Congrats! It sounds like this bid has gone much more smoothly, and hopefully the construction will, too! I've enjoyed seeing your other spaces come together. We're about a month into our own 6-month project, and it's nice to see people getting to finishing stages!

And the work begins (I'm pinching myself that it's actually finally happening).
Day 1: DH removes the aggregate stone patio with his tractor, leaving a hanging breakfast nook. Fortunately we're able to dump the chunks across the street, where they're filling in some low ground.

Day 3: They delivered the block. I also went to Lowe's to purchase the rest of the windows that we need, and happened to hit the first day of a 10% off sale on energy star windows. That, coupled with a 10% off coupon for opening a Lowe's credit card, saved us $700!

Day 4: They installed the block for the crawl space. Rather than have them buy rocks to spread on the dirt, we told them they could use all the rocks we had shoveled out of the foundation beds and stockpiled against the side of the house.

Looks great! I love everything construction, but for some reason I really love remodels. Can't wait to see more!

I am a bit unfamiliar with crawlspaces and trying to learn more about them. The whole venting thing seems controversial. What is your contractor doing?

I love your play-by-play and can't wait to see more.

Mary: good question on the crawlspace venting. I'm not sure. The crawlspace along the side of our house has small screened openings, it looks like between the floor joists. I'll have to ask. This portion will connect to the main crawlspace under the house (previous entrance will now become a crawl-through).

They won't be back until Friday to start the framing, which will give DH time to move the gas line that feeds the fireplace out of the way and put in some drainage pipe before they backfill the dirt next to the blocks.

Day 11: The GC called me last night and told me the lumber would be there Thursday and they'd start the framing on Friday. True to his word, the materials were dropped off. DH made sure he capped off the gas line and put in the drainage tubing for the downspouts today so we wouldn't hinder their work.

The GC called me around 2pm (DH had just left for work and I was on the road 3 hours away) and asked if there was a way they could get into the house, to block off the breakfast nook on the inside and support the walls for demo so they'd be prepped and ready to go with the framing. We have a keypad entry on our garage, so I gave him the code. (How's that for trust?) When I got home, they had indeed blocked off our view.

I went around back, and to my surprise, found this already done:

I'm really liking these guys. Unfortunately there's an 80% chance of rain tomorrow, so they may not actually get any walls up until Monday.

Day 12: It was rainy, so they took the day off today. The GC stopped by the house when DH was home, though, and they chatted. DH asked him the plan for venting the new crawlspace and he said some people just cut a couple holes in their HVAC and do some heating and cooling that way. (!!) That didn't sound like a plan we wanted to go with, so he agreed to put 2 vents in the north side and 2 in the south side similar to what we've already got.

Additionally, our plans specified plywood subfloors, and the stacks of lumber he had delivered only included OSB. DH mentioned this and he said he'd get the right stuff delivered.

Finally, putting the foundation in somehow messed up the existing A/C drain, so they came up with a plan to put a new drainpipe in that connects into the new drainage for this space (I'm not sure the details, but DH'll work it out with him).

Day 15: They put in our plywood subfloor...

...and demo'd/supported the openings.

The two windows on the left will become french doors, and the opening on the right will stay an opening into the kitchen. The two second floor windows flanking the chimney will be shrunk to 3-footers to accommodate the slope of the roof. And the window over the opening will become a doorway into the master bedroom.

Take a look at the shoddy brickwork over the breakfast nook opening. The POs obviously added on the little bow window after the fact, and their mason didn't much care what his work looked like under the roof.

We hit a snag with the windows, which is why the framing lumber is laying around rather than constructed. First of all, we were going to reuse two of the breakfast nook windows, but it turns out that they're 2" shorter than the windows they flank, which will make the brick work look dorky. So I had to run out and purchase 2 new ones. Secondly, the upstairs windows were all drawn 60" tall, but on the sunroom side, the connector roof will cut the neighboring window off if it's that big. The architect messed that one up. So I had to buy another window, this one 42" tall instead of 60". Perhaps I'll add a small built-in bookcase inside the room so it looks like we wanted one of the windows to begin higher off the floor. So another $750 for windows (is this the famous "10% contingency" we've all been warned about?). I'm going to see if Lowe's will take back the other window with a restocking fee. And we'll sell all the windows we're taking out, so that'll offset the cost somewhat.

Day 16: We're talking some serious framing.

The roof trusses are in, and they demo'd the brick on the upstairs part of the breakfast nook. They also removed the first floor windows, but didn't get the french doors installed (a couple guys on his crew didn't show up), so we've got plastic stapled over the windows. Fortunately DSS is very talented at catching flies with his bare hands, as swarms got in the house. Our A/C is working overtime, as it's 95 degrees and humid out.

