This looks different.
I like it. It’s not the same color as the oak borders in the other rooms, but that was neither promised nor expected. I’m hoping we can walk on it tonight.
In other news, holy crap do we have a lot we now have to get done, and quickly.
The floor is to be finished today. Sanding will take place. We have sheets hung up and doors closed. The cats are on 48-hour lockdown in the bedroom because the floor must not be walked on.
As reported earlier, we’ve got floors! Our oak flooring is about 98% done, and the guys will be back Wednesday to finish it up and install the windows. We’ve got new doors, too. The camera is on loan from BzzAgent, where I work. Thanks, Stacy!
We also asked about taking delivery of appliances. That will be the same week as the cabinets, which now looks like about 2 weeks away.
We’re hoping to get our camera fixed (and/or borrow a friend’s while that’s happening) so today’s construction update will be pictureless. Just like those radio shows of yore.
Billy arrived this morning with two doors and some moulding. The doors will replace the really cheap door leading to the dining room and the door to the basement. With a new door to the basement we’ll no longer have to lock each other down there to keep Phoebe from getting down there. It will be the end of an era, but she’ll still sit in front of it and meow for access. She must have gone down yesterday and come back up on her own volition, since Mark realized he’d left it open for a good while after doing some more priming.
We talked through the week’s construction plans: crown moulding, new windows arriving, moulding around those, and most importantly, the floor. Billy was off to pick the flooring up after unloading his truck. That will be a really big change for us, and mean that we can clean up the basement. We’ve had a near constant rain of dust between the cracks in the subflooring, so we can get down there and sweep up. After the floor goes in, they’ll sand it, and then finish it. That should be the last of the big dust plumes, since installing the cabinets won’t be nearly as messy.
So, the camera was dropped Saturday. It refuses to turn on. Are there any locals who can lend us a digital camera for a few days while we get this one repaired? In return, you will be glorified on this blog, and we’ll let you write your name on the wall behind the cabinets before they go in.
What’s up for this week? The moulding’s coming in, around doors, windows and crown. Then the floor’s going in. Then we’re going away to Washington, DC. I’m off to a swim meet (IGLA 2008) and Mark’s going to oversaturate on museums. When we get back I’m sure the room will look much more complete.
We’ve got to finish priming now…
Okay, so the story we all know has that on day 1. Billy and John didn’t have the blank canvas to start with like the more famous version of that utterance, so we’ll give them a few days slack. 
I came home after the gym to find Mark typing away (see On the Surface, below) and was eager to poke around and look for progress. The exterior light was fading, but it was clear, the drain pipe in the center of the room was gone! I looked around for the switches controlling bare bulbs we’d had the previous days, and they were gone. I turned around and flipped a switch. We have LIGHTS!
Most of our cans (or hats, or recessed lights) have power and bulbs in them now. The room finally has a sense of some progress away from demolition and towards build. The pipe was indeed gone, and more outlets had been placed around the room, including one for the stove, the fridge, and our network cable. The plumbers had run the line for the fridge’s water supply, and again, that big pipe was gone.
Our basement door doesn’t close well. We have to latch it. So i had Mark hold the door shut while I peeked downstairs. It was a little reminiscent of the King Tut discovery, but I grew up on that story, so “What do you see?” “Marvelous things!” is one of my favorite exchanges. Mark came down to look at things, but Phoebe managed to get the door open a few times. (The photo was her fourth trip in, since I wanted to film it.)
The second post hole had been filled in, and two temporary beams were in place. They’re just 2×4s, one buckling slightly with the jack underneath it. (That was that contraption we’d seen before that looked like a brass megaphone) The real lally columns are on the ground and will be put in place when the concrete has cured.
The plumbers have finished hooking up our drains, and have moved a few lines around to accommodate the new beam and remove some old brass pipes. We did find an old closet under the stairs. It had always had stuff in front of it, so I have stayed away from it. It’s a rather sizable closet, so we’ll have to figure out what we can store there.
The exterior work is all done with replacement shingles up. We’ll still have to paint, naturally.
Tomorrow: probably electrical and plumbing inspections. Those are both big steps, and will mean we can start to move forward with some other significant things, like floors and walls. We do have to get the floor level first.
Today was day two of demo. So much was accomplished yesterday, but when the guys left, there was still a ceiling to come down and some of the wall board in the back hall. Yesterday was held up by the dumpster that arrived a little late and had trouble getting into the driveway because of a car parked across the street. (Grr!)
Mark and I peeked in through the plastic today and he said “Wow! They did the windows!” I noticed quickly that the floor was up. We now just have the wide planks that run perpendicular to the joists, with light from the basement shining up through. There are some big holes where pipes used to run, and some smaller ones from knots. The space was pretty clean, but still very dusty. The ceiling is very high up there (about 9 feet) and very open.
The windows have been adjusted as well: The two we’re keeping have been raised to start about 44″ from the ground. The one we’re removing has been framed and is gone. With very little light in the room, it’s pretty dark. Especially since all the walls are dark wood studs.
Phoebe explored the space and poked around for a while. She had trouble figuring out how to get back out, and meowed at the plastic sheeting some. Her face got very dirty, so I washed it. She wasn’t too pleased about that. We have a nice layer of dust over everything.
Tomorrow: electricity.