Basement Floor, before the concrete was poured. In the far corner is the new sump pump. The white tube is a radon vent (for the new basement space only, of course). Pea stone and all drains have been installed.

Same thing, looking East

The cement being poured. The trough sticks through a gap in the basement wall (three blocks were not installed so the chute would eventually be able to be installed).

And the east side. You can see the chute coming in. On the other side of that wall, sitting on top of my tortured lawn, is an eleventy-million ton cement truck. Weep for my grass.

And the floor is complete. Looks really nice. Of course, as soon as I could walk on it, I ran over and scribed Mark and I's initials into it (over behind the sump). Childish or not, I want folks to read those marks in a thousand years and wonder about the wonderful folks who built this (or at least paid to have it built).

Same thing, looking east. You can see the plywood filling the gap where the cement chute went. That was replaced with the final blocks a week later.

After three weeks of work, the electrical and the HVAC rough in is complete. Granted, there is still a lot of work to do (like hook the wiring up -- in reality, most of the HVAC is done), and while it may not look like much, the house is easily a ton heavier with all the new copper in it. You can also see the soffit near the door where the book case will go.

More electrical/HVAC work for the south/east part of the kitchen and breakfast booth.

And yet more in the mudroom. The HVAC stuff in the foreground is for the second floor.

And finally, mechanicals looking east. I ran around right after this putting in low voltage/automation stuff (temp sensors, network jacks and even camera connections). Hope I got it all right because after the drywall is up -- too bad.

East wall of the kitchen insulated and ready to by drywalled.

View of south west wall of the mudroom insulated.

South East view of insulated kitchen and breakfast booth.

The west wall of the bathroom all insulated and ready for drywalling.

View of south west corner of the bathroom closet insulated.

South wall/ceiling of the bathroom closet. The blue stuff is an insulation product that is better than fiberglass, giving about r-16 insulation where fireglass would have been r-11. THe material is actually made from recycled bluejeans and other denim material.

North west of kitchen after drywalling. The space is really taking shape now and fortunatly, doesn't feel like it's getting smaller. The wall in the foreground is the back of the breakfast booth.

View of east kitchen drywalled.

South Kitchen drywalled. The soffits are not taped/mudded because there will be wood trim over them.

View of east breakfast booth drywalled.

South/West mudroom drywalled.

West view of mudroom and closet drywalled.

And the unfortunate but necessary drywalling in of the old kitchen door and it's related nastiness on the dining room wallpaper.

The closet behind the bathroom drywalled (and for the purposes of the contractors, done). We're going to try to get on finishng this space quickly so we can move our closets in here and demo the old closets.

And the un-exciting east wall opening into the hallway.

North wall of the bathroom drywalled. This is where the sinks will be.

This is a view of the west wall of the bathroom with the old window removed. Clear shot out to the neighbors.

And here is the new glass block window, temporarily installed (note the nasty wood straps holding it in place). This will be secured later, but in order to get things moving, we needed to get it in place now.

The roof over the front porch failed earlier this year, so we had to tear up the shingles and apply an ice and water shield all the way back to the main part of the house (the old shield only covered 3' from the front edge of the porch). Lets hope this works! (fingers crossed).

And the cleaned, stripped and ice-shielded roof. Shingles went back on the next day and the roof looks exactly as it did before, but is much more water-tight.

Since the weather is getting nice, all sorts of exterior smaller projects are underway. Here the damaged portions of the front porch ceiling are being removed after this past winters unfortunate ice and water leakage. Sort of the flipside of teh roof repair.

All the damaged wood has been removed and the are prepared.

They were able to salvage much of the removed wood and reinstall it, minimizing the amount of new wood (since that will need to be stained and finished).

The front steps have their own fair share of damage. Many of the ballisters have rotted through, the treads have serious rot in places and even the newel posts are rotting. Granted, a lot of this was because the steps were built with poplar instead of cedar, but I'm pretty paranoid about this much damage in less than 5 years (really, 4 years). So we're debating trategies to rebuild this in a way that won't rot out so quickly this time.

End of this week, the base cabinets are being installed. All the cabinetry was delivered and it will all be installed early next week. The base cabs needed to go in first because the granite folks are coming Monday to make a template of the layout for the coutertops. This is a view of the east wall. The gap is for the dishwasher.

View of the south wall. The gap is for the range.

View of the west wall. The tall gap is for the refrigerator. The mid-frame cabinet is really a wall cabinet (that holds the microwave) just sitting there for the moment.