House Renovation, Day 4

Things are flying today.

When I came home for lunch I thought the fire marshal would show up because the house was full of people!  Mr. D and the boys were eating lunch while the electrician was working in G's room, and a clean shaven guy was in M's room.  When I introduced myself to the guy in M's room, he reminded me that we had met the other day.  Guess who it was?!

Zak Brown shaved his beard!  I soooo did not recognize him.  The good thing is the beard has nothing to do with his skills with the floors.  M's room was already sanded and we chose the stain for the floors.  Zak Brown would not get much more done in her room today.  Tomorrow he will sand G's room, stain both kids' rooms, start laying the floor in our bedroom (since the original could not be salvaged), and lay the first layer of urethane.  He'll come back on Saturday morning to lay the second coat.  We can move the kids back into their rooms on Sunday!

M's room at lunchtime today

There is one small additional project that we decided to add since Zak Brown was going to work on the floors.  We have a pocket door in the kitchen that is a ridiculous, annoying toy for the children.  We never use it to block off the kitchen.  Since it was not a load-bearing wall, it has to go!  One wall up, one wall down :)

Pocket door - before

Pocket door - during

Let's call this pocket door the best laid plans.  I wanted the pocket door removed all the way up to the ceiling.  That would make the living room and kitchen seem just a bit bigger.  Since it's a pocket door we figured that the removal would be an easy job.  When Mr. D and the boys opened up the wall they discovered that there was a 4x12 header (I have no idea) that ran from the top of the pocket door all the way across the kitchen.  So my way open passage has turned into a really wide doorway.  I guess it's better than nothing.  However, that puts a wrinkle in my furniture plans for a bookshelf along the wall.  Oh well.

The electrical is another snowball that's brewing.  Our house has a mix of original wiring and new wiring.  We don't trust anything The Hack did plus the original wiring is pretty gnarly, to quote Zak Brown.  We might, might, have the electrician pull all the old wire while he's here.  We'll decide that tomorrow. 

We surely miss G.  We've Skyped with him several nights this week.  It's a hoot to see him get excited to see our faces.  If one of us is missing, he'll ask where we are.  When we pop into the screen he does his trademark, "OOOH, OOOH!"  I hope to get him back from the grandparents tomorrow night or first thing Saturday.  For all the chaos and craziness he brings, it's noise we need him back in our house.