With all of the little projects and planning we’ve been sharing lately, some of you may be wondering, “What’s going on with the dining room?” And while things never move as quickly as you’d want on a big project like this, we did want to give you some exciting updates and share where things are at. since the last time we talked about it it was looking like this:

First and foremost, we have our permits! The permitting process can be a bit of a bear, and while we had our sketches done and turned in over a month ago, someone over at the permitting office pushed the wrong button or something and a bunch of applications (not just ours) were deleted. Good thing our Contractor was checking in with them so much, otherwise who knows how long it would have gone undetected. So that put us a bit behind, but we were able to get our application expedited.

Even after all that, there were a few changes required. A few things with footing locations, some tweaks to HVAC – nothing major, but delayed the approval another week. But now, finally, we have permits in hand and are ready to go!

Another fun discovery is that our back patio is actually about 6 inches of concrete poured directly over top another 6in layer of concrete that used to be the original back patio. They went in to cut it out and found that the concrete saw wasn’t going all the way through. They had to come back with a bigger saw and cut all the way through it so it could be removed.

Some may wonder why we’re going through all the hassle to completely remove the old structure – why not just fix what was already there. We’ve touched on this before, but this addition was not permitted, and it shows. For one thing, you can’t use 6in of concrete poured over 6in of concrete as a substrate to an addition of a home. There were no proper footings around the foundation for the walls of this room, and the chimney was just sitting on top without proper support. We decided that, since this room will now fully be part of the house, it needs to be right. And where we’re putting a balcony above this room, the foundation becomes even more important (if a foundation can possibly become more important than it already is). 

So the team spent the past week breaking out the old concrete. They used a skid steer with a jackhammer attached to finish it off and even that part took a couple days. The demo part of this project is the most expensive line item, so having that handled makes the rest feel easy. The goal for this week is to get the excavator in here to dig for the new footings, and have the footings poured so they can cure over the weekend. Here’s to hoping, and we’ll keep you all posted!

To see live updates as they happen, be sure to follow us on Instagram @chrislovesjulia