GC discovered a goof on the crawl space. The prints said the length of the diagonal window was 2'8" and he read it as 28", so it's 4" short. He fixed it by sistering a couple floor joists to the outside of the frame, and he'll have to add some block for the mason to base his brick on.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn't rain tomorrow so we can get things sealed up.

Day 16: The framing is finished, the addition wrapped, and the roof underlayment and tar paper put on the sunroom portion. The second floor roof is a bit tricky, with lots of angles to tie it in to the main house.

DH and I walked around inside the rooms tonight, feeling the spaciousness and enjoying the view through the gazillion windows. What a cool feeling...and one needed to counterbalance the disarray from boarded-up and tarped-over holes in the wall downstairs, a ripped-up floor upstairs where DH is working on a new bathroom, and a half-done dining room, where I've started to put in hardwood floors.

It's one thing to understand that the projects never end. It's another to have three major ones going on at the same time.

Interesting posts. Way to go. Looks like you're most of the way there. Keep us posted.

Day 17: Eh voila, we have windows!

We are, of course, waiting for 3 windows to go in the 2nd story (due 8/11), and the two smaller replacement windows to go above the sunroom (due 8/6). They haven't put in the french doors to the house yet, but I asked the GC to do that so it's sealed up. He thought we might want to put in the drywall first so it wouldn't mess up the doors. I laughed internally at that...we're DIY-ing the inside, and we're probably several months away from drywall given our current priorities.

The mason's planning on doing the brick 10 days from now, and the roofers will come on Monday. Meanwhile we're going on vacation for a week, so it's good timing for the construction to take a break while we do.

And I wrote the GC a check for $20K.

You might want to look into the flashings,(or lack of ),with your window install. Installing the windows over the wrap not flapping the wrap over the head section of the windows could lead tp problems. With brick, you want to have a header flashing as well. Just running adhesive flashing tape over the nailing flange isn't going to cut it later on down the road.

Here is a link that might be useful: window flashing

Forgot to mention how awesome your project is and how nicely it ties in. Didn't mean to come across as down playing your project, just mentioning the window(s) install. Make sure they are properly flashed to save you headaches down the road.

Sierra: Your comments/warnings about the flashing are far from offensive; they're welcome. Thanks for bringing it up. I'm posting a few more close-ups here, and would appreciate your specific feedback/tips.

Given what I believe I know about flashing, it should really be making it so that water flows down and out, not down and in. Here are 3 photos of what look like finished flashing, (will have brick over top of them.

From what I can tell, above the window the wrap is over top of the nailing flange, and the aluminum tape is over top of both. On the sides, the nailing flange is over top of the wrap, and covered by aluminum tape. On the bottom, the nailing flange is over the wrap and the rubber/plastic flashing.

Here's a close-up of the transom, which I think is just not finished yet.

Help me understand what they did wrong and the proper way to do it.

My Bad. With the close ups it looks fine. On the last picture where the housewrap is up and then folded over the nailing flange after the window install is right on. Then the adhereing flashing tape over that. The flashing on the sill being under the window is correct as well. Fine job, i guess i need my eyeballs checked because i wasn't seeing what was showed by the close ups. Excellent work and a fine looking project! Best of continued luck! Thanks again for the close up shots and please continue with the pics!

Thanks for looking out for us, Sierra. :-) Makes me want to post more close-ups to get some more feedback. I'll do that when we get back from our vacation.

Day 22: The roofers got the shingles and flashing up while we were out of town. They also leveled out the dirt piles, and DH had to uncover the drain pipes so he could attach another one from the original house crawl space, as it got damaged in the digging.

The last of our windows are due to arrive tomorrow, and the brick should happen this week sometime.

Day 30: The masons started the brickwork. Any comments on the quality of their work?

They also got the upper windows put in (you can see one in this photo).

Alas, I was pretty irritated when I got home after work to find both garage doors open, the window and door packing materials strewn across the driveway, the front door closed but unlocked, and the slider and outside door around back wide open. The first time I gave him the garage code they left it open and I was firm to the GC about making sure they closed up behind them. That heightens my irritation this time around. I called him this evening, but he hasn't called me back.

We've also got an issue with the construction: the new floors are slightly higher (maybe 1/8 inch) than the existing floors where they meet. We could live with that where the sunroom meets the family room, as we'll have different floor coverings and can put a transition there, but the kitchen is already tiled and needs to be continued seamlessly into the breakfast nook, and the upstairs sitting room needs to have the carpet continued in, without a floor protrusion.

I will take the approach that others have suggested on these boards: ask the GC how he's going to fix it. But so that I'm prepared, any ideas from the pros on what he should do and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable?

