New Phase Day 1

New Guy and his crew started the next phase at my house today. At the end of this, the house will be closed in from the elements, lockable, with level sub-floors, ready for re-wiring, plumbing, and air conditioning. I stopped in quickly on my lunch break today to sneak a peak, and came back later with these progress pictures:

The customary, and my favorite, view as you walk in the front door (or where the front door is now). This will be the view from the foyer entryway once that is constructed. All the new, bright, light, shiny wood is new. They were mainly working on the floor joists today.

Here's where the fireplace was. They further tore it down, well below the level of the room so that I wouldn't have any future problems (the base was caving in as it was). New Guy thought best to go ahead and take care of it now, build it in with floor joists so that it won't be a problem in the future.

And here's a lot of extra brick! I didn't realize that there was still brick down there in the fireplace base. There was a lot of concrete-looking stuff. But they dug out the brick and saved them. This is one of the many reasons I like New Guy's work. You can tell the new brick because they are chalky. The ones my father and I stacked are wet and weathered a bit. This looks like a patio to me. Maybe a front walkway?

Back inside, here is an... odd place in the floor. Near the old fireplace, but where the wall jogged originally and where a doorway was. This all needed to be reinforced, and it has been. It looks pretty cool but also confusing. And linear.

This is in the dining room looking back toward the bathroom and utility room. You can see how he added spacers between the original floor joists along the sill to get these boards more solid. And they were. Very much so. Every thing he does makes this house more and more sound. I'm amazed how level and strong it all seems now, even without the sub-floor in.

This is one of the many ginormous wasp nests in the house. Or were they yellow jackets? I'm not sure, but they've been evicted. Look at my fancy wiring. I do like how you can see the original wiring here, through the ceiling beams. Which led me to check out my:

Naked panel box. The only one that survives. The other has already been taken down. I'm not sure why they took the front off this thing, but it is live and I stayed well away from it.

One last shot in looking into the master bedroom. Just wanted to note how he has gone back between the floor joists in the middle of the room and added the spacers here, too, that run along the top of the extra support beams he built for the floors.

These floors are SOLID. I was very impressed. And, all the nails are gone. I hadn't removed them, but noticed today while doing feats of balance and gymnastics across the floor joists that the nails were gone. I think they might actually be done with the floor joists. If not, I can't imagine what they lack. Which means... SUB FLOORS SOON!