The guys have been busy finishing up all sorts of things inside and out to get ready for putting up insulation and wallboard (which will be finished with a coat of plaster).
As of Friday the 9th, the roof is done, but the day it was completed, we got a load of snow so I don’t have a picture to show you. I’ll take a picture when the current snow melts or slides off.
On the deck, the railing along the far side complete:
There will be a shorter section of railing along the near side as well, and then stairs from the deck down to the yard.
While we were admiring the deck, we noticed that the supports look a little funny:
This is because the pilings were put in and concrete poured when the ground was very soggy from some significant rain. We’ve been assured that the pilings are very large underground and that, while this looks funny, it’s perfectly safe. Still, Stewart says they can probably do something to make it look better.
The porch now holds most of the remaining posts and beams from the ell deconstruction:
We’ll look these over with Stewart and Robert to select the best ones for the mantel behind the ell woodstove and the pieces that will frame the doorway between the ell and the main house. Our plan is to keep and reuse as much of the old ell as we can.
Inside, work continued on the plumbing, as shown in this shot of the plumbing for the sink in the downstairs bathroom:
By far the biggest inside project, though, is the reconstruction of the section of the kitchen ceiling that had to be fixed because of the rotted beams.
The rotten ends of the beams have now been cut away and a new (old) beam from another house has been installed across the ends of the original beams:
As you can see, the new beam is similar to the ones we have, but not exactly. The color and size are a bit different, and it’s smoother. It’s close enough – and much better than putting a dropped ceiling over the whole kitchen. There will be a small portion of dropped ceiling to cover the support structure between the new beam and the wall (from the beam to the right, as you look at the above picture).
We also had to figure out a way to support the ceiling/floor in the spot where the chimney used to be. In this case, the original beams were cut away at some point to install the chimney. The wall for the old pantry used to support the ceiling, but now that’s gone and the area is a hallway between the main house and the ell.
Here’s a picture of what the hole in the ceiling looked like last week:
Now we have a new beam that matches the new one in the kitchen (just a few feet away):
In the rest of the kitchen, framing is in place to support the new sheetrock that will cover the spaces between the beams in the ceiling. This will match the rest of the ceiling in the downstairs of the main house.
Grongar 