I received another couple of cell phone shots of the work going on at the cottage today. GREAT progress was made and I couldn't be happier not to be there as I would just get in the way. As I said, I've been dismayed at what I consider my lack of progress on the house, but after I seek out and line up my "before" and "after" photos, I can see we are really moving right along.

Again, a few set up shots. The first photo shows the kitchen and stair (to the right and above the fridge. ) just after purchase. This was the kitchen that the previous owners had. You can just make out where the new addition to the cottage starts at the extreme right in the photo below. Where the edge of the dishwasher is was the original back wall of the cottage. The wall behind the fridge is now completely gone and the downstairs of the cottage is one big room now.

This photo below shows a detail of the kitchen the way it looked just after buying the place.

Now you see it

Now you don't. Here is the photo of the newly gutted kitchen area with the old stairway at the left.

Just add a new window and things start to look up! However, you can see here the original framing for the house. Its a bit scary, since a lot of the studs were cut out and the walls were never shored up again. The previous owners began reframing the interior of the cottage with 2 x 6", but they never got into the kitchen or around the stairs before they knocked off their renovation of the place. We are continuing their reframing (notice I say "we" here, but I am down in Florida while this all goes on)

Here is a lovely picture of Seth (no relation) finishing up the new framing in the kitchen area
This next photo (sorry if the light is shining in your eyes!) tells the full story. Though pretty grainy, the photo shows a living room window at the left and the new kitchen window to the right and a shadow of the old stairs in between. You can just make out the newly patched hole in the floor that was a stair to the basement at one time. The hole was causing all sorts of moisture problems on the first floor because water vapors from the underside of the house were getting into the first floor walls, causing them to get soaked when there was a lot of rain or snow. Frost spread out along the walls in the kitchen from underneath the stairs. That problem should be fixed with the covering of the hole and the subsequent foam insulation that will happen in March.


And here we have a pretty clear picture of the new framing as well as the newly patched floor. Greg and Seth (no relation) were able to reuse a lot of the old boards from the walls we took down to patch the floor. As I said, great progress was made today! The new stairs will rise in the same place, but they will be wider and better.