Old Exterior Wall is DOWN!

      On Wednesday, we got the thumbs up from our building inspector for the new exterior wall framing, so we got to work that evening on tearing the old wall down. The inspector also liked our overhead support beam to carry the load of the two layers of roof.

First off was the vinyl siding, underlying foam, and this window.

Under that was a layer of wood siding, attached directly to the studs. We think this siding is not from the original 1920s structure, but rather from when the kitchen was added (possibly 1950s). I really like the look of the wood siding and plan to salvage what you see here for an accent wall in the downstairs half bath :)

Here's a straight shot to our main bathroom. Once we get joists and subflooring installed, we won't have to walk all the way around the first floor to get to the bathroom or laundry (in the garage).

The support beam we added would hold the two layers of roof, but, with the building inspector's encouragement, Steven cut away the extra weight of the original roof since it was serving no purpose.

By enclosing the old, awkward porch, we gained about 48 square feet for the dining area! The room already feels much more spacious.

     Since our previous backyard exits are now enclosed by this wall, we had to haul all the demo debris through our bedroom to take to the dumpster outside... it actually wasn't as icky as I was afraid it was going to be. The plan for this weekend is to clean up the crawl space and put down a vapor barrier in the former porch space. Not only is the vapor barrier effective in preventing rot in the joists/subfloor, it is also a good termite deterrent. Hopefully we will have time for putting in floor joists and temporary subflooring this weekend as well. Temporary subflooring across the former porch would allow us to easily access the bathroom and laundry while we rip the old kitchen floor down to the joists (fingers crossed for good lookin' joists!). Here's a recap of the first floor layout, with what we're working toward in red:

Hope everyone's weekend is off to a great start! :)