Framing, plumbing, electrical oh my!

A shot of our home completely gutted.

When we finally got our home gutted I honestly thought we would never be able to put it back together. It was really a terrifying view. They were able to frame up the new walls pretty quick, I think within a day or so from what I remember, and as soon as that happened I had a glimpse of hope! It was so nice to be able to walk through the house and feel the flow of things and get a better feel for the space. For the record, spaces look much smaller when taped off on the floor versus actual walls going up. Have you ever noticed how small house foundations look when first poured before the walls go up?

Week! The walls are going up!

The framing phase is so exciting because it feels like BIG progress, and it is!! But the next steps to a remodel are what I call the boring parts. They are things like running electric and plumbing. You know, the things that have cost a lot of money, aren’t pretty, and in the end, you can’t see but are super important to make your home safe and functional. This part of the process was also super stressful to me because at this point you have to have your plans pretty much set in stone all the way down to details like where you want light switches, light fixtures, and plug outlets. Heck, at this point I was just getting a good feel for the flow of things so these were big decisions to think about that you would be able to see in the end! Now that we’ve lived here for a few years, I’m really happy with all of our electrical decisions. We put a lot of thought into it down to having the ability to have our Christmas lights on a switch and I’m so glad we took the time to think through those things! As for the plumbing, when the plumber comes you obviously have to know where the shower, sinks, bathtub, commode, and dishwasher will be placed... we had the plumber come twice. Once to put in all new plumbing piping (I’m not sure the technical term) under the house because it was all old and deteriorating, and they also did all of the normal plumbing things they do before Sheetrock and tile goes up. We had them come a second time to get the bathtub fixture and toilet installed. We did the kitchen fixtures ourselves but our bathtub needed a professional to make sure everything was installed and sealed up correctly. Depending on your confidence and skill level, some or maybe all of the appliances and fixtures are fairly easy to install and you can save some money, so we did what we were comfortable with and left the rest for the pros! Once the electric was ran and the plumbing was finished, it was time for Sheetrock! This is when things started feeling real!

When I could finally see the wood with the sheetrock, I started getting really excited!

When the job was started we were promised that a crew would come in and do the Sheetrock job in one weekend. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and this took about a week. I was still pleased to see it done in a week because once Sheetrock is up it feels like you’ve moved leaps and bounds ahead in the process! We learned so many lessons throughout this process so here are lessons learned from this step: Think through Electric Options: Think about furniture placement and where you will plug things in. I am really satisfied with our plug placement. I’m a lamp person so I tried to think through everywhere I would plug in a lamp. We also added plugs to the eves of the house for Christmas lights. That is another decision I do not regret! A few of our lights are on two different switches for convenience. Honestly, I’m a creature of habit so I always use the same switches for the same lights. I might use this feature more in a larger home! Sheetrock Tips: + Make sure they cut the holes for outlet covers to the correct size. Some of ours are slightly too big. I didn’t really look for these things or point them out because I figured our contractor was a pro and would know these things.

+ The lesson I learned through this process is that it’s your house, and just a job for the contractor so depending on your contractor, their work ethic, and reputation, they may or may not care about making things beautiful and perfect. At this point in the process, I fully trusted our contractor and didn’t realize their lack of care, honesty, or ethics at the time. Do Daily Check-ins: If we do this again, I’ll be doing daily check-ins on the progress, checking work, asking questions and evaluating the job to make sure things are on track and being done correctly. It’s unfortunate that I feel the need to do this but after talking to so many others that have either built or remodeled homes, I’ve gotten the same feedback. So learn from our mistakes and be overly involved in every step of the process, even if your contractor should be the pro. Make sure they are doing the work to your standards because not a single step in this process is cheap. Believe me, you don’t want to have to pay for things to be done two or three times!