Oops, typo in the above. The new sub floors are 3/8 inch higher than the existing ones.

Day 31: More brick. I'm pleased with how they filled in the smaller window opening upstairs.

Day 32: Almost done with the brick. They're 100-200 bricks shy of having enough (good thing we've got so many windows!), and the factory doesn't make it anymore, so the brick supplier brought over something close and they're going to use it either under the windowsills that are left or on the side of the upper story facing the sunroom, where it's not very visible from anywhere.

Day 33: Brick is done!

I'm normally a lurker but want to tell you how fabulous this looks. Also, reading the story gives me chills because we are going through something eerily similar. Right down to the "whoops, gotta buy an unexpected window because the one we were going to reuse won't work. "

"I'm pleased with how they filled in the smaller window opening upstairs"

Awesome work! Im not sure i understand why they didn't tie the addition into the house using the same method there, but that is miniscule. It's nice to see an add on project that looks like it was an original part of the house. Very nice!

I thought I'd close the loop on this thread, since my original intent was to chronicle our adventures with a contractor. We're DIY-ers and this was our first foray into the world of hiring others.

We had a few issues come up near the end. Here's what they were and how we resolved them. I strongly believe that the fact that we still owed him $10,000 helped us resolve them without too much trouble.

1. He told us that he could recommend someone to do the soffits and gutters, we told him that was in his bucket to do. He said he hadn't included that in his bid. We referred him to the plans, which were very detailed about what was to be done, and highly specific about which things the owners (us) were doing. The plans were referenced in the contract we had. He groused about it, but we politely but firmly told him we didn't feel responsible if he had overlooked their inclusion in his bid. He called out a sub and got them done.

2. The floors of the addition were not level with the existing house in 3 of the 4 places they connect. Fortunately, the one place they were was where we need to continue existing tile from our kitchen into our breakfast nook, so we were okay there. He told us that they lined up the nook with the existing floor and built it level from there, so the part our sunroom attaches to was not level (subfloors are off 3/8"). The flooring will not be continuous, so we agreed to deal with that ourselves when we refloor the family room. Haven't decided whether to build it up, use a transition, or do some sloping of the floor to graduate the transition.

Upstairs the new floor was 1/4" higher than the old floor, and we're continuing existing carpet. There was no excuse for this, IMO, and he said it was because our existing joists had shrunk, and the new ones he used were higher, so what did we expect him to do, plane down the joists? Yup, that's what we would have asked for if he had pointed out the issue. He suggested pulling back the carpet, and putting some leveling compound down. I suggested he do that. He gave us a $200 concession.

3. Change orders: He had 3 add-ons to our contract price. $250 for attaching the transom to the slider (he said normally they come attached, and this was a pain to put together); $125 for some extra cutting in the brickwork (he had told my DH about this); and $250 for hanging 2 sets of french doors. We protested about not being told on the slider/transom (change orders were all to be in writing), but agreed to pay it. Hanging the french doors was in the plans, so we once again referred him to those, and he withdrew the charge.

Soooo, bottom line, we paid him $40,175 for the beautiful shell he built, plus we bought the windows and doors, which totalled around $6,000. Hopefully we can eke out the inside so the total comes in under $50,000 for the 500 square feet we added.

And here are our final outside photos. We got hit by the remnants of Hurrican Ike that blew through the midwest, and it stood up like a champ, shingles and all.

We plan to take Thanksgiving week off and do a blitz on the inside then to finish it up for the winter. And next spring a new deck....

It will be interesting to see if water that normally gets into the existing brick cavity above the addition drains into the house. Usually the only solution (short of replacing all of the brick above the addition and weeping the cavity above the new roof) is to install a drain trough to catch this water at the head of the new brick opening and carry it to the outside.

It will also be interesting to see if the roof-to-brick wall flashing will remain stuck to the brick since it was not set into the existing brick coursing.

The first indication of these problems will be a wet line in the new ceiling where the addition joins the original house. The likelihood of that happening depends on how well you maintain the sticky stuff behind the new roof-to-wall flashing and how resistant to water penetration the brick is.

I couldn't see how the brick over the openings was supported or how that detail was flashed. Is it a loose steel lintel with no flashing? If it is attached to the frame it would need careful waterproofing attention.

MightyA: If you're commenting based on the earlier photos of the roof flashing, that was temporary until the soffits and gutters were finished. They came back and cut into the brick with a 4" grinder, then bent the flashing over and wedged it into the slit. Here are some photos of the finished product. Let me know if that allays your concerns.

We weren't around when they finished the brick over the windows, so I can't vouch firsthand for their method, but I believe the plans called for a steel lintel.