Inital construction of the basement block wall. This took quite a while to get going because it was so cold (too cold for the guys to work and the cement to setup properly)

The main block of the basement is now nearly done. Still to come is the above grade courses of textured block.

All the below-grade block for the wall is now done. The "bump-in" is where the entrance will be to the house.

The finish course of block is now being added. This is the above grade, textured block to match the existing block on the house.

Interior of the basement with completed finish block. The three missing blocks are left to allow concrete to be poured through once framing is complete. The column holding up the house is temporary.

Once the block wall was done, they sprayed it with a water proofing tar before backfilling the dirt.

Last shot of the interior of the new basement before the decking goes on. There are three mising blocks in the foreground. They are left out so that the cement for the basement floor can be poured after the framing is complete. There is also a major steel beam stretching across where the old house ends. This will carry much of the old house load and new house deck framing.

This is how the house looked just before we left for a week long cruise. We had hoped that there would be an addition on the house when we got back, but bad weather once again screwed up work and it looked a lot like this when we got back (though a number of interior things had been done).

While we were gone, they combined some attic storage space and the existing bathroom into a single room. The stub of plumbing in the middle is where the head of the old bathtub used to be, You can see the knee-wall framing at the back that is where the end of the room will be. The combined space of the old bathroom and storage/attic will be our new clothes closet.

The south east wall of the now combined two rooms. The mid-frame section is where the small cuby-hole door to the attic space used to be. The sewer vent pipe will be removed soon.

You can see trim removed from the old bathroom door (this door will go away eventually), the filled in chunk where the old attic cubby hole access door was and the removed plaster from the original entrance to the house (at the bottom of the stairs).

They removed the kitchen ceiling (amongst other things) while were gone. This is at a sort of funny/odd angle, but the end of the ceiling and the space above it are actually the back all of the closet in the upstairs bedroom directly above the kitchen. Not a great picture, but we're pretty unlikley to see this again anytime soon.

The kitchen ceiling was stripped while we were on the cruise. Not very exciting, but...

The first floor bathroom ceiling was framed out for mechanicals space. Since there is more ceiling height on the first floor, we're dropping the first floor ceiling a bit to allow plumbing and HVAC ducts to be run for the bathroom above. With luck, we'll only have lost 4" when done.

The second day back from our cruise the weather finally cooperated enough to let them start framing. First up was the deck/floor of the new space.

Decking completed. You know, it's really a much smaller space than I "expected".....

Another view of the completed decking from the driveway. In the driveway, the framing crew is building the walls ahead of time, complete with windows, headers and even the Tyvec.

First wall goes up -- east facing wall. This is where the breakfast booth will be.

The West and South West walls are up. The West wall has no windows as it's in the closet. The South West wall has a single window for the mudroom.

With the South East wall up, all the major walls are in place. The multiple window holes are also for the breakfast booth space.

After the walls were in, they framed in the entrance. This feature, withthe recessed door, really starts to take shape here and I think it's pretty cool.

These are the rafters for the new roof. You can see them in direct contact with the old roof.

The roof rafter framing is completed!

Now they are adding the beaded board eaves to the roof. The eaves on the house have a beaded board finish to them (they stick out about 16" from the edge of the house. Because they do not make a board product with the same beaded board size as the old eaves on the house, they needed to build the eaves using individual boards. These go up the east and west side as well as hang out with the rafter tails on the south side. The main bulk of the roof will be filled in with standard plywood.

A different angle on them assembling the eaves with beaded board one board at a time.

Roof decking is complete -- Yeah!

View of the South East wall with windows installed. This is where the breakfast booth will be going.

South West wall. This is where the mudroom will be.

You can see here how the new roof connects to the old roof. Much of the old roof will be left in tact.

View of the entrance from the inside. Shows how the "bump-in" looks.

Here they have mostly removed the old south eaves on the house. The remainder of it will be gone early in the next week.