It’s time for a change…

Just like our 44th President, we’ve been breaking down walls.

The CWI boys spent all of Sunday and most of Monday working on the project. Simply put, a lot got done. Simply put, a lot more still needs to be done.

We started by cutting out all of the existing joists in the kitchen and dining room.

There were some pieces of the subfloor that needed to be cut back as well.

We then cut out the beam in the kitchen. This beam was 3 inches out of level over a 12 foot span. One of the major reasons for the sloping floors upstairs.

Talk about wide open spaces!

They blocked of the existing posts so the new beam will be hidden in the ceiling. Then we hung the new 2x12 joists every 16 inches (before they were 2x6 every 24 inches).

Voila! Brand spanking new framing.

The next day the CWI boys came back to put the new beam between the living room and the bar allowing us to get rid of the wall.

So they temped up the roof in the front room and Paul thought it would be a good idea to shovel it off. Good thing as there was a foot of snow up there. They don’t think the temp wall would have held it. It set them back in time, but they would have been building a new roof…

With the roof temped up they tore out the existing wall and built a new beam. It’s nearly 16ft long and if I had to guess it weighs 150-200lbs. The 3 of us hoisted it into place in 3 stages. First, onto the post in the outside wall. Second, onto a ladder. Third, flush to the ceiling. Then we put the final post in place.

Giant beam, and no more wall!

So, a lot was done, and a lot needs to be done. Next up on the list is taking down the wall that separates the bar from the bedroom closet. To do that we need to build a load bearing wall in the closet to carry the existing joists, as there is a bathroom above. After building that wall, we’ll be able to tear out the existing wall, put in a new beam, hang the new joists and start to lay the subfloor upstairs.

Good times!

What's Going On

The lack of updates is not due to lack of activity around the house. All kinds of things are in the works. Including a major blog entry with all the gory details and plenty of photos.

Hang tight... Hopefully by tomorrow we'll have a full update for you. It's like we're already living in a different house.

A quick note: We were told that some people weren't able to post comments, so we messed around with some of the default settings. Everyone should now be able to post comments. Feel free to tell us how crazy we are.

The dust has settled...

It has been a quiet week on the job site. Our electrician got all the existing electrical work out of the way last weekend. That has paved the way for the final bit of demolition which will take place on Saturday. Then the framing is happening on Sunday. That's if we stay on schedule and get our two wood deliveries in the next two days.

The break has been nice. We've refinanced the house and got a little bit of cash out to help pay for these projects. We're shopping for a new car before one of our s-boxes blow up. We also watched the entire series of HBO's Tru-Blood. So it's not like we've been doing nothing...

Living in a block of swiss cheese

We're missing a ceiling and a couple walls. There's dust evvvvverywhere, no matter how many times we attempt to clean it up. It's like there's another layer hovering in the air, waiting in the on-deck circle for it's time to lay down on every surface as soon I bust out the bottle of Pledge.

The other night I went to boil some water and when I put the lid on the pot, it was covered in dust. This lid that had been sitting in a DRAWER for the past week. HOW?? The dust is hunting us. Clever girl.

There are floor-to-ceiling(ha!) sheets of plastic separating the front room, the dining room, and the kitchen. Getting from room to room is noisy and cumbersome. Tony cut out a little flap at the bottom of the plastic for the cats to move through. They picked up on it immediately, I was shocked. Maybe because I'm so used to Barkley, who would have looked at the flap, looked back at us and shrugged. He not smart.

Things happen on the weekends and then the midweeks are spent in limbo, dealing with "the pit" as best we can. Both Tony and I have been at varying levels of sickness the past week, so 'dealing with it' consists of going home, wiping the dust off of whatever dinner we scrape together, and then resting in bed with the dog.

Tomorrow Tony's electrician friend will be coming by to do some work. We ordered the lumber for the framing of the ceiling/floor (Did you hear that? That was our bank account whimpering.), so the boys should be able to start work on that next weekend.

This entry was not meant to sound whiny and complainy, but I'm afraid it comes off that way. I really just wanted to paint a picture of what it's been like. I think we're taking it all pretty well in stride. Tony would say the same... Right hun? I'm doing good, RIGHT??

;-)

If these walls could talk...

...they would say "where's that new floor..and what the hell did you do with the ceiling?!"

With the holidays behind us, we've ramped up the work on our...project. I guess it's just one big project now. It needs a name. Suggestions?

After a night full of drinking and rockbanding on NYE, I woke up early (11am) to get started on removing the old decorative ceiling tiles. They came down fast. I bagged them all up in hopes the trashmen would take them the next day. They did! We've had good luck with getting rid of the demo to this point.

So the tiles came down, then it was the strapping, then there was wallboard, and of course more strapping. Although we vacumed 90% of the area above the ceiling, there were some areas we couldn't reach. So we blocked off the kitchen and living room with plastic.

Basically we wanted to keep the mouse poops out. And of course the chipmunk carcus.

The next day we moved on to cutting the rest of the floor out of Bedroom #1. Then I cut the ceiling wallboard into smaller pieces and gave them a little kick to loosen them. Sarah was in rare form pulling the celing down from the kitchen below. She even got a heavy dose of dust and mouse poop from an un-vacuumed piece of the ceiling. It was fun to watch from above.

So, here I sit in the living room. It's one of two rooms that are currently live-able. That's until this weekend when we expose the wall separating the living room and bar. We'll be migrating the big TV and PS3 back to the bedroom. The living room will be one of the last rooms that is finished in this whole deal.

Once the new framing is done, we'll slowly get back the rooms, less the ceilings/floors. But that stuff will fall in place. The kitchen will be useable, and the dining bar/great room will all be useable. We won't be able to move anything upstairs until we lay the floor. But that will happen quickly after the new framing. I am thinking Bedroom 2 first, as I am going to need a place to study (back in school, fun!).