Getting in on the Ground Floor

After removing the old floor, the next step was laying down plywood over the existing sub floor.

The existing sub floor was very thin, and ran on a diagonal.  Because we plan to eventually put room in the attic, we really needed this new sub floor to give the house diaphragm strength.

The existing sub floor was wavy and laying the plywood took longer than expected.  It reminded me when we did the shear walls.

I really never expected to have this much plywood in my house.

Raising the Roof

The plan is to ultimately build a deck off the kitchen, with dutch doors like the ones in the basement leading to it.  

The back portion of our kitchen was originally a porch that previous owners had walled in, and the roof line was not high enough to accommodate doors that are tall enough for Rob to get through without having to duck.

In preparation for these future plans, the contractor raised the roof line of the back part of our house.  The tricky part was getting it to an angle the was high enough, but would still let rain run off of it.

We're supposed to have an El Niño winter, so we'll know then if we succeeded.

Behind Door Number One

Our contractor put a door on the room the staircase is in, so we can keep the dogs out of the basement.

Rob wants to open this wall up and lose the door, so the staircase feels more integrated with the rest of the house.  I like having the stairs behind closed doors because it feels like there's just another room in there, you have no idea there's a whole other floor the house.

This room used to be our bedroom and I can't believe we lived here a year and a half before getting a door for it.

Halfway Ghetto

We plan to expand into the attic in a few years, and we aren't sure exactly what will happen with this pop out. No point in paying outrageously for a new window if we're only going to have to take it out.

So the rotting wood, and the fact we ran out of shingles before the pop out was completely covered (not visible in this pic) means we're going to be ghetto even longer than hoped.