Stair Half Wall



So to continue the story of the stairs...



Here's a picture of the hole in the floor from the basement.

And here it is from the living room.  Dan is standing on a ladder, he's not really that tall.

See?  Here's his ladder.

Then he and Chris built the half wall around the staircase, so whoever ends up living here doesn't fall in.  That ghostly figure on the left is Chris.  It's pretty dark in the house (see the work lights the guys have set up?) so I have to compensate with a slow shutter speed, thus I can't really capture movement in these pics.

That's better, just hold still.

Here Chris is checking the railing with the laser level.  At least I think that's what he's doing.  The laser level is the the yellow thing on the railing just to the right of his tape measure.  See the red dots from the lasers it is emitting?   One is on the stud to the right of it and one is on the floor below it. 

To the Basement!

First, lets take a look at Sport hitting his first home run at last nights game.

You'll notice he's not wearing a belt.  A few games ago, he forgot his belt, and went 3 for 3 at bat.  Obviously, not wearing a belt is lucky, so he's been beltless for 3 games so far.  Considering he's only struck out once in 3 games, and now hit his first home run, we may not see that belt for awhile.  Sadly, even with the home run, they lost the game, so I'm now allowed to wash the jersey.  We never wash after a win.

Sport heading for first, before the ball cleared the wall.  Nice hustle.

Congratulations from his manager after he rounds third.

 

Now, back to the house.  Chris is in the living room, that's the kitchen wall just behind and to the left of him.  Want to take a guess as to what he's doing?

He and Dan are cutting a hole in the floor to make stairs down to the lower level of the house!

Dan is holding one end of the string line...

and Chris is holding the other.  Or I should say he has wrapped the other end around a nail.

Some more measuring and thinking.

And more measuring and checking.  You know the old saying, "Measure twice,cut once".

 A bit later, all that measuring ends with a lovely square hole in the floor.  By square, I mean all angles are square, as in 90 degrees, not all cattywampus.

 

Here's Chris, heaving a big ole board.  Actually, he's just picking it up.  It would be much more of a production if I were asked to move it.  Clearly, I'm not manual labor material.  Hey, I have nothing against it, I'm just not built for it.  Chris and the boys are still laughing about me hurting my back while shoveling.  "She works 10 minutes, then she breaks and has to spend the next 2 hours walking and crying."  Ha.  Ha.  My house is filled with comedians.

Chris, cutting the end off a board.  He says he always makes that face when he cuts because of the sawdust and debris flying back at his face.  Notice I'm not making fun of the face.  Only the males in my house are the funny ones.

More Walls

Wow, after the long break waiting for the permits, I got out of the habit of posting.  Luckily for us, the guys are jumping right back into construction much more smoothly than I am to posting.

So here's the living room.  Stacks of lumber, saws and sawhorses, and work lights.  I really love the framing of a house, with all the new wood smells.

Here I am over by the fireplace.  You can see the new entry closet by the front door.  Look at Chris's jacket hanging on a nail on the outside of it.  Isn't that just the sweetest?

I kid.

This is the dining area, full of sawhorses and plywood.

Here's Dan on a ladder.  I'm not sure what he's nailing up there.  Let's just say blocking.  Because it seems like they do an awful lot of blocking.  You'll notice the wall is down between the old nook and master bedroom.  It's being rebuilt a few feet over into the kitchen side to make room for a walk in closet in the bedroom.  So no more nook.

There's Chris walking through the door from the new master bath into the bedroom.

There's Dan again on that ladder.  And Sport and Case in the doorway from what was the nook onto the deck.

 

Do you know one of the things I love about blogging?  I can start a sentence with "And" if I want to.  Even thought I know it's poor grammar, and normally poor grammar makes me crazy.  (Don't even get me started on "your" vs "you're").  But it's my blog, and I can write what I want.  Although, now that I look at it, that And is starting to get under my skin.  I'd better move on.

Here I'm standing the in front bedroom.  You know what else is starting to get under my skin?  I'm starting every first sentence under the pictures with "Here" or "There".  Jeez-o-pete, I've got to stop overthinking this.

Still in the front bedroom, looking towards the two new bathrooms.

STILL in the front bedroom, looking through the closet to the front door.  I think I was just enamored with the look of the OSB stacked under the window.  So artsy.

Lets see.... Here I am standing in the new kitchen, looking through the new pantry at Sport sitting on a stack of lumber and looking out the front door.  There's Dan, still on his ladder.

I'll leave you with a last picture looking through the front door at the entry.

New Walls

Moving along....

Remember the hole in the bathroom floor?  That was then, this is now.

Here I was standing in the living room, looking towards the bathroom(s).  There will be two bathrooms where the old one was.  The green ladder is just inside the front door, and that will be an entry closet to the left it.

Now I'm in the front bedroom,which isn't changing too much, with the exception that the closet is now on the living room side (see the broom leaning up against it?).  The old closet went to enlarging the bathroom space so we could have two bathrooms.

Here I am in the corner of the master bath.  That's the hall bath in front of me, as well as various tools - the nail gun, sawsall, and I'm not sure what that thing is in the bathroom.  A stapler of some sort?  I'll have to ask Chris.

Still in the bathroom, looking towards the kitchen.  You knew that though, didn't you?  We've been through a lot together with that kitchen. 

Speaking of which, here it is.

Case, what's in that bucket?

The old nook.  From this to this to this.

This is the old back bedroom, which will become the master bedroom.

One last look back towards the kitchen/dining/living room areas.

Door to Garage

So to continue the very interesting story of the door into the garage...

Here's Dan cutting a board for the header.

And nailing it up.

Then, at some point while I was obviously distracted, they cut the sheetrock and framed in the rest of the doorway.  You'll notice Sport is on the job, so it isn't at all surprising that I was distracted.

Dan and Sport.

A quick peek through the kitchen.  That's a big stack of OSB (oriented strand board) on the sawhorses.

And here I am in the nook.  See the yellow extension ladder in the kitchen?  Leaving a ladder up like that is just asking for trouble if you ask me.

See what I mean?



We've Got a Permit!

Finally!  The plans are done and the city has issued us a building permit.  Its been so long since I've showed you the inside of the house, you might have forgotten.  You can see how we left it here. 

Permits, taped to the front window.

We've started progressing again, here's the front bedroom with a nice new subfloor.

Dan, nailing down the new subfloor in the living room.  Look at him go - he's just a blur!

Here I was standing in the nook, looking through the kitchen.  What's Chris doing back there?

He's cutting a new door from the house to the garage!  Up to this point, to get from the garage into the house, one had to walk out the garage door onto the deck and around to the kitchen door.  Not the most pleasant voyage carrying groceries in the rain.  Not that I've carried groceries in from this garage. In the rain or otherwise, but I'm just sayin'.

More cutting of nails with the sawsall.  Look at that concentration.

This was taken after some manly pulling down of studs.  I tend to get out of the way when boards are being pulled down.

Dan comes by to check the progress.

And then goes back to nailing down subfloor.  Unfortunately, I had to leave at that point, so don't yet have any photos of the new door to the garage.  There's always tomorrow!