No Turning Back Now

We've done a lot since the last post!  Last weekend, we had to devote some time to get our living situation in order by creating countertops for the workbench (i.e., temporary kitchen counter) and laundry sink (i.e., temporary dishwashing sink).  We made hardwood countertops  by gluing some leftover flooring to plywood, sanding, and applying several coats of poly.  I think they turned out beautifully and now our laundry/work room is in order, allowing us space to prepare limited meals!  We'll get water to the sink in the next week or so and then have more options in terms of meal prep.  AND, most of the materials were recycled: the cabinets came from my parents old kitchen and have been in place since the summer of 2009, the sink is from our old kitchen, and the wood was leftover from a job site where Carter worked last year.

Our temporary "kitchen" - we're only able to cook 
with a microwave or toaster oven these days

Our new laundry sink and a nice spot for the mini fridge!

During the course of the week, we took out the plumbing everywhere but the basement, finished the upstairs demo, and were able to start framing on Sunday.  Before demo, there was one full bath upstairs shared between the master bedroom and hallway.  It was fine when just Carter and I were at home, but not very functional when we had guests.  It was also very blue!  This is what the single upstairs bath used to look like:

 Vanity - notice the seashell sink and blue floor tile

Inside our bedroom, next to Carter's closet, there was also a vanity area that I always found odd.  That's gone now too!  This is what it used to look like:

Vanity IN our bedroom

View of bedroom vanity from our room.
This opening will be the new entrance to our master bath.

All that is demoed out now and reframed, looking like:

Partial view of our new master bath

Guest bath in foreground,
master bath behind

Our last major accomplishment of last week was installing a beam to take the weight of the load bearing wall we wanted to remove to open up the kitchen.  We started by building two temporary walls on either side of the load bearing wall to support the weight of the house while we removed the wall.  After taking out the load bearing wall, we put in a beam we made of two 2x12s with a sheet of plywood between (just under nine feet).  Once in place, we removed the temporary walls and WOW!  Open floor plan!  This may all sound simple enough, but it was time consuming and very hard work.  In the end, we're really happy with the new open feel!  If you look at the photo of the old powder room from the last post, you'll see the wall we removed.

Our load bearing beam on top and beautiful openness below

Tonight, we're going to hang greenboard on the ceilings of the bathrooms and put in new insulation above it in the attic.  We found our home was under-insulated when we started demo and did some attic exploration.  While we're at it, we're also going to lay a plywood floor under the A-frame in the attic to get more storage up there.  Why not?  More storage is always a bonus and it's easy to get the plywood there with no ceilings below.  Tomorrow, we start framing the downstairs!  We're moving along!