Raise the roof.

Yesterday we built a pair of temporary walls to hold the ceiling joists — and the ceiling — up while we demoed the lone load-bearing wall to come down in the remodel work. Part of reworking the kitchen involves opening up the original entryway so that the kitchen, dining, and living spaces will be more integrated and seamless.

A lot of progress has been made in the past week, despite me being damn sick with some cold from some damn student for the first few days. Demoing dusty, heavy drywall for eight hours with a head cold is suck work. But we finally finished demo — for good. We've said that several times but keep running up against parts that need to go. In addition to the last of the demo we rebuilt about 25 percent of the sub-flooring and the threshold for the back door, all of which had been reduced to spongy nothingness by decades of termites and rot. We also had an electrician out to wire up some can lights, switches, outlets, and run some new circuits.

We ended today on a high note, situating a new beam up into the attic to replace the original low-hanging load-bearing structure, then strapped all the sliced joists to it. After removing the temporary walls, nothing caved in — likely because when dad modifies something, typically strength and sturdiness increase by several orders of magnitude. That's the Williams way. That's just how we roll.

Next up — prepping for the drywall install March 30.

Jason