Demo in the Dining Room

Progress has been made.  We are down to lovely studs, and a few scattered wisps of clingy cotton insulation here and there.

               

The kids were a great help to me on the 2 inside walls, and then Luke, Glenn and Mick finished tearing out the thick lathe on the outer 2 walls.

The insulation was downright miserable – a combination of black cotton-like fluff packed tightly between the studs, intermixed with unfaced fiberglass insulation – grey with age and dust, and some foamy kind of stuff.  Glenn had never seen it before and we were a little concerned about what it was, but it’s gone now.  We gave a piece of it to an insulation guy and he took it to see if he could find out just what it is. 

This 1970’s era, single-paned, cloudy picture window will be replaced with 3 double-hung windows.  We’ll actually be able to look outside and see things!

              

The dining room looks bigger without the little closet, and we were able to find a very nice door on CL with a full double-paned window to replace the solid door on the wall which faces the backyard.  We also decided to put in a window on the same wall as the door.  It should add a lot more light to the room and give us a great view of our backyard and the fields beyond.

Here’s the wall for the new window and door (notice Alix’s sweet attempt to save the chandelier – we’re not really hanging engorged garbage bags from the ceiling):

      

Reconstruction will go a little slower, since I am trying to find windows on CL or in a back room at a home improvements store.  But we’re still busy with the egress – not to mention weeding the yard!

Luke mowed for the first time yesterday – and it looked so green and pretty!  Verdant is the word that comes to mind…

Glenn was able to jackhammer (new verb) out the concrete shelf in the egress!  Hooray!  He cleared the way to the 8 inch concrete wall, which he’ll be able to cut with his saw.  We were very relieved that he was able to get through it – otherwise, we would have had to pay to have someone come out and take care of it with a special concrete chainsaw.   Praise God for helping us save money!

              

The kids have been hard at work every day…

 

But they’ve still had lots of fun and enjoyed themselves, too.

 

                       

 

     

 

                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Other big news is that we received the official building permit yesterday!  Very exciting for us!  So I put the little green and white notice in one of the front windows and we stood back and admired it for a second.

Wouldn’t it be perfect if I had a picture of it to insert right here!?  But, no.  Didn’t think of that!