Steve and I had a feeling that the kitchen wall we wanted removed was a supporting wall and that the new opening would have to be reinforced to continue to support the roof above our heads. Good plan right?!? What we didn't know, and our contractor discovered once he got into the floor below the kitchen wall, is the second floor where are kitchen is, was not supported by the beam below. Um, not good. (This we did not know to worry about.) Apparently the beam used when the house was built is not strong enough for long term support and although will probably not catastrophically fail, is still not the best thing. So after some back and forth with my engineering husband and the architect our contractor called in to calculate the safest way to support our house, we came up with a solution that isn't completely aesthetically pleasing, but really, when it comes to keeping the second floor where it belongs, a pretty good choice. And now we can continue with the remodel.
So today, they put the new support in needed under the floor of the kitchen to support the roof (yes, we are both reinforcing the beam on our bottom floor and the roof ) and soon we'll get the part needed to reinforce that lower floor beam. Here's the nifty beam they put in the floor which is now covered up with sub-floor. Luckily Steve got pictures before they closed it up for the day.
They had to move some pipes around under our floor to make way for the beam as well, but I can't tell what from these photos.
So that's it for today. It doesn't seem like they did much compared to all the work that we were able to see the last two days, but they worked hard all day to do this part right. I'm thankful these guys are doing it right and not cutting any corners just to keep the project on time.
Hopefully from now, for us visual people, it will be more fun to see all the new things (floor, walls, cabinets) that will start going in.
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