The Reno continues.....

Welcome back everyone.

From the comments I have received, it sounds like you are all enjoying our journey into renovating our carriage room.

I've taken you from destruction to the beginning of construction, with a few glitches in between.  

As you will recall, I mentioned in my last post, when I posted this oh so glamorous picture of myself..... proudly standing by the newly insulated wall...that there was more than meets the eye...and our job was not completed on this wall.  

As the Hubby prepared to install the new floor joists, I ripped up the old steps leading to the 'pit'. They are seen in the lower right of this picture.  As I pulled away the boards, our hearts sank......

The removal of the stairs revealed a huge problem.

Dry rot!

Dry rot had all but consumed the entire foundation beam.  The damage had been hidden by the wooden framing you see by my legs.

We had to support the wall as best as we could, cut out all the dry rot, which ran almost the entire length of that beam.  Removal exposed more gaps between the outside and plants growing into the foundation.  It was painstaking and dusty work, with the Hubs manning his reciprocating saw, and me close by his side, with the shop vac, vacuuming up as much of the dust he was making as possible.

Only the top of the beam was solid enough to leave.  The dark area is all empty space. 

Ivy growing inside the foundation.
I thought I had a picture of the completed work, but I guess not.

Once I reinsulated the wall, used a couple more cans of Great Stuff, and we re-installed drywall, we were FINALLY ready to begin the work on the floor joists.  We needed to install the floor next, because without it, we couldn't install the new picture window...which was the main reason this reno began!

The view above is of a portion of the north wall, with the drywall removed for the rough opening for the new window....note that wonderful gap at the top of the old small window! 

A few of you wondered if we were going to take out those old carriage doors, but alas, that was not something we could easily do.  They are part of the exterior of the house, and to remove them would have meant replacing the siding on that portion of the room.  Here is a picture of the outside of that area where the doors are.  The arrow points to the old doors.

We were anxious to get the new window in because of the pending winter weather.  We had been so lucky up to this point, with mild temperatures and no snow....but of course....winter did arrive...just as we were at the point of installing the new window!

Hubby carefully measured the space where the window was to be installed...both inside and out...not an easy feat at all.  But the demo of the wall began and I was so excited to see the results!

 We planned to have our oldest son come help with the window as we installed it.  The plan was to do the installation around mid afternoon....but haha...nothing ever goes as smoothly as we plan...and it ended up being the evening before he was completely ready with the new framing in place.  

Of course...the weather started to change that day...and the cold winds of winter were upon us.

We knew this would take a while, so the new wood stove was stoked up with wood, in an attempt to offset the cold air that was about to rush into the room.

The installation begins!

Side framing is up, while Scott helps to lower the cut outside wall down.

The wall is opened up!

Allie and Stephanie peek out the new hole in the wall.

The rest of the framing is completed.

Almost ready for the window.....

We are all freezing at this point...because...well...there is a huge hole in the wall and it's COLD outside.  Allie and Steph huddle under a quilt in an attempt to keep warm.

Hubby and son, Scott, lift the window from the outside...while I attempt to be of some help from the inside...oh yes...another glamour shot of me! I think I had my snow pants on!

Yippee!  It's in!

The full effect of the light coming in was not to be realized until the next morning when we got up...but oh, how wonderful it was! 

At this point, it was time to call it a night!

and this seems like a good place to leave you hanging....see you tomorrow for my next post!