We met the Coreys at the county fair today; Joni said the construction guys were at it early this morning (around 7:30), and brought more guys than any other day she could remember. Hmmm... When I asked them if they were just working on floor stuff, both she and Jason shook their heads: no... they were framing.
Huh? So did the floor framing pass an inspection last night? I'm not sure. I don't know the sequence of events, but it appears they got the go-ahead for framing from someone. I initially voiced some concern that they started without a proper/passed inspection, but Jason said that wasn't our problem... it's the contractor's. (true, but if they needed to de-construct the framing, we'd lose the time... and any more lost time and I'd really start to be concerned about the possibility of getting back in the house in '07.)
So it's possible my depiction of dire straits last night might have been premature. But I still wasn't expecting to see what I saw when we pulled up at 6pm. The fence was open, multiple vehicles were parked out front, and the sound of hammering filled the air.
At 6pm on a SATURDAY, work was still going at quite a clip.
The front of the kitchen was gone, opening the porch to the entire house (the front door was now resting on its side in the garage):
I walked around the side to view the eastern wall of the kitchen (note finished subfloor)...
Continuing around the northeast corner (note the disappearance of the electrical circuit box, which was now operational on the temporary power pole built yesterday)...
And around to the north to see the dining room...
And the courtyard to come...
In all of the above external wall views, note the beginnings of the windows (the large beams above where the window tops will be... the bottoms not yet in place).
I walked around the house and entered through the west hole in the master bedroom (so as to be as "out-of-the-way" as possible of the workers).
HOLY CRAP... IT LOOKS LIKE ALMOST ALL OF THE INTERNAL WALLS ARE FRAMED!
Here's the south side of the master bedroom:
And the eastern (door) end of the new master bedroom closet:
The closet turns ninety degrees to the left at the wall, but there wasn't enough room for me to get a good picture of the northern end; standing in that northern end, however, afforded me a view east into the master bath (note the opening for the door/window in the northern wall... Lisa has expressed again her doubts that the door is necessary, warranted, or wanted... so we'll need to talk to Fred about this... this, I think will actually constitute a "change" to Fred)...
Walking gingerly through the room, avoiding the diagonal supports for the wall frames, I look down south down the hall...
Further down the hall, you can see the frame of the door leading into the laundry room (and the to-be-filled-in door to the garage beyond it):
Turn right, and look at the west side of Bedroom 2...
Continue turning right, and we can see the expanse that is the northeastern quadrant of the great room and dining room:
The purely northern side of the living room, shows metal Hardy Frame (for shear [and sheer?] strength):
Slide over to the right to look into the dining room...
A third of a turn to the right and there's the kitchen.
This is the extension east to create the "embedded" counter and cabinetry.
From outside the structure, we can see the beginnings of the breakfast nook portion of the kitchen being formed: the out-set bay window to the south/front of the house, and the wall dividing the nook from the entry way.
The nook is going to be very cool, jutting out onto the porch (it's going to spill out onto the porch, making it seem like the porch is a part of the design, rather than the boundary between the old and the new):
So this is the superstructure for the stairs. By the look of it, it almost looks like a mistake is being made: the walls would seem to block off the front door (trapping it in an entryway with no outlet).
Lisa is somewhat concerned about this, but I'm assuming (and, boy, do I know the danger in that now, after last night's panic) the portion that runs left-right (west-east) is there to support the second story and the stairs, and that the right-hand portion of the frame will be removed to allow for the entry into the living room. She is somewhat relieved, but she's still not seeing it in her mind how it will work. I'm not worried.
Before we leave, we watch them install another Hardy Frame into the kitchen:
And the view from the street is pretty damn cool... forget the pretenses of keeping the house looking "normal"... it's a whole new ball game now.
Of course, now as I key this all in, doubts creep in. I've looked at the plan. And to be honest, now I've got the same worry Lisa has about that stair superstructure wall. I don't see in the plan how it (the west-east wall) goes all the way to the dividing wall for the nook. But I try not to panic. Maybe I'm missing something. I must be. These guys are the pros. I've got to put my faith in Fred and his guys... they made it through the floor framing "issue" yesterday... they'll do all right by us, I'm sure.
It's all going to work out, right?
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