Still Waiting

My previous entry might have led you to believe the go ahead from the Borough of Manasquan was more than it turned out to be.  It was a 'go ahead' with the demolition of the existing interior of the house.  We are still waiting for the go ahead to start improving and building the addition. The grading plan promised by the end of June was not received until the middle of July.  The architect then has to incorporate the grading plan into the architectural submission to the Borough and the plans are then circulated to various department before approval is given. Needless to say, it ain't done yet. 

 Our new neighbors have been looking at our eyesore of a home for about 3 weeks. We were excited when the Vinyl siding was removed and we found cedar clapboard under it.  We were planning on cedar clapboard as our siding on the new house and hoped the original could be patched and salvaged.  Wrong. It has to be removed also because it is so deteriorated.  The side room seen on the left of the main house in the front view and on the right in the rear view was found to be inadequately constructed has to be rebuilt to comply with new standards. We are hoping to keep as much of the existing hardwood floors as possible. They appear to be in pretty good condition, having been carpeted for most of their life.

The interior of the house was gutted down to the studs and all  the existing wiring and plumbing was removed. In an attempt to keep cost down ( which are already estimated to be 30-50% over our absolute max for the project). 




 



Front of house





North side, driveway side with new entrance

 



Rear of house

We are only going to cedar side the original house. The addition and the garage will be board and batten siding.  It is a more economical siding yet keeps the character of the house.  The pictures above are the architectural drawing of the completed house.  Front-note the elimination of the front bump out entrance, Right side which has the new side main entrance to the house and Rear view. Note the board and batten siding  on all but the original structure.  Comments welcome.

With some luck, we are expecting the building go ahead before the end of next week. 

Of course the most important thing that happened during the past 3 weeks was the arrival on my grandson Michael. 

Pop, Joe, Michael, Cate, Meg,Mamo, Michael's escort from Korea



The Zambrano Family

 He arrived on July 3rd from Korea.  I was lucky to have the day off and an invitation to go to Newark Airport and meet him at his arrival home.