Rooftop Deck

When we first moved into our house, there were decks on decks on decks. However, Jacob and I quickly realized that none of them were safe. From rotting wood to under-supported foundations, our decks were literally falling apart.

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Pictures from before we even moved into the house

One of our favorite decks was the rooftop deck off of our office upstairs- but it was in bad shape. The flooring was vinyl on top of wood that had been wet for who knows how long and railings were wobbly and dangerous.

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Within the first year of living here, we demolished the rooftop deck with all intents and purposes of redoing it quickly. However, other projects took precedence (house foundations, retaining walls, leaky roofs, etc.).

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It wasn’t until after Maya was born that we tackled this deck, and done mostly by Jacob since I was on baby duty. Not to leave my dad out, though- he was critical in the roofing part of this project (and super brave- he was 4 stories in the air with nothing but concrete to fall onto).

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This is now one of our favorite places to be. We spend many spring, summer and fall nights out on this deck. The kids are also big fans of the hammock chairs!

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Eventually we would love to be able to have coffee in the mornings up here, but that will probably have to wait until the kids are better at sleeping in past 5:30am!

The Downstairs Dream (5): The Kitchen Part 2

The kitchen project was definitely different than most of our other projects, and that is simply because most of the work was not done by us, but by professional cabinet and countertop installers. While we’ve done everything from foundation, to framing, to roofing (and beyond), Jacob and I were nervous about doing this work ourselves. So ended up purchasing our cabinets and countertops through Ikea, and they also did all of the installation.

While Ikea cabinets aren’t technically “custom,” the installers did customize the pieces to make them fit our space. So we got the custom look for a standard price- it was amazing! (Anyone looking to remodel their kitchens, we highly recommend using Ikea). The cabinet fronts didn’t come from Ikea, however. We found a company through my sister that manufactures cabinet fronts for Ikea cabinetry.

so many boxes

more boxes of appliances

We hired our neighbor, Steve, to get the plumbing, electrical and framing ready for the island and the rest of the kitchen. Normally, this would have been something that we tackled ourselves, but it was the beginning of the school year and we simply didn’t have the time to do it before the installers came with the cabinets. Steve did a great job getting everything ready!

beginnings of the island

ready for cabinets

When the cabinet guys showed up Jacob honestly thought we were being pranked. These two guys came in a tiny car, hardly the vehicle for someone in the construction/installation biz. But somehow these guys had fit not only themselves, but a portable table saw, air compressor and air guns, as well as a variety of other tools! They got to work right away and we were impressed with their craftsmanship (especially with the custom cuts they had to make to fit everything into our nonstandard space).

cabinets in

island cabinets

start of the bar area

fronts going in

island wrapped

pantry

microwave/over/warming drawer

bar area almost complete

fridge installed

countertops going in!

… and Maya is so excited! (plus the tiled wall- Jacob did most of the tile work, but I was able to help during nap time)

bar area all done and stocked

Jacob wrapped the ceiling and my dad did the window trim… makes it complete!

finishing touches!

We started this whole project at the beginning of October. For those of us who live in Sonoma County, I probably do not need to remind you of what October 2019 brought us. With the PSPS days, mandatory evacuations due to the Kincade fire, and having to reorder some cabinet fronts, the whole process ended up making more than two months! No matter how long it took, though, it was SO worth it! We love our new kitchen. We have MUCH more storage and cooking space, and it is really nice that we can be either cooking or cleaning up after a meal and still be able to be together. Whoever is on chef or clean-up duty no longer has to be in a separate room all by themselves, and that is just awesome.

The Downstairs Dream (4): The New Kitchen Part 1

Since moving into our house 7 1/2 years ago, Jacob and I had dreamed about switching locations our living room and kitchen. This past fall, that dream finally came to fruition!

But a lot of work had to happen beforehand, and we had an iteration of this space as an improved living room (with correct framing, electrical, insulation, and all).

Check out the transformation below.

The original living room with a wall of windows

framing in

Before this space became our new kitchen, however, it spent nearly 2 years as an updated living room and play area.

living room

Maya’s first iteration of her play area

When we decided that we were going to tackle the kitchen project, Jacob and I took a few days off of work and laid all of the hardwood downstairs. It was awesome!

Prepping to install the flooring

flooring going in!!

floors in!

Maya is checking it all out

Once the flooring was in, we had to finish prepping for the kitchen install. That meant building the pony wall for our island and getting all of the electrical ready for the appliances.

beginnings of the island

ready for cabinets

pony wall wrapped with drywall

Next time… the cabinets and appliances go in!

The Downstairs Dream (3): The Ceiling

To continue the Downstair Dream series, I’m going to now turn my focus upwards- to the ceiling! We had to do a lot of work (framing, installing skylights, drywall, etc.) but we are so happy with how it turned out! Check out the transformation below:

original ceiling with fan, framing starting to go in

fan gone, more framing

more framing

new skylights in and drywall going up!

almost done

finishing touches

beautiful!

