For the Pure Joy-st of It.

The joists are hung! As you can see in the photo to the left, the main floor joists have been attached to the "wide flange I beam" with standard joist hangers, to the 2x8 that's been fitted into the flange of the beam itself. The temporary wall will be coming down any day now.

As for progress on other items, the plumbers have arrived and started roughing in their work. As you can plainly see, Porter diligently inspects their work on a daily basis. I've been quite surprised how well Porter has

been doing with all the commotion of construction. He instantly make friends with all the contractors, (to those of you who know him, this should come as no surprise) and most of them tell stories of dogs either they own or from previous projects where the first time the dog hears

a nail gun, it runs and hides under the bed. Porter, on the other hand, will stand nearby and appear as though he is intently watching while any manner of labor is occurring. On more than one occasion I have had to shoo him out of the

basement to stay out of the way of the work itself, and to make sure he doesn't get hurt. Safety glasses for dogs are prohibitively expensive.

And finally, the downstairs work has protruded into the upstairs living space. The wall between the living room and the garage was opened-up to bring the washer and dryer inside. These will eventually make their way downstairs into the utility room, but for now, they rest dormant upstairs. The continual creep of the construction into what we thought would be our unobtruded living space cannot yet be described as a "problem" but it certainly has forced us to change our living situation more than I had hoped or expected. Sarah continues to take it in stride like a true champion, simply stating as long as it's all done on time (a month before her due date) she will be happy. We'll see how well this holds up when her parents visit next week and everyone will be sleeping in one bedroom...

Day of Rest

After days of banging hammers, whirring drills, grinding saws, hissing compressors, and grunting workers, much has been completed and now a well deserved Sunday to relax and recoup. The focus of the past week has been to replace the main support beam of the house to open up a large unobstructed living space in the den. This feat was accomplished - and with surprisingly little hoopla. As you can see in the photo to the left, the old beam was removed and all floor joists were cut in preparation to receive the metal I-beam. The next day, the I-beam was in place and ready for the joists to be secured. Before that, the footings to support the posts holding the beam were poured.

Somewhere in the middle of this, the stairs were removed, and then rebuilt, in the opposite direction. The old stairs were much too narrow to be comfortable. Even with the short depth of each step, headroom was still an issue. I had grown accustom to both shortcomings, however, guests who were unfamiliar would often feel unstable and/or hit their head. The framer was impressive to watch. He swung a hammer the way I dream Paul Bunyan swings an ax. He did all the rise/run calculations for the stairs in his head. I guess that's what happens when you do a job for 30+ years. Bob, the framer, will be missed. He's off to build more homes. Apparently the housing market is getting better.

As always - more photos at picasaweb.

http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.templin/Renovations#

Walls of Jericho

The past two days have brought an onslaught of activity. Mostly all there is to share is photos, but I'll relate the events anyway. To my surprise, we are still mostly in the demolition phase. Yesterday, Sarah and I decide the fireplace was just too ugly to stay the way it was. This meant I was forced to take a jack hammer to the facade and take it down like a politician in a sex scandal. After that, most of the day was spent removing smashed rock from the saw-cut holes made two days ago. This takes surprisingly longer than one would think. In fact, it would take the rest of the day. I've never appreciated NOT being in the back breaking business of "passing rocks up a hill to the next guy" so much in my life.

Today, much of the same. Removing more rocks in the holes cut for the pilings to support the new "I" beam. Some of the new activities, however, included cleaning every item of clothing we own that was even partially dirty because as of about noon, the water hoses to the washer were cut as new lines were roughed-in for the plumbing in the basement (the final location of the washer and dryer). Although I wasn't here to see it, the hole for the grinder pump tank was trenched and subsequently, the tank put in and buried. The last major accomplishment of the day was the erection of two temporary walls. These walls will support the weight of the house, while, in the coming days, the main support beam of the house will be removed and replaced by the steel "I" beam, allowing for a large open-room design without the pesky support posts every 8 feet as we were accustom to previously. In the photo you can see Sarah at 27 weeks+ standing inbetween the two temporary walls and just right of the beam which will be installed in the ensuing days.

As always - check our picasa page for all the photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.templin/Renovations#

There's a hole at the bottom of the sea...

... and in our basement.

Today was the day that movement really got started on our remodel. First things first - make a hole in the wall for a new window well. As you likely know, to make a bedroom a true bedroom - the room itself must have a closet and an alternate exit from the entering door. Since we wanted a true bedroom, and more light, we had a guy cut holes in our house. NO PROBLEM. Next the guy made many cuts in the floor to accommodate the new plumbing. To say the saw he used was noisy is the understatement of the day. It's a good thing Sarah took the dog for a nice long walk.

Other events of the day: the gas company installed a meter, the large "I" beam was delivered, and I started to nock down the old fireplace facade.

Once again - check out the full range of photos at our picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.templin/Renovations#

So much to do - so little time.

One of the main reasons I wanted to start a blog is to keep everyone informed of the things going on in the life of the Templin household. It's hard to keep everyone abreast of what's going on, much less remember who I've told about what information. The two largest events going on in our lives right now is 1) Sarah is 27 weeks pregnant, and 2) we have just begone a complete gutting and remodel of the basement. This blog will keep you abreast of what's happening with both events, as well as all the other fun exciting things that go on in our lives.

This is how much Sarah glows at 27 weeks.

Then, there's the remodeling of the basement. After haggling with the contractor, I convinced him to let me do all the demolition work to save some money. I think part of the apprehension

I detected during this conversation was that he knew I had no idea what I was committing to. His suspicions were correct in so many ways. If I learned one thing doing the demolition work, it's that I'm glad I work with my brain for a living and not my body. If you ever do demolition work at your house - don't call me for help. Our neighbor down the street was kind enough to lend me his 5x8 trailer to haul debris to the dump. Seven loads, 6820 lbs, 4 days, and 1 dust mask later, I'm finally complete. I must admit, I had some help from the electrician who set up temporary power. Thanks Erik.

Check out all 20 of the remodeling photos so far at our Picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.templin

We are bloggers now?

There are so many reasons to finally get into the spirit of the online story telling. When 144 characters just isn't enough, emailing just doesn't make sense, and a small caption on a photo doesn't tell the whole story - it's time to start a blog. So set up your RSS feed of our page here and try to keep up with us when we have a new story to tell.