Ready to put it all back together

I just noticed that it has been a long time since we updated our progress on the repair/remodel job.  We are now down to the point where we are ready to begin putting it all back together again.  Next up is framing, then electrical, then sheetrocking, taping and texturing, painting, and finally flooring.  And in the meantime we will have our new cabinets put in, the plumbing done, the countertops on, and eventually tile backsplashes. Here are some of the photos we took to document our journey to this point.

 Some people raise the roof, we are going to raise the floor.  We cut back the sheetrock in order to frame in the new floor and raise the electrical outlets.  We will also frame in, insulate, and sheetrock the ceiling, and put in a ceiling fan.

 We will include a photo of the newly renovated front door in a future post, but believe me your mother did a great job and it looks brand new.  Here you can see that the railing is gone, the tile is gone, and we are ready to bring the living room floor to the level of the entry way.

 This is a view of the kitchen looking through the wall where the ovens were.  As you can see, the ceiling here has been raised to the level of the family room and dining room so it should give more of the appearance of a single room.

This is an old photo showing the window gone but the wall beneath it still there.  The wall is gone now too.  It actually came out pretty easily.  I got a new mason blade for my hand saw and scored the plaster, then knocked it out in one piece.  We were abundantly blessed.  The door that will be installed here is in the garage and we are ready to roll.

 As you can imagine, there was a lot to haul to the dump.  We made two trips with Uncle Peter's large trailer.

After a hard morning's work, this is how it looked.  Of course in the meantime we have done a bit more demo, and there is a much smaller pile there now.

And while we are at it, we are also still in the middle of renovating the bathroom and our bedroom closet. Photos of that will be forthcoming.  We are excited to be in the position of doing the work and feel blessed to be able to do much of it ourselves.