More Progress!

One of the biggest challenges of the remodel has been figuring out how to do the required ceiling beam in the dining room, because the sewer pipe was where the beam and a support post needed to be. The solution was eight fittings that snaked around the post, and a special offset steel beam. The pipe snakes around the post on the side away from the dining room so that ‘hiding’ it is less of a problem (will probably lower the ceiling over the peninsula area, rather than in the dining room). The vertical pipe by the post was also changed from plastic to cast iron, to reduce the noise of flushing water, as it will be very close to people sitting at the new peninsula, and cast iron pipe is much quieter. Some sort of insulation will go around the plastic fittings at the top. All structural work is now done, and a structural inspection is scheduled for Monday.

This is our new crank-out casement window that will be in front of the kitchen sink. It’s hard to tell, because of the tar paper sticking out on all sides, but the window is pushed out from the wall a little. The spaces (boxed in areas) on both sides was the trick used to enable moving the window toward the dining room and not have to figure out how to patch the steel siding. The pushed out boxed area around the window will have Hardie Board siding that matches in appearance. Our architect came up with the idea.

Here’s the inside view of the new kitchen window and its related framing.

Our builder patched the kitchen floor where we discovered the wood was burned and weak. In the past a small fire happened below the floor, probably caused by plumbing work - using a torch to solder copper pipes to the water heater. It is not clear if it went out on its own or if someone discovered it and put it out, but the wood was left charred and burned.

The temporary walls are finally gone, so we now get a feel of the open space. The first picture is looking toward the living room; the second toward the garage (hint...you can see where the funny little angled hall was).

We are off through the plastic portal to the rest of the house. Good night!