This past Sunday was big construction day number 2. It was Ryan’s first day on site working his muscle, and he sure did work a lot of it.

The main job of the day was to take down the wall between the dining room and the kitchen and to replace it with a beam. The original idea of the beam was more decorative then it was supportive, but it ended up working out in both favors.

I was going to go to the house on Saturday, while Chad was working, to take off all the baseboards but it was a good thing I didn’t because I was breaking things left, right, and center. Chad was much better at removing them than I was. He is such a good ‘woodsmith’.

The only thing being supported by the dividing wall was the dining room ceiling, so just as a precautionary measure Ryan put up some supports.

I think these boys had too much fun working together.

Chad trying to see if he was level headed or not.

We went back and forth trying to figure out whether or not to have two exposed posts holding up the beam on either end, but after a lot of discussion we nixed the posts. Instead we decided to ‘dye’ the beam into the drywall. This meant we still had to take down part of the wall Chad was working on so that Ryan could build it up in a way that would support the design. I also decided that since the part of the wall Ryan was working on was going to come down, I would change the layout of the kitchen a bit to include a phone nook that could be accessed from both rooms.

Chad was not a fan of taking down the drywall.

Slowly but surely all the studs came down.

There is a giant hole in my kitchen! Woot!

Building up the support posts for the beam.

Just to prove that I did my bit while wearing a Chinese pork bun on my head. Most of the jobs the boys were working on I couldn’t really help out with, other then to fetch things and clean up, so I spent the afternoon in the workshop cleaning it out because I am a clean freak and everything in this house is dirty and covered in dead bugs.

The Beam!

The beam was super heavy, obviously, and it took the boys a while to get it into place.

Nothing like holding a 500lbs beam in place while your buddy tries to find a piece of wood long enough to temporarily support it. I thought Chad was going to explode at some point.

The beam is up and everything is clean (ish)! It feels so open and so nice. Makes me want to knock down every wall haha! Some drywall does need to be put up (specifically in that gap) and cabinets need to go in, so the space will be a little more closed, but it is so much better than it was.

She’s a beauty, ain’t she!? She still needs to be sanded, stained, and dyed into the wall, but so far she looks great.

I’m so pumped that we got the beam in! Next we have to rip up one of the layers of plywood flooring in the kitchen, take down the rest of the drywall, and remove those beautiful glass blocks.

In the mean time we will be cleaning and painting the living room and media room in the basement in preparation of carpet and baseboards!