We are converting our attic to living space -- there will be one large room running from the front to the back of the house, with a bathroom and bedroom on the south side. They started three weeks ago, and so far have mostly been reinforcing beams and ceiling joists, which has involved opening up the ceilings downstairs. After this week, though, the work should be almost entirely upstairs. The crew has been very considerate but I will be happy to have the downstairs more or less back to normal.
Day One: Scotty, Rick & Harold removed the built-in shelves from our family room:
Next they opened up the wall between the family room & the laundry room:
By the end of the week we had a staircase there:
They closed off the skylight in the kitchen & removed the box in the attic, leaving the skylight itself as a source of light for the workers:
Then they moved to the other end of the house to work on the ceiling in our bedroom, so that the center of the house was relatively untouched for Charlotte's birthday party:
All of the ceiling joists had to be removed & replaced for reasons I can no longer explain. It was very interesting having the ceiling wide open for a couple of days!
Next they went to work on the beams / joists on either side of the kitchen. This shows the temporary beams between the kitchen and family room, which supported the joists while the beam was reinforced:
This dim shot shows both sets of temporary beams:
And this is the beam between the kitchen & living room:
Here the work has been finished & the beam reinforced; after this the temporary beams were removed. They did this in the dining room as well but one beam looks pretty much like another. There has also been a lot of work in the attic, moving roof supports to give us a clear space in the center of the room.
Then they turned their attention to the roof. We are switching from wood shingles to composite, so they need to lay decking as well as shingles.
They are starting with the areas unaffected by the remodel -- the north side over the garage and the front & back corners of the south side. Later this week they expect to frame the dormers and re-roof the middle of the house.
Here's the front of the house, dried in. The spot where the dormer will go is covered up but the plywood is carefully aligned so they will be able to take out full sheets and use them elsewhere.
You can really see the poor condition of our shingles (gone by the time you see this) -- our poor old hail-damaged roof that started us on this journey!
