The Beginning

So like I said, we started on the back house first. I'll live back there while the work on the main house is being done. I don't have any photos of the inside of the back house before the work started, but just picture an overstuffed storage locker and you've about got it.

They did a great job of demolishing everything and getting it out of the house. A MUCH better job than they did of actually removing the garbage. This quickly led to a problem.

Can you see a house back there? Somewhere?





The next snag we ran into was the support beam along the front of the house. When they opened up the wall in the bathroom, they found that it was almost disintegrated by termite damage. The whole beam, along the entire front of the house, had to be replaced. This meant that some of the ceiling had to be ripped out. They weren't going to be able to match the swirl pattern on the ceiling if they just patched it up- so hey, let's rip the whole ceiling down and replace it! And put in some new insulation while we're at it.

This meant we got a whole new pile of trash in the yard. See the termite-eaten wood on the bottom?



The trash issue was getting ridiculous. Kai had about a 1-square-foot space to go pee in, and there were any number of things she could have cut herself on.







She was leaving dusty footprints every time she came in from being out in the yard.



I had to get a little ugly with my contractor. I HATE doing that, but this was beyond nuts! I mean seriously, take out the damn trash!!!

Without going into the gory details, I made it abundantly clear that the trash had to be gone TO-DAY. By the end of the day, the yard was looking MUCH better. Phew.



So they spent about one week making a mess, one day FINALLY cleaning it up, and then the good stuff began... next post!