Bare Walls

It seemed that we lived with bare walls for a long time as I did all of the demolition and we waited for bids on some of the work.  Here are some photos from the end of July and the beginning of August.

 The other side of the front door. (see previous post)

Peter did a great job of removing the tile, which went to Habitat for Humanity with a lot of the other items we removed during demolition.  I cannot tell you how many times I tripped over that vent before I finally cut it off at the floor level.  Off to the right you can see that the framing for the new floor has not begun yet.

 New canister lights in the entry way.

 And a new whole house fan.

 Here you can see where the old walls were. Looking through the dining room you can see the chipboard over the hole where the new back door is now, and the framing bringing the living room floor up to grade.

 One of the earlier photos, when we still had our temporary "kitchen" in the dining room.  The dining room window was still there, and you can see where we had some leakage from the plumbing where the kitchen sink was.  When I finally got around to replacing it I was shocked to see that the cold water pipe was almost totally blocked.  I cannot believe we were getting any water out of it.

Here you can see that the hanging ceiling that was in the kitchen has been removed.  That plastic sheet really did help a lot when it was over 100 for a few weeks.  This is also before we removed the old back door.

 And here is a shot after the door was removed, and before we framed it in and prepped the exterior for the stucco repair.

 And here is the new wall.  As you can see, they installed our new Pella door at the same time they did this work.  And you can see the framing of the living room floor.

 Note the new gas line in the wall that will feed our gas cooktop.

And if you look closely you can see mom's ledge in the living room.

 The view from the kitchen.

See that box fan in the background?  It was some of the best money I have spent on the project.

 The view through the south wall of the kitchen into the living room.

Note the fine framing job raising the floor.

 In order to properly support the new wall system,

they had to cut a couple of holes in the floor in the dining room.

 The view showing how the wall was moved to make a bigger kitchen.

Keep an eye on that coil of wire coming up through the floor.  It is for the island and you'll see more of it later.

 Showing where the old bar was.

And the linoleum and the really old, no doubt original (i.e. 50 year old) linoleum.

Actually, other than being quite ugly, that really old stuff was in great shape and well-installed.

 Showing where the hanging ceiling was taken down and the new canister light over the sink.

 See all that loose insulation?  They apparently blew that stuff in when the house was originally built, but then later came through and overlaid it with some pretty thick roll insulation laid perpendicular to the ceiling joists.

As we took down ceiling sheetrock and the hanging ceiling this loose stuff would get all over us.

 Another view of the kitchen ceiling.  Remember that old black exhaust fan hood?

There is the duct that attached to it.

 A look into the attic.

 This is a view of the cross pieces I put in the ceiling of the living room so we could insulate it and sheetrock over the exposed beams.  Also note the 2x6 supports for mom's ledge.

 Another shot of the 2x6 supports for the ledge.

 And finally, a shot of the ledge.  Although you cannot see it, there is an electrical outlet there in that corner.

Hey, who is that guy up on a ladder pretending to be working?