced with the same wood siding that will be on the addition.

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[shazapple]

I mentioned the attached shed that needed to be removed, well here it is! I'm fairly certain it was made out of scrap materials, as it wasn't the most 'uniform' construction I've seen.

I had already removed the garage doors, but this is basically the 'before' picture. The access to the basement and the dryer were in here, but otherwise it just a place to collect junk. Since it was unheated it wasn't too much fun going to the basement to stoke the fire during the winter!

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Metal siding, fake asphalt brick siding, metal roofing, and old asphalt shingle roofing removed. The building was very rickety at this point; I think the roof boards added most of the structure!

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The rafters came down with little effort, and will be reused to build another shed. After the rafters were off the walls almost fell over on their own.

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Next up is a bit of cleanup, then the excavator comes in!

[Hoosier Foursquare]

Awesome progress, that is so exciting! Please keep the pictures and the narrative coming.

[PowerMuffin]

Yes, this is fun following the work along. Looks like the addition will allow you to live more easily in your home.
Diane

[shazapple]

We finally cleaned up all the wood to make way for the excavator! Most of the roof trusses and sheathing was saved. The rest was in pretty poor shape and will be burned.

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Saturday my dad came by with the excavator to break up the concrete. It is going to be used to build a couple woods roads.

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This is how far we got by the end of Saturday. The dirt is going to strategic spots around the yard in order to smooth out the grades and make it easier to mow.

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Nothing too exiting has been found yet. There are large chunks of granite used in or foundation, and we've found a couple of the rejected pieces while digging. Concrete guy should be set to come in 2 weeks!

[Kansas. 1911.]

This is thrilling to watch. It is going to be three levels of usable space...Most people would die to have this many options. I like the plan.

[Lynners]

Agreed - this is fantastic to watch!

[shazapple]

A bit of progress since the last update! It rained for an entire week, so we couldn't do any work. Finally today and yesterday we put a big dent in digging. We are somewhat close to the river, so the ground is layers of sand and very hard clay. It's somewhat frightening to see the exposed existing foundation, and slightly more to think that we are digging a foot or two deeper!

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The concrete guy is coming Tuesday, so it will be a bit of a mad dash to get everything ready.

Me standing in the hole. All the dirt has been dumped in little piles in a back corner of our lot, where we will use it to level that area. You would be surprised the amount of land that the dirt from a basement can cover!

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The view from our kitchen door. up until today we had 2 or 3 planks spanning the gap so we could still use the entrance. I came home to find a parcel delivery notice on this door! Crazy mailman.

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[shazapple]

Well, I called the concrete guy Tuesday and he said "Who are you?" He gave me some lame excuse thinking I was someone else on his list and put me off for another week, so I called around to see if anyone else could fit me in. This almost sent me to the mental hospital, because I was beyond stressed out. The bank near the house had been dug out, so the original foundation was sitting on top of a clay shelf. I did not get much sleep for the next couple days, thinking every move was my house about to fall into the giant hole we created! Add to the fact that were leaving for vacation soon, and I was doubly stressed we would have to cancel.

Finally I had a guy with a pony tale (of knowledge) show up Saturday to take a look, came back with the quote Sunday, and started setting up the forms Monday. Talk about service (and a HUGE weight off my shoulders). He said he was just going to bring over supplies, but I guess he got a couple spare minutes and decided to pour the footings.

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As we speak the wall forms are also being setup, but I will leave that picture for another update.

Last night we dug the trench for the weeping tile. The basement is essentially in a clay bathtub, so we had to dig across the property in order to lay a solid pipe to drain over the bank. The south east wall of the hole is constantly weeping water, so drainage was a must! In the picture is my awesome father driving the excavator, and my lovely wife holding the survey rod. I had the easy job of using the survey instrument and taking pictures.

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[Daniel Meyer]

Cool! Keep the pictures coming!