When I was doing Sunday Edition in September, I promised pictures of the addition to our home. Here they are. :) (And, shh, don’t tell, but I copied and pasted the inspy web address on the pictures but didn’t realize I’d spelled it wrong–I often invert the s and p–until toward the end of the pictures. I didn’t change them, so see if you can spot my mistakes. :D)
NOTE: This post is FULL of pictures, so be mindful of how long it will take for your internet connection to download them. :o
I tried to stay out of the workers’ way, so you’ll see that many of these pictures are taken in the evening. Picture 1 is a close up of the trench they dug for the concrete footings. Pic 2 is a larger view of the area.
At this point, we were wondering if we’d underestimated how big this second garage would be. It looked HUGE.
They almost dug too far forward because the markers were not meant to denote exact location, but they thought they were. We wanted the back of this building to be even with the back of our house. :o My husband caught that error before it was a major problem.
Picture 3 shows the preparation for the concrete. LOTS of gravel and rebar.
Obviously, pic 4 shows the final concrete pad. If you look closely, toward the rear left corner, you can see where our safe room will be.
It was one of the requirements for this build. I wanted a safe room.
We often have tornadoes here in Alabama, and we had no place inside our home, except maybe a 3×4 closet, stuffed with things, that would even come close to safe. As you’ll see later, I don’t think this room is going anywhere. :)
My son took a moment to play with a broken board–we were scavenging from the dumpster. They threw away some decent wood we knew we could use for other projects later.
And there’s the safe room. Concrete blocks set on top of rebar posts (small ones buried in the foundation concrete). Then longer pieces of rebar were set down through the holes and tied to the ones poking out of the concrete. AND then, they poured concrete down into the holes and on the ceiling (they had a wood platform they poured onto).
It doesn’t look very big, but it’s 5’x7′, which is plenty big for quite a number of people. My husband plans to add a TV–it’s hooked up for power, lights, and an antennae–benches, and shelves.
Here is the framed and wrapped versions. This part went pretty quickly. This section of the framing went up in one day. The next day the roof and wrapping went on. Of all of the workers, I have to say that the framing company was the most efficient. (I don’t know who they are or I’d give them a shout out. We had a general contractor taking care of the build.)
As with all projects, an “oops” or two occurs. The picture on the left is one of those. The workers were pulling up our existing concrete (just a section so the new concrete wouldn’t be too thin) and hit our internet cable, which was out of the ground to keep them from digging into it. :o
Not only did they break the wire, but they also pulled the whole box off the wall. :( Thankfully, the internet company came out quickly to replace the line. Sadly, the man forgot his drill and couldn’t put the box back up. He never returned (which is why I’m not giving the company kudos), so my husband screwed it back to the house.
On the right is my NEW door. If you scroll back up, you’ll see this idiotic window in the wall that makes it look like a bathroom is on the other side. Obviously from this picture, there’s no bathroom. I “think” it was designed to be another bedroom. We use it as a mudroom, and one of my son’s uses it as his desk space (out of the picture). I’ve always HATED that window, so this door is a BLESSING of huge magnitudes to me. If you look closely, you’ll see 2x4s near the floor. We believe a full-sized double window was meant to be in that space and the builder/former owner changed the plans for some unknown reason.
Okay, last pics of our new workshop/garage. I wanted a breezeway between the house and the workshop and where my safe room was located. (We don’t call it a garage because my husband is taking his woodworking tools out there, so I can get out of my car easily while it’s parked in the garage (out of picture to the right).
So, it’s ALMOST done. Gutters are the last element to be attached, and then next year (late winter/early spring), I will landscape the area between the house and the workshop. As you can see in the picture on the right, we added extra concrete to the side of the building for parking. When all of our kids come home, we need the space for everyone’s cars. :D
And lest I forget, a pic of the inside of my safe room (minus the door and without the power and light installed).
And because some of you may know that I had the opportunity to go to London a few weeks ago, here are a few pics of my time there. I hope you enjoyed my pics today.
Buckingham Palace. I know the picture is not very good, but there were SO many people.
Hampton Court Palace
A mosaic in Hyde Park. I didn’t realize it was such a LARGE park.
I saw TONS of gorgeous iron work. This is a set of stairs in Hampton Court Palace.
St. Paul’s Cathedral
I’m awful at taking selfies, but here’s one of me with the Tower Bridge.
