Because of hurricane Sandy, we are behind schedule about a week and a half, due mainly to transportation issues for the crew.  Although demolition was almost complete, they were not able to haul away the debris yet because alternate side parking rules were suspended and it was too difficult to get a dumpster right in front of the house.

Our second bit of disappointing news was that our contractor quoted us a price to rebuild our neighbor’s shed that we have to tear down.  A whopping 13K to replace a 50 year old box!  While we want the lady’s shed to be replaced a little better than it was, we do not want to provide her with a state of the art solarium.  What pains us most is that it mainly houses old cleaning supplies and the like.  

Nevertheless, the crew started the excavation for the extension in the back.  At the end of last week we  attended a status meeting at the site with our architect, structural engineer and foreman.  As we have mentioned before, if you are planning on major structural work to your home you will need to hire a structural engineer.  His or her price tag will be high and you will think, oh man.  Well last week our engineer (along with our architect) earned his paycheck.

During the meeting we all took a close look at the shed wall abutting our property and determined that instead of demolishing her entire shed we could simply incorporate the wall into our extension. The plan was for our extension to use CMU blocks (concrete masonry unit) with an EIFS (external finishing insulation system) with a stucco coating. Under this new plan we’ll continue to use CMU blocks and EIFS but in the areas of the wall abutting her wall (top photo, right side) we’ll leave out the stucco and apply a metal flashing over the top of her wall to water proof it.

We will have to give up about 2 inches of space in our bedroom (sadly from our closet) but we will have saved the cost of the new shed and when it’s complete we won’t be able to tell the difference.  Like most things with renovation–it is a wait and see game.  They will go forward with this new plan until or unless some unknown factor prevents it.  In the renovation game, it’s the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men.