Kitchen Ceiling

Our favorite carpenters came to work on the kitchen over the weekend and made some exciting (to us) progress. (While we try to do as much of the dirty renovation work as we can ourselves, we trust structural work to experts.) Though it doesn't look like much yet, they've already gotten so much done over the course of just 3 weekends and we're rolling along. You can see above how they've sistered new supports next to the original studs in the walls for added strength. The entire house is finally, officially stable and safe from collapse -- what more could a homeowner ask for?

This weekend they installed the new ceiling joists/beams and the subfloor for the upstairs master closet/laundry room, located directly above the kitchen. So we officially have a ceiling in our kitchen and a floor for the master closet! How novel for us!

The stairs in the back corner (shown in the two pictures above) are original to the room, but we had to do some impromptu reconfiguring and compromising when they were reinstalled on Saturday -- and obviously they're still not completely in yet. (For new readers, both the kitchen floor and ceiling had to be totally replaced due to an inadequate foundation and 100+ years of settling and warping, hence why the stairs had to change.) We plan to build an enclosed pantry underneath them, though my original plan now has to be scrapped and redone due to the last-minute reconfiguration. It's a good thing I'm a go-with-the-flow kind of person, because nothing ever really goes according to plan.


Here's the front corner of the room. The white PVC pipe coming out of the center of the floor will be a floor drain. Click here to see a basic floor plan for the kitchen so you can see where we're planning to put things. Now that all of the proportions are set, it's time to revisit that floor plan and make some final decisions about the electricity, ductwork and details like the design for the wall oven cabinet. (Dad, let's talk!)

I know it's still looking rough in there, and these late-evening pictures don't help, but I like to share things as they happen and this is so exciting for us. Last night we ventured up to the second floor and started envisioning our washer and dryer (which are still sitting in boxes in the living room) all set up, and talking about how we'll configure our closet that is far too awesomely big for people like us who don't really have a lot of clothes. The possibility of having our own functioning kitchen and laundry room this summer is almost unfathomable at this point! I forget what it's like to have these conveniences.

S and I also got a ton of yard work done over the weekend, and I gathered a box full of clothes and books to donate in my endless quest to declutter. We ended the weekend feeling very good about everything that was accomplished. We have less than12 more weeks until our little chickadee is scheduled to arrive, so I hope we can keep up this pace until then!

Happy Monday, everyone! What did you accomplish this weekend?