The Great Reno!

After a long wait for financing, finding a suitable contractor who is available, and a building permit kerfuffle, the great renovation of the front of the house has finally begun!

When Jem & Shan bought this place 6 years ago, it was in really rough shape, and they renovated the crap out of the interior, including replacing structural elements that were dangerous.  Apparently, the city was considering condemning the place before Jem & Shan bought it.  The interior is lovely on both sides, and now it’s time to do the exterior.

Here is a picture of the place from the front before the demolition began today(you can see Boswell looking out the upper right window!):

Dilapidated, eh?  Well, all of the the porch and the entire roof is coming off starting today.  We are getting an entirely new porch, new basement wall, and new roof on the whole building. My place is on the left, and I am getting a new front door.  The windows on the 2nd floor you see are the two main bedrooms on each side, and both sides are having those replaced because theirs won’t open and mine doesn’t close.  Some landscaping will also be done and some of the cement stairs will be going as well.

Here is a shot of the house about an hour after demolition started:

It already looks way better without the blue wood ornamentation.

Lots of banging around and loud noises this morning, and Shan has just gotten off night shift & is probably having a hard time sleeping.  I think tomorrow she’ll go & sleep at her parent’s place when she gets off work in the morning.

Hopefully, my satellite dish will be repositioned properly before the day is out.

We are all very excited about this project as it’s going to look spectacular when it’s done!  And it helps there are nice-looking contractors hanging around, too! 😛

I have created a Flickr set here to keep the progress documented.