A glimpse into the chaos: "Before" photos...

Here are some of the before/during photos of the construction. It's giving me a headache just looking at them, but it has come a long way. Groundbreaking was August of '05, and we still don't have our final inspection!!

First 2 are the view from the family room into the kitchen. This is on the basement level of the house (same level as the original basement, although we have another basement under this level). We lived with those temporary stairs for about 9 months, no railings. Same story with the other set of stairs to the top floor. We tried not to invite a lot of foolish drunks over during this time (although we couldn't exactly turn away Kulli and Leho). Luckily no falls!

Still in the basement, this is the family room. By the way, I laid all of this flooring while we were living here. Most of these pictures were taken while we were already in the house- dirty, dusty, noisy, no running water until we had been here for 5 months (luckily our house connects on every level to my parents' house so we were able to use their bathrooms, kitchen, etc.).

Another view of the family room. We actually used this room, in this state, to watch tv. As my flooring installation moved along, I just kept shoving the couch closer and closer to the tv until we were finally sitting about a foot in front of it. At that point I had enough flooring laid to move the couch up onto the finished side. The door in the second photo leads to my parents' side of the house...the sauna! Complete with a front room for drinking, playing rummikub, cooling off, etc. My dad has a record player in there and there's a huge selection of records- old Estonian folk music, classical, Dr. Zhivago, the Monks, Aerosmith, of course Bowie, hundreds of records, hours of fun.

Below is the view through the pantry into the downstairs bathroom. We keep a bunch of building supplies that we still need, and lots we don't need, in there. Second photo is a close up of the BEAUTIFUL tile floor (which I'm not done laying yet, obviously). I love this floor, and I don't mind saying I did a pretty good job for my first time laying tile. Well, when I put it in writing, it sounds obnoxious...but whatever.

Next 2 photos below are of the "dining room" on the middle floor. It is actually part of my studio but it's disguised as a dining room, since we already had the furniture and all. The door on the left leads to my studio and the one on the right goes to our office. Second photo shows the stairs going down into the family room/kitchen and stairs going up to the bedrooms. After I laid the floors (on this level and the next level up I had help from several friends- I'd like to take this time to thank Gwyn, Paul, Garth, Leho, Danny, and Brook. And thanks, Kulli, for the idea to get Leho to come and help. Sorry, I didn't have time to prepare a more elaborate speech), Liza's husband Matt did all of the finishing. It looked gorgeous for a good 2 days until the electrician used the pushing method to move probably the heaviest piece of furniture I own. That guy was truly an idiot and I hope he's finally kicked his painkiller addiction. I feel sorry for his wife and their 6 or 7 kids. Especially because he's a jerk too. But I digress.

Next 2 photos are of my studio, looking towards the dining room. Powder room is at the back in the center. I put a linoleum tile floor in here, but not the peel and stick kind- oh no, that would be too easy. This was the trowel-on adhesive that is just like really sticky chewing gum. It's really hard to get off of your skin. This room is still a complete mess but I do work in it, and I love it.

Next photo shows the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, den and laundry room. You can also see the front door for this level (another front door is downstairs). This was before we moved in.

Next photo is the master bathroom, also before moving in. I was able to borrow an industrial paint sprayer and prime the entire house including ceilings, and paint the ceilings too (2 coats) in the weeks before we had to move in. It was July, 90+ degrees outside, our air conditioning wasn't working yet and it was HOT! This was a big job, the addition is about 27oo sq ft... Thank GOD I had the sprayer! Actually, I guess I should thank Danny. Thanks Danny. Sorry I broke your sprayer.

Below is the view from the attic of the old part of the house. One guy is standing in our future bedroom, 2 more guys are standing in part of the new attic, and Construction Roger (aka hot Roger) is standing in our den/play room which is above my mom's studio. You can still see the roof that used to be over the studio.