Under construction, again

When we bought our house two and a half years ago we bought it knowing that we'd have to do some major renovations. The kitchen was attrocious and closed in, the shingles on the roof were cracking, there was popcorn ceiling everywhere, and the wierdest thing was that there was only one bedroom on the main level. Whoever lived here before turned three bedrooms and two bathrooms into one huge master suite with a big closet and laundry area and two bathrooms. For us, this isn't very logical, especially since we've had Oakley. We do have 3 bedrooms downstairs, but having a sleeping child that far away isn't feasable for me, so we're starting our next big project, dividing Oakley's room into two bedrooms. Last year I got sick of sleeping in the same room with Oakley, so I made Wes tear out the closet and laundry area and we moved our bed in there, so we've had our own room for a year, but we've had to walk through Oakley's to get to it, or to go to the bathroom. We got pretty good at sneaking in and out, most of the time.

(Left) This is what the bedroom looked like before. You can't see the other side, but this is only half of the room, and then the bathroom is on the right, along with our bedroom.

(Right) This is the same view after we framed in the walls for the new bedrooms and hall. Where I was standing to take the picture is at the door to the old bedroom, which we will be taking out.

Here is my drawing of our project. The dark lines are all the walls that currently exist, and the other walls are ones that we just framed in, so they're the new ones. I took a few drafting classes in school, so it was fun to use that creative side again.

Here's another picture looking at the bathroom door and the master bedroom door.

This picture is looking back to the original door of the old bedroom.

Here you can see the new closets, back to back, in each room.

And of course Oakley always wants to help dad, so here he is "helping" with the screws and tools that Wes was using to do the electrical. He loves climbing up that little ladder that we have. He's only fallen off once or twice. And le likes wearing the headlamp. It fits him just right.

Right now Wes is almost done with the electrical stuff, rewiring lights, and putting in new lights and plugs, and then we'll be on to sheet rocking. Hopefully it won't take too much longer, but these things always take longer then you think, especially when the only time to work on it is after work each night. Wes has done a great job, and our friend Rich Parry helped us with the framing, so all the angles are nice and neat. I'm sure I'll post more when we get more done, so standby for the next phase of the project.