AUG. 31 UPDATE: Walls!

Don and Dave have gotten a lot of work done this weekend, both of the thinking kind and of the seeing-the-fruits-of-your-labor kind.

The plan was to do some wiring, and they've been working toward that end for several days now, but what needed to happen in the meantime was for them to build some walls for the wires to run through.

This is nice for me, as with the walls in place, it's a lot easier to imagine what the final result will be -- how big the rooms are going to be, whether the bed will fit nicely in the bedroom, and so on. It's just a lot easier to see ourselves living there!

This is the view from the front door, and this wall divides the living room from the room in the northwest corner, which is in the short term going to be Sofia's room and in the long term will be my office. What is the space that looks like it's for a window, you ask? Well, it's space for a window, of course! (You can see it sitting against the wall in the background.)

I spied one of the windows they'd taken out of the peak of the granary just sitting along the wall upstairs, and I thought it was a pity we couldn't come up with a way to use that window. It's not what we'd want for an outside window, of course, since it wouldn't be at all energy efficient. But it occurred to me it might be nice in that wall, as I think Sofia might think it was neat to have a window like that peeking into her room, and it might also be nice when the room is an office, to have a view into the activity in the living room but be able to shut the door to most of the noise in there.

I told the guys I had a crazy idea, and after a bit of discussion and an inspection of the window (and a quick wipedown of the majority of the fly poop on it), we agreed it would work and within a few hours they'd framed a spot for it! Gotta love a quick response.

Here's a picture of the window as it was in the wall for 50-some years:

That photo was from July. Lots of progress since then! Just for fun, since I came across it while I was searching for that photo, here's a photo of where things stood in February:

It might seem like things aren't always progressing all that quickly, but really, this half-built house was a granary not that long ago!

Anyway, back to current events. Don and Dave worked until nearly midnight last night -- they said they were having too much fun and didn't notice the time.

And here's more progress from today: They took down the railing that had been along the east side of the opening and put up one of the walls for the bedroom that will eventually go here. We weren't going to do this yet -- the plan had been to just leave the railings for a few years and leave the upstairs open -- but this will make wiring the lighting for the dining room easier.

And what is that? It looks like space for another window! Well, this window has been in the plan for a while already. The walls for the bedrooms upstairs will need some privacy, but putting in those walls meant that my cross-ventilation plan wouldn't work. So, the thought is to put some cool old-fashioned windows in those interior walls, that could be opened to keep air flowing through the upstairs. Don't you think it will look nice with a window box below it?

Here's a shot of the finished kitchen floor, and the little half-wall that will serve to block the view of the (probably messy) stovetop from many of the people at the dining room table. We'll probably put some little shelf on the top of that wall as a place to set down a salt shaker or stirring spoon.


I said I wasn't going to post pictures of Erik till his acne clears up and his hair starts to grow back, but this was just too precious. I'd call that a smile, wouldn't you? Big sister is very popular with that little one -- he likes to watch her quite a bit.

Erik was very good sitting on Dave's lap this evening, eyes open, just looking around. Dave wondered what all the complaining of fussiness had been about. Well, hon, you got a lucky 20 minutes! Actually, things have been going better in the past few days -- I think the key is his digestive issues haven't been bothering him as much, though I don't think he's necessarily not having those issues, he's just learning how to deal with them. He's growing up!

... The siding crew should be here on Tuesday, we've heard. The plumber, who is coming back to do some more work for us, won't be able to get here for a few weeks.