Day 3--Aww, Our First Big Surprise....

Day 3, and of course, after being pretty healthy for lo these many months, I now have a cold that is making my head feel like it is stuffed with cotton. It takes me twice as long to process things when I feel like this, so it was certainly fortuitous timing that C had the morning off when we learned about our ceiling issue.

The guys had opened up our dropped ceiling to see what was going on up there; turns out we were missing a rather important support beam under what used to be the porch roof. Right about, oh, where we stand when we're cooking. Apparently, when the porch was annexed, whoever did the work just took a saw and cut the wall off the back of the house with no extra reinforcement for the new addition. Obviously this is not work we were planning on; however, we absolutely expected to have to do some unplanned work, so in a way, it was in our plan (if that makes any sense). Luckily it should only take a day or so to complete, and since we were so far ahead on demo, it doesn't really throw us too far off schedule.

The good news is that it looks like the ceiling can be raised so it is all one height. This will give us 9'9" ceilings and I think will really open up the room quite a bit.

The old porch floor was also uncovered to facilitate laying of the under-floor hydronic heat (the rest of the floor can be accessed from underneath in the basement). Old drywall was also removed so wiring could be assessed, and as an added bonus, the exposed spaces can now be insulated before the new walls go up. This should really help in making the kitchen more comfortable in the winter!

Some pictures from today:

Under the old porch

Same thing, other side of the room

Cooktop wall, old timber exposed and ready for insulation

Chimney plaster all cleaned off, ready for scrubbing with a wire brush followed by a matte sealer

Old porch roof--you can see at the top of the photo where the original wall was cut.

Another view

So another curve in the road, but we have good drivers at the wheel who seem to have things under control.

Oh, and for those who were wondering, I did finally finish C's sweater and I have moved on to a new, much more complicated project...it's a lot of fun!