week 4: november 28 - december 4, 2011

this week, we started to see the beginnings of the new changes we were making throughout our house.

in the kitchen, the crew removed the walls surrounding the dumbwaiter, demo'd the old sink and countertop and disconnected the range in the kitchen.  they also made a small probe in the center of the kitchen ceiling.  if the beams were in good condition, we would leave some of them exposed over the new island and suspend hanging pendant lights from them.

however, the most dramatic change took place when they knocked out the extra brick and opened up the doorway leading into the family room.  the result was exactly what we were hoping for!!  the floor plan is now more continuous and the kitchen seems to flow into the extension.  love it!!  

in the family room, the drywall came down from the western wall and work began in preparation for the new window.  some of the bricks were replaced and reinforced with steel lintels.

towards the end of the week, the crew framed out the new powder room on the parlor floor so we could sign off on its perimeter and make sure we were okay with the tight space before construction moved forward.  it felt compact enough, so we gave the go ahead to proceed.  the rest of the mahogany wainscoting was removed from the south wall and put aside to reuse later in the renovation process.

we received a copy of the HVAC shop drawings, and mike confirmed that the engineer would be able to run long ducts along the south wall in the cellar (the "trunks") and have "branches" running east/west across the cellar between the existing wooden beams in the ceiling.  the mechanical/boiler room would also be reduced significantly to about half of its current size. some of the equipment would be delivered shortly and work on the HVAC systems would begin the following week.

anastasia also shared the preliminary studies she'd designed for the master bathroom.  based on her initial thoughts, i could tell we were well on our way to creating our mini-spa and i was getting excited about seeing the tile samples in person later in the month.

mike told us that the gas fireplaces had been examined while we were away.  they are non-functioning now, so we are kicking around the idea of repairing one or two on the parlor floor and possibly the one in our bedroom.  hubby is pushing for wood-burning and i am lobbying to keep them as gas-operated.  stay tuned!