Don't worry honey, this wont be that big of a deal....

We bought our 1952 Cape back in the spring of 1997 fully aware of its need for massive updating. Every one of the 1700 square feet was a dated look back into the 70's. Multiple layers of wallpaper on every surface, the brick beehive oven in the kitchen, the rotting cedar shakes and underlying clapboard to the almost 40 yrs old shingles on the roof, the lack of septic connection for the kitchen sink and the clogged grease trap in the basement. Its funny how one can overlook such things when buying a house. But it had some good bones and a great lot and location in a nice town. 

 To not bore you with all the details, a summary of the work that we have done over the past 12 years.

Removed multiple layers of wall paper and painted every room in the house, added a garage converted the existing garage into a 575 sq ft family room with radiant heat, added a 240 sq ft screened in porch. Renovated both bathrooms, added a 480 sq ft addition off the back of the house increasing the size of the kitchen, dining room, laundry room, and half bath and created a master suite w/ a walk in closet. Renovated the entire first floor with radiant heat system, removed two layers of siding and replaced all the windows, put up house wrap and installed Hardi-plank siding and Azek trim details.

Project took close to 10 years to complete but I did it with the world’s greatest handyman in the world… my Dad. Thanks to him he gave me all the knowledge I ever needed to pull off these details. I paid attention when I was growing up. Thanks Dad!

Thanks to my Lovely wife and adorable kids for putting up with all the disruptions over the years, hopefully you all think it was worth it? Thanks to all the Family and Friends that stopped buy to lend a hand its much appreciated!

Now I'll will bore you with the Details:

When we first bought the house we started by stripping off all the old paper and painting the house to give it a “fresh” look. However since our family was on an accelerated growth plan we were quickly running out of room. The garage was the biggest “room” in the house and one night I hatched a plan to add a new garage to the front of the old, convert the old garage in a 24’x24’ family and add an attached 12’x24’ screened in porch. Sounds simple enough and since I am an avid reader and watcher of TOH and the New Yankee Workshop, this was going to be a piece of cake! Since the project didn’t really affect our living conditions at all it, there was little issue with our living conditions until we completed the room and broke down the wall between the kitchen and the new family room. This proved to be a great space complete with Radiant floor heat and is where we spend a majority of our time as a family.

Next on the list was replacing the aging fence and shed. This was quickly moved to the top of the “to – do” list when my mischievous 2 yr old climb under the existing pool fence and was very proud of his accomplishment!. In the place of an old Montgomery Ward metal shed we built a post and beam shed complete w/ a custom cupola and storage for pool toys above. A new vinyl fence was installed that my Son has yet to climb over even though he is 11!

Next up! Bathrooms. No big plans here but to replace tile on the first floor bathroom floor and walls, shower door and a new double vanity and counter-top to finish things off. The upstairs bathroom required a new floor, vanity, sink and lighting fixtures to finish off this job.

The Addition!

As anyone with a big family knows whenever guest arrive the kitchen is where most of our guests reside. Our kitchen was only 8’x10’ and was the main thoroughfare situated between the main living areas of the house, it always made for quite crowded (and sometimes dangerous) conditions in the kitchen.

I convinced my Lovely wife we could add onto the back of the house while keeping the character of the house intact. Adding on an additional 480 sq ft would enable us to create a much more spacious kitchen, add a master bedroom/bath/office space as well as an additional half bath and a separate laundry facility out of the basement and onto the first floor. I worked on a design that would please her and assured her that the work I was doing would in no way interfere with our lives to much…Man was I ever wrong and she SO RIGHT!

Basic details are to add 10-12’ off the back of the house to add the space necessary. Sounds simple right? I conceded I couldn’t do it all so I contracted excavation and foundation details then set to work building the addition. We were blessed with very good weather for most of that fall but framing did have its challenges. In order to create the look of one continuous space in the kitchen we needed to embed a micro lam into the ceiling of the new kitchen and master bedroom to carry the load of the 2^nd floor. After sizing the beams from my local lumber yard a temporary wall was erected across the entire back of our house. We had to cut up into the 2^nd floor wall, remove the header and cut up into the wall framing to make space for the beam. A few guys were required to lift the 600 lb beam into place. And much to my surprise when the temporary wall was removed the house didn’t fall down!

Of course during the entire renovation a family of four was LIVING in the space. We spent a better part of 3 weeks with our house open to the elements with plastic tarps nailed up over the openings. Thankfully we had exceptional weather the few weeks we were open but the very night before we were going to install shingles, a thunderstorm blew buy and within 20 minutes I had a couple hundred gallons of water IN MY HOUSE at 2 AM. Not good for marital relations.

Renovations continued throughout the early winter with the eminent challenge being we had NO HEAT on a majority of the first floor as it was removed when the outer wall was taken down. Since we really enjoy our radiant heat in the family room we decided to extend the radiant and cover the entire first floor with an under floor system. Since the entire first floor is covered in oak flooring, all the nails needed to be cut and filed down in order to accept the aluminum fins. 3 weeks, 100’s filed down nails, 2000’ of aluminum fins, 3000’ of tubing and 1800 sq feet of insulation later we had heat.

The next few months where a blur of PEX piping, wiring, insulation, sheet rock, paint, cabinets, new tile floor in the dining room and kitchen, fixture installations, new appliances, lighting fixtures, and many gallons of paint the house was finally coming back together INSIDE… Now outside, that was another story.

The original cape and attached garage had 8” cedar clapboard siding that was then covered with cedar shakes. The plan was to remove all the siding, replace all the windows in the house, wrap the house with Tyvex and reside with Hardiplank and Azek trim details. Removing the siding on the north wall of the house revealed a significant amount of rot from a window that was not properly installed.  The sheathing and underlying studs where completely rotted and required delicate extraction and rebuild from the outside.  In the end, I only needed to fill a few nail holes and touch up paint.  How the water didnt seep through the drywall into the family room is beyond me.

After 8 months of siding, 1000’s of lbs of old siding, removing what seemed like a million nails, painting sheared hardiplank edges with a small paintbrush, nailing, an occasional swear, tubes of caulk the finished product!