Wednesday, October 7, 2009

More About There…

This is another post about our home in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  Yesterday I kind of gave you the Sunroom remodel.  Being the bass-ackward person that I am while writing that post I decided you needed to see the demolition that got us to that big room.

remodel 12 This wall was originally the wall in  the kitchen/dining area.  I had already taken the sheetrock off  and had begun to bust out the rock wall on the built in porch.

remodel 7This photo was taken from the porch side.  There were heavy grey rocks on these walls and the fireplace because it was originally the outside walls of the house.

 remodel 13Another shot of the dining room wall from further back in the kitchen.  You can see a box of stuff on the bar there in the bottom right of the picture.

remodel 9 This is again the fireplace outside wall.  The porch was originally open but the roof was built over the porch area so it made it easy to close in.  These rocks, however, were a bitch to dust and Carol and I talked about it for several years and we decided to open up the sunroom and make it a big open area.

remodel 10 Where the plastic is hanging is where the fireplace was… and the wall to the 3rd bedroom. 

remodel 4 This is the view from the kitchen after the east wall came down. You can see the size of the rocks I broke out and hauled out of the room. You can see the green indoor/outdoor carpet that we put down when we closed in the porch and put all the windows in…

remodel 14 Here’s the room that was my bedroom.  This wall was on the west side of the sunroom.

remodel 3This was the fire place that was in the living room.  The exterior of the fireplace was the same heavy rock and it had a seating area that was about two foot  high and probably about  18 inches into the living room and it was also made from a heavy rock.  We joked about feeling like we were living in a bat cave.

remodel 900 Macklyn Here is a photo from back further in the living room.  You can see some of the rocks in the sunroom floor.  To be honest with you, I didn’t do all the demolition.  I just worked on it with the Bubba we hired and then when he had left for the day, I continued on…

remodel 11 After we took out all the firebrick, all the building brick and all the big rock that made the outside wall we had to fill the hole with concrete to get it back to floor level.

remodel 6 This is just a portion of the rock I hauled out in the back yard.  John, the high school boy that we originally hired to do yard work, ended up helping me build raised flower beds with the rock.  He also helped me with building the flagstone patio area in the front yard and flagstone walkways in the backyard.

remodel 17 We did hire another young man we knew to build the headers across where we had torn out the walls.  When we moved in in 1995 on this wall was the fireplace and sliding doors going to the sun porch… The sliders were about where that strip of green carpet is now.

remodel 20

In this photo you can see where the header was made between the living room and the outside wall across where the bedroom wall was before I tore it down.

So that's it for this post. If you hang with me I'll give you some more of 'there' and I'm sure it will help you understand why I haven't written about B'ville before now. It just killed my heart because so much of me was put into our home there.

Later!

10 comments:

joanne said...

Wow, that's a lot of work...glad you were able to use all that rock in other places of the yard. It's amazing to see the photos of things as they progress. I am anxiously waiting the rest of the story...;p

Anonymous said...

WOW!! That's alot of hard work and sweat! I am quiet impressed with your handywork, ma'am!
I also love the finished product. I would love to have a sunroom. Maybe someday that can be what we do as an add on.

darsden said...

Wow you need to go work for Ty on ABC dang way to sling a big hammer! I am almost afraid to ask what happened to your house there!

Reddirt Woman said...

JoJo, it was a lot of work but it was a total joy to open up the living area and combining it with the sunroom. It was like a load was lifted off us by getting rid of the heavy rock feeling.

Amy I'm here to tell you that a sunroom is so worth whatever you can afford to put into it. As I said, the covered porch made it an easy choice to close it in for year round use. That part was done about 3 years after we moved there. Carol's mother came to live with us (the first time) and we thought she would enjoy using it when she wanted to enjoy looking out to the backyard to see the flowers.

Dar it's amazing the things you can do when you have time and the inspiration to make the changes. Because I was able to do a lot of the work it helped to keep the costs down. And I'd love to swing a hammer with Ty! :-)

Lonicera said...

Helen - I'm whizzing backwards and forwards through your posts trying to figure out whether (a) this is where you lived a long time ago, and it clearly hurts that you're not there now (yes, such a beautiful house), and (b) that you're about to move again shortly - another hurt. I'm definitely not a nosey person, and just want to sympathise - perhaps you could put "yes" and "yes" against (a) and (b)?? Or simply say that you prefer not to comment?? Positively no offence taken, whatever you reply.
Caroline

Laura ~Peach~ said...

wow what a ton of work you are so talented!!!!! i can see why it would break your heart to leave there!

Aleta said...

You amaze me. Basically, you gutted out the house. I feel for you... renovations are never an easy thing to do. And MAN - those rocks are HUGE!

Reddirt Woman said...

Caroline our home in Bartelsville was the first home I'd lived in more than a couple or three years. We were there eleven years and while the situation was not the best I put a lot into our home and yard and ended up falling in love not only with our home, but also the city feel in a smaller town. So this home is the There part of the story.

Laura this part of the house is one I had a huge hand in doing. We had also gutted out the bathroom in the master bedroom and part of the back bedroom to make it handicapped accessible for Carol's mother and for Carol and I down the road. If I can dredge up photos from that part I will post them.

Aleta, basically we did gut the house. With having a truss roof it made it possible to do the things we did and all were to make our home comfortable to live in as we aged. And the rocks were heavy but I had a dolly and a strapping young high school lad that helped out a bunch.

hetty said...

That's some heavy duty construction you had going on there. You have renovation talent! I'm impressed. Even if you had a 16-year old helping you, that is still a lot of work! We built a solarium onto our house too about 20 years ago. I love it. It's the best part of the house for me.

Twisted Fencepost said...

To put so much work into something and then have to leave it is hard. Must be!
I guess sometimes you do what you have to do.