The White Mill Blog

The First Day for the White Mill Blog....take a look at this BEFORE Kitchen. The Stove and Range Hood are a Custom piece......

Here are some pictures from our first day of construction; The Shed is History!

Here are some photographs from Day 2. FYI, these first few posts are being made retroactively.

Day 3 saw the demo of the remainder of the screened porch and the first hint of what the scale of the house will be like when we are done.

Here is our contribution to construction; we tore out the bush in front of the house.

Here are some photos showing the progress during the second week. It was pretty shocking to see...

Prior to renovation, we had noted there was a certain amount of deflection in the roofline. We had been told by "old house experts" that this type of bowing is to be expected and that the ridge beam was likely to be structurally sound, just has sagged over the past 200 years. Made sense...

Monday morning job meeting; lots of noise in the background and then, strangely, sunlight starts shining down the Stairwell...

As I mentioned in the last post, the roof came off on Monday and the rain came on Tuesday. I swung by today. I think our project is going in the wrong direction; the house keeps getting smaller!

Wow... lots of progress today. In fact, I can't believe it is less then 24 hours since I stood in our old living room last night listening to the rain dripping through the tarp (and it was a lot of rain!) Today, we have the gable walls framed and the ridge beam installed.

This is my first attempt at mobile posting....the main roof is taking shape...the foundation footings have been poured.

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Thank god for the sunny week...no rain in sight! Tons of progress!

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I am going to break all of the photographs from today's exciting job meeting up into a couple of posts. This one is about the foundation work that is taking place in the back of the house. Here are some shots of the forms in place and the concrete being poured. Much thanks to our neighbors for allowing us to bring the cement truck up through their yard!

I know we have to get some before pictures and some design drawings up, but in the meantime, here are some "before" and "in progress" shots of changes taking place in the great room and stair hall:

Finally, here are some photographs from the exterior, tracking their (incredible) progress.

Its been a full month now since we moved out and construction began. It is hard to believe how much has happened in that month. We walked through today and the old part of the house is well on its way: windows are framed, walls are starting to take shape, tyvek is going on... its amazing.

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Hi... Week 5 is wrapping up. Our really terrific construction team has made good progress on the screened porch and are now digging for the foundation for the front porch and propane tank.

I stopped by the house Wednesday Morning to check in and see what is new. My camera battery was dying, so I didn't get many pics and what I did get are a little blurry.

We were really looking forward to checking out the progress this week and since my last post I was hopeful that I would fine the upstairs beginning to be framed. When we got there on Saturday, we found our builders hard at work, but they had already framed most of the upstairs and were working on the rooflines of the addition:

First of all, on this Thanksgiving, the fifth since we moved into our house, we are thankful for our terrific families and our great friends. We are especially thankful for our friends who have hosted us (and offered to host us) while we are displaced during the renovation. I wasn't looking forward to being homeless, but I have to say this has been a great experience and we are very lucky.

Its been awhile since we blogged; hard to believe this is the first post in December. In that time, lots of great work has taken place. I am just going to post a bunch of pictures.

It was maybe 25 degrees when we did our site visit this morning; I can't figure out how anyone is working outside when it is that cold but somehow they are managing.

Here are a few pictures to update you on the status of our new, 200+ year old house. Over the past two weeks, all of the ductwork has been installed and the plumbing and electric is well on its way. This is great, albeit not especially photogenic, progress:

It continues to be bitter cold, but that hasn't stopped them from finishing up the siding. It looks great:

......and so we have it, the HEAT is running and the house is insulated.

Here is a picture of the computer control panel of our new, ultra high efficient home heating system.

Ok - we've heard you all loud and clear...more updates. So here goes...it's a bit random....think of it as a catch up episode! The front of the house...we have siding, windows and window frames, 2 electric boxes (for now...one will disappear shortly) and our Front Door should be arriving in the coming weeks.

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Here are some pictures from our visit to the house this weekend. The porch columns and railings are up and on the screened porch the frames are in:

A bit rough...it starts in the kitchen and moves into the hall, office, pantry, mudroom and living room.  We are at the point there we have walls.

The drywall is in progress, so understandably it is a little messy right now. So rather then more pictures, this weekend's post is going to go into a little detail about the Kitchen design.

It took us 5 years to develop the overall design for the renovation, and when we first located the kitchen where we are building it, we had a very traditional layout with cabinets in an "L" lining the perimeter and a large island.

Tour the upstairs after the sheetrock !

The project is buzzing lately with lots of craftsmanship-type efforts. Trimwork is going up, including crown molding, door and window trim and base trim:

This week begins the 5th month since construction began. We had been a way for a few days, but were anxious to get to the house this morning to see how much progress was made with the wood flooring. It had been a rainy/ snowy/ rainy end to last week, so we were not sure if that would have any impact on the schedule.

well sort of... Here they are:

The installation will begin on Wednesday, between now and then the painter will be priming the kitchen and painting in preparation for the big install. In fact, if all goes as planned, the butcher block will be delivered on Wednesday and appliances will be coming on Friday, so next weeks post should be pretty cool.

This post is a little delayed because of loss of electricity as a result of a small storm that blew threw this weekend. Happy to report that although the White Mill is still without power, there was no wind or water damage (phew!)

The kitchen is really shaping up:

Today marks six months since the day we moved out. It is hard to believe how quickly 1/2 a year has flown by and how much has taken place. I remember the day we moved out and, quite frankly, it was terrible. Looking back now, it was completely worth it!

One of the less desirable, although arguably equally important...the Grass Committee. A Kentucky Blue mixture to be specific.

7 hours of raking, spreading, seed, fertilizerring, adding hay then setting up watering left us tired.

With every step the house starts to look more and more ready to live in. Now, with the countertops in and 95% of the interior painted, it would seem like we are just moments away from living there. Here are pictures of the Kitchen, Master Bathroom, and Guest Bathroom:

... and looking great!

OK, kind of embarrassed to see that the last post was from the first week in May, but in our defense we have been busy moving in, unpacking, and other stuff like that.

At long last here are some pictures of the interior. We had our building team over for dinner on Wednesday night, include David, Ray and Allison. It was the first meal out on the screened porch and reason enough to get the porch set up and take some pictures of everything else.

Received a few comments asking about paint colors... All paint colors were from Benjamin Moore. The downstairs powder room is 2128-50 November Skies, the Guest Bathroom is AC-25 Harbor Gray, the blue in the Master Bathroom is 1672 Alfresco and the beige is HC-93 Carrington Beige. The kitchen is HC-95 Sag Harbor Gray. As far as the 827 Lake Placid Blue in the guest bedroom.... it is a really nice color, but may be a little too intense. The verdict is out as we have yet to set up any furniture in that room; I am optimistic with some other materials in the room it will tone down nicely.