the river house #2: stuck and stucco...

Remember we bought the River House a few months ago?  If you missed it, here is the introduction.  

Right now we're sort of stuck in a holding pattern... you see, standing in the middle of the "Great Room" addition that the former owners began, are 2 large steel posts for structural support.  They're great. I typically like a house that stands up structurally and all, but when the room is finished, I'd prefer not to have posts obstructing my living room area.  Since this is a begin-from-scratch type of project, I'm going for that one big-ol'-happy, open room.  (call me a miniature Joanna Gaines for those of you HGTV lovers...)

SO!  We consulted a handyman friend... who said we needed an architect...who said we needed a structural engineer... who drew out what we needed to do... and we're now looking for the contractor to actually MOVE those posts to the sides of the room while beefing up the header to hold it all in place.  

Pretty much everything is on halt until we get those posts moved to where they will be, especially because their location will affect the design of the basement, which is where we plan to begin!  (with the goal of creating an apartment down there by the end of the summer!)

There have been a few tasks we began during the cold months...

Tackling the ivy growing onto the house

Go Caroline!

This is the super cool basement where we'll be laboring in this summer.  It's going to be so cute- I can't wait to keep some of the exposed brick walls!

Before

But some of the brick walls are not in good shape, and still have stucco on them. (the gray stuff you see)

Before

Eventually we'll be repointing the bricks to look beautiful again, but before that can happen, I decided to give the stucco a try myself.  I watched a gazillion youtube videos, put on a mask, and went over to the house for an hour or so.

After

Success!  It was DUSTY, but thankfully not difficult!  An hour later, the stucco was off.  I must say, I'm pretty stinkin' proud of myself!

After

We've also been going through a million, trillion steps with the city to redraw the lines on this open lot next to the house.  Our neighbors (and friends) have wanted to purchase that land for YEARS and they were the first ones who ever told us about the house.  (it's a crazy story-- one day...)

Right now, the open lot is counted as a separate address (there used to be a home there), but when all is said and done, it will increase both the size of our neighbors' and our actual lot size.  They're thrilled to get a larger yard for gardening, etc., and we're happy to make them happy!  (plus we'll make some money back from their purchase and not have to maintain quite so much land- yay!)

So that's where we are!  To be continued...