Tree-lined walkway. I think this was close to BP.
Weapon art. The armory in Hampton Court Palace.
And that is the end.
Blessings,
Ginger Solomon is a Christian, a wife, a mother to seven, and a writer—in that order (mostly). She writes or reads inspirational romance of any genre. Even when she’s busy homeschooling, doing laundry, or fixing dinner, reading or writing are not far from her mind. She is president of her local writing group, and blogs regularly for InspyRomance.com and at gingersolomon.com.
Great pictures thank you. The safe room intrigued me.
Hi Ginger, thanks for sharing pictures of your extension- how exciting:) The idea of a safe room is interesting- we do not have tornadoes, so I cannot imagine how scary it would be to need a safe room to escape to.
And London, wow, you have had a busy and exciting time indeed:) London is definitely on my want to visit list!
Blessings:)
What a transformation! Great phtitos, thank you for sharing! Hope you will not the safe room oftrn😁
Hi Ginger! Thanks for sharing. Living in the Midwest, I am familiar with safe rooms; even though in SW Michigan most homes in our area have basements. My great uncle was a contractor and his homes had breeze ways between the house and garage. Today most homes have mud rooms. Best wishes and enjoy.
Thanks for sharing the photos. I often reverse the s and p in inspy, too. I thought I was the only one. :)
Great pics!! Safe rooms are good to have! They recommend them here in FL, but our house was built long before they thought of safe rooms!! Some of the newer homes have them, though! Loved your pics!!
Big job! Glad it’s almost done!
Thank you for sharing the photos of your home and of your trip. :-)
I really enjoyed reading about your project. I often worry about people in tornado prone areas. One of my critique partners lives in such a place, and they don’t have a safe room. I’m so glad you have one now!
Hi Ginger! I love all the pics of your garage going up. We just had our contractor friend build us an 8×10 shed and boy what a lot of work and materials go into that! But it’s nice to have something new isn’t it?
I grew up in Illinois so I know all about tornadoes! Though I have never been in one nor seen one (or at least that I can remember), you definitely want to have a safe place to go. That was a basement most times for us. It was always super scary to hear the sirens go off and how black the sky would get along with the big thunder booms and bright lightening flashes of a thunderstorm. I live on the Oregon coast now so we don’t get tornadoes and a thunderstorm is a rare occurrence.
I also enjoyed seeing pictures of your time in England, especially the bridge in the background. How pretty! I bet you had lots of fun :-) Thanks for the wonderful post!
Enjoyed all the pictures!!
You’re welcome.
In 2011, a Category 5 tornado raced by about a mile from our house. It completely obliterated homes and concrete block buildings, even to the point of picking up a pick-up truck and chucking it into a swimming pool probably 50yds away, over a fence. We watched it not knowing it was a tornado at the time. I have been asking for a shelter since then. It is scary to know if that thing had moved just 2500 feet or so our way, we might not have survived.
Now I have one and feel like I’ve done my part to keep my family safe. The rest is up to
God.
I hope I don’t need it often, either, but it’s a case of better safe than sorry. :D
No basement here, though I wish we did have one. Actually our house is about 2/3rds crawl space and 1/3 slab. Makes for interesting settling cracks. :o
I thought I was the only one too, Merrillee. How funny.
A lot of the newer homes here come with them as well. Our house is only 15 yrs old, but it didn’t come with a safe space, much less a safe room. It’s open floor plan and has lots of windows, which I love, but that also means it’s unsafe during tornadoes.
Me, too. I hate having to plan my days around whether people are going to be here or not.
You’re welcome.
We still have to get it set up, but if worse comes to worse we have chairs we can take in there or we can sit on the floor. It’s not meant to be a place of comfort. And I’m glad we have one now too. (And it raises our property value, and hopefully soon, will lower our insurance costs.)
You’re welcome, Trixi. I love sharing my life with you all.
Thanks, Margaret.
Enjoyed your pictures Thanks for sharing!
Wow, that is crazy! I am so glad you now have a proper shelter- and totally understand the need for one!
I am really late, I love the photos and information of the build Thanks for sharing. I invert numbers so when we use to have the song numbers and use hymnals at church I would see 752 when it was actually 572 and wonder why everyone is singing the wrong song. I do it with words too at times.
you’re welcome
Not so late. I forgot about yesterday being my post day, so I didn’t hit the comments until last evening. :)