One Wall Goes Up, Another Comes Down

They've started replacing some of the structural support in the front room. They replaced one of the beams that spans the length of the room and put up temporary posts:

A waist-high wall will eventually go where those posts are, with columns for support. There used to be a wall there with a door that led to the downstairs apartment.

They also took out the furnace last week but haven't torn down what's covering that part of the wall yet:

And my favorite thing from today's work - they took out the entire wall where a door used to be at the bottom of the stairs.

Before:

After:

The space feels so much bigger without that wall there, as small as the wall was. It's really opened up that room.

Yay! Floors!

Check it out, y'all:


They've started installing the new floors! We had some masons (the brick people, not the secret handshake people) come by yesterday (at 6 in the morning, by the way) to fill in some holes where duct work used to through the walls. There was a round hole above the fireplace that was tricky to fix, so it's really obvious where the hole used to be. We want to keep the brick on that wall exposed, so a strategically placed picture will have to cover up the glaring bandaid there. But it's not so bad on the wall between the front and middle rooms.


The masons also bricked up the scary fire place in the middle room; it no longer looks like it's going to collapse.

Also want to mention all the materials that are covering almost the entire walkable surface downstairs. It's kind of a pain, but probably not as much of a pain as it is for Michael, who's still on crutches. He's out of the cast, though, and onto the big boot. Here's the latest look at what we come home to:

We've Got Holes

They've dug the holes for the footers for the floor system, which were inspected today by the city.

And then they started filling the holes. We've also got the start of a new sewer system put in.


It's still pretty hot, but not nearly as bad as last week. We had Michael's brother-in-law Dave come over to carry the rest of the window units up the two flights of stairs and install them, so we've got four installed, but we can only run three at the same time. Running all four will certainly break a circuit. Needless to say, we owe Dave, and Michael's sister for loaning us Dave, big time for helping us with that. I think we picked the hottest day of the year for him to come over.

Current temperature downstairs:


And that barrier to keep the cats from getting downstairs? Yeah, it didn't take long for Tanga to figure out a way around it. Turns out he's not as fat as we thought and can easily squeeze through the railings to jump down onto the stairs. He can get down there but can't get back upstairs, so he spent two days under the house last week while the crew was working. I didn't mind it so much that he was down there, especially since it was so hot everywhere else in the house; the first floor was definitely the coolest spot in the house. And he's a little asthmatic anyway, so it was probably best that he was down there. The third floor is now comfortable, so we've moved the barrier to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the third floor. They get really dirty exploring in the dirt, plus I think the cats have been using the dirt floor as a litter box - the actual litter boxes have been suspiciously empty lately. I tried to get good pictures of Tanga after he's been downstairs, but I can't capture just how filthy he is. I wasn't sure if Kirin was going down there until I petted her the other day, and my hands turned black.

Work Has Started, For Real This Time

The contractor showed up this morning as we were heading out and he's begun work on the flooring in the front room.

That last picture is looking into the middle room (the future dining room) and through to the soon-to-be kitchen. These pictures may not look all that different from others I've posted, but it's a huge change. Hard to believe, but it's not as messy when you walk in the door. The floor boards we're reusing have been neatly stacked along the wall by the front door:

And all the crap that had been sitting in the middle of the room has been taken out. They've cleaned up the middle room a bit, too. Here's a picture taken from the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, looking toward the front room:

They took out one of the three doors that we keep closed at all times to keep the cats out from where work is being done, so it's a little weird not having it there anymore.

We're taking out that entire wall anyway so that the area between the door and the stairs is all open, but now we have to be extra careful about not letting the cats getting down those stairs. We have a system, though. Check it out:

If you think that looks an awful lot like a map of the United States, well, you'd be right. Tanga's pretty clever sometimes, though, so he'll probably figure out a way around it soon enough. Kirin will just sit there and cry about it. And, yes, our stairs ARE painted green. So is part of the floor. It hurts sometimes that someone would paint a floor as old as this one. It hurts even more that this person chose green.

Summer has unofficially started in this house. It's hot. And with Michael all injured, and me being the weakling that I am, we've managed to get just one air conditioner going upstairs. And that's only because Michael never put it away in the shed during the winter and it was still on the floor in the bedroom. It's on full blast. In fact I'm sitting on the bed right now, in front of the air flow, with the door shut, and I'm still sweating. The warm lump of fur sitting between me and the laptop doesn't help things, either.