The Downstairs Dream (2): The Front Room

One of the last posts I did before my years-long hiatus was about taking down a wall and putting in an i-beam to open up our downstairs. Prior to the wall coming down, we referred to the room it created as the “front” room. This is because it was a long, narrow room that stretched the length of our house if you were looking at it from the street. If it sounds like a weird room, it was. A prior owner decided to close in the front deck and make this room, thus its strange shape (and a host of roofing and flooring problems to go along with it). Either way, this room was a big undertaking and I’m going to share photos of its progress below!

lacquered particle board floors for the win! How this room looked originally (mostly)

wood paneling, floors gone- time to add insulation!

the wall the separated the front room from the rest of the house

taking the wall down

sheet rock up

getting there…

done! (pre-kitchen/living room swap)

Opening up this room to the rest of the house made our downstairs feel so much bigger and lighter. My favorite part of this front room makeover is the ceiling. From the skylights to the beautiful redwood panels, it’s breathtaking! Thanks to Jacob’s dad for taking the original paneling and planing it, and to Jacob for installing it.

The Downstairs Dream (1): A New Wood Stove

Jacob and I have done a lot of work on our house over the past 7 years to make things better, but what we’ve done in the past 6 months has been super exciting. One of the first things we wanted to do when we started making real changes on the house was to flip the location of the living room and kitchen. We’ve talked about it for years, and we finally were able to do it over the course of a few months this past fall and winter.

However, before we were able to do this flip, there were other things we wanted to take care of. One of them was putting in a new wood stove- and then we decided to get all fancy so we “built” a brick wall to go behind it!

the beginning stages

we had to use 2×4 to keep the brick from falling down

no mortar

mortar!

now for the platform for the wood stove

getting there…

With this project complete, we were one step closer to flipping the rooms and finishing the downstairs!

Side Yard #1

While I still have a backlog of already-completed projects, I wanted to share a newly-finished house project that I took the lead on! Usually I am relegated to baby-duty when we work on the house on the weekends (You know, I’ve got the boobs with the food). But there was one project that I really wanted to tackle and that was to create an outdoor play space for the kids. So I took advantage of the extra time (i.e. all of my time…) at home and finally did it!

I started this project way back in June by cleaning up the side yard and laying down the weed cloth. Before I could get the gravel in, I had to lay the base bricks for the retaining wall that we will eventually have all across the back of our house. In order to lay the bricks correctly, I had to make sure each one was level so we don’t have any issues arise as we add height to the wall.

**Between the brick laying and the gravel is about an 8 month break… other projects took precedence in the meantime (installing hardwood in all of the downstairs, a new kitchen, new living room…).

It took a total of 2 yards of gravel (4 truckloads), and countless buckets going up close to 40 stairs total to get this all done. It was a lot of work, but so worth it!!

The final photo I’ll share is the “final” product. (Still a lot to do in this area: finish concrete brick retaining wall in the back, build stairs going from the deck to the side yard, etc. but it’s usable now!) And as you can see, the kids have already claimed it as their own 🙂

The Final Roof

When we first bough our house, we were told that the owner had just put on a brand new 7-year roof! YES, we thought, one project we can hold off on! Well, turns out the 7-year roof leaked. A lot. We have spent several years going from roof to roof fixing all of the issues and putting down new framing, sheeting and shingles. Winter brought sights of blue tarps atop our house for many years! That is until 2 summers ago. We finally finished our last roof, including replacing all of the skylights and adding new ones.

Fro this image, you can see the rain! And guess what… no leaks!

As you can see from many of the photos above, my dad (like usual) had a huge hand in making this (and all of the other roofs) happen. Thanks again, Dad! Even though this was a couple of years ago, we still get a lot of joy out of no longer having tarps covering our house during the rainy season!

“Office” Trim

We replaced all of the windows and pretty much finished our upstairs room over 3 years ago when we got all of our siding redone and windows upgraded to double-pane (woot woot!). This room, which we still call the “office,” (despite the fact that it’s been close years since it’s actually been an office!) remained in a state of “almost done” for a couple of years (you know, having a baby, having another baby… we’ve been busy!).

Back in August 2017 my dad made great headway with the trim- but it wasn’t until 2019 that everything finally came together and all the trim was done (thanks to my dad on all of this- I barely helped, mostly walked around with distracting toddlers and babies).

some before shots of the windows

more unfinished windows

windows done, but beam/posts not wrapped

some before shots of the windows

beam/posts wrapped!

big window….

wrapped!

door to the patio, before

after!

don’t have a before shot of this, but this is the door to our bedroom

 

Even though I’ve experienced it enough times that I shouldn’t be surprised by it, I continue to be amazed by how much better a room feels once the trim is done.

One last thing… THANKS AGAIN DAD!!!!

The Shed

I am not going to be able to post everything we’ve done in the past 3 years in order, but I’ll try to get it all in as best as I can! Today’s post is a more recent endeavor that Jacob and I took on last summer. He, with the help of my dad (and me watching the kids solo so he could do this), built a shed! The intent of the shed was to have a new place to store all of our tools, camping gear, etc. so that we could then get started converting our basement into future bedrooms for the kids. While we haven’t started on the basement portion of the plan yet, the shed is done and it is beautiful! Scroll for the progress shots 🙂

We built the walls in separate pieces, and then assembled them- due to the fact that on two sides there is a straight drop of between 10-20 feet!

3 walls up!

Super helper Maya!

Coming together

all of the siding up

painted!

a peak at some of Jacob’s interior design

more counter space

After a few months and many long weekends, Jacob finished the shed. I have to say, it looks pretty amazing (just don’t mind the tool surplus we’ve got going on the deck…!)