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The Project That Almost Wasn't

When you're remodeling an older home, you never really know what you're going to find when you start digging in.

As my dreams were blossoming in my mind about our "new" kitchen (which, let's face it, our remodel is more of an "upper level" remodel than a kitchen remodel!) with a sleek, modern open floor concept, everything suddenly came to a screeching halt when our carpenter mentioned that we should probably hold off on tearing out the walls until he could get someone to look at it.

The walls we are removing are, essentially, part of one big wall (with some walkway openings) that runs down the center of our home. 



We had always been a smidge leery about removing this wall,  with its nearly continuous central location, because we weren't certain if it was important or not. (Forgive the mess, we're, you know, remodeling.)

"Important" as in "load bearing". "Load bearing" as in "roof collapsing".

We had someone from a lumber supply company come out, look at it and say "yup, you need a beam"...then proceed to tell us things like "microlam", "joists", "attic", blah blah blah. Okay, fine...I can deal with a beam in my attic, continue on. (Although, secretly, I wondered if having a lumber yard dude come out to look at a project with a potential "sell" was something akin to driving into a car lot and asking "do I need a new car"?)

Next up, the lumber dude ran it past an engineer...verbally. No blueprints or anything, just a description and the engineer dude said, "Oh no. They need a *insert technical word for beam IN HOUSE that is 8-10" tall*...and just like that, my dreams were crushed. I lost sleep. I saw my open floor plan inclusive of an ugly beam on the ceiling that screamed "HEY! WE REMODELED OUR HOUSE...CAN YA TELL?!" Right then and there I decided, if I can't have my open floor plan, let's just leave the dang stairs where they are. SMACK in the middle of the house.

Oh...did I mention we were moving stairs?

Anyway, the lumber dude wanted an engineer to actually LOOK at our house/project and it just so happened this engineer (an engineer for a truss company...you know, rafters) was going to be in the area and could pop in and look at it.

I left a long list of incredibly important and mind blowingly complex questions (think, "do we HAFTA have a beam?!") for my dear sweet husband to ask while I was worrying my head off at work.

I would never do something like incessantly text my husband questions about what was happening while he was visiting with the engineer, no way. So I didn't. *Ahem.* Soon after these texts that I "didn't" send, I received a return text along the lines of "Need more walls, beams, columns, Fort Knox"...and as it is with the written word, I couldn't tell if he was frustrated with the news he received or just being silly and teasing me.

GRACIOUS did it seem like FOREVER until I could talk with him in person and get the skinny...wellllllll, I'm happy to announce, that the engineer deemed it perfectly okay for us to start ripping out walls!!!!

NO beams or posts or headers or columns needed!

Best. News. EVER!

And so, tomorrow, we get started with scraping this nasty popcorn texture off the ceiling in preparation for some major demo to start happening SOON!!! 

We picked up our flooring last weekend and you guys. OH MY GOSH.



I'm in love! I will actually go down into the basement to just check in on it. To caress it and snuggle it and gaze at it with loving eyes.

SO gorgeous!

OH...and I took before pictures! And a few "during" when we tore apart our mudroom...should I show you now or when we're all finished?!

EEEEEEK!!! This is really happening!




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