WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY...

SOME "MICE" ACTUALLY GET MORE WORK DONE! 

We have been out of town on vacation with the family for the past 8 days.  Upon our return we learned of the work Donnie got done in our absence.  Instead of answering all my inquiries and teaching me new skills, he was able to concentrate on a few design and structural issues here at Hawthorne House.

Skylights in the studio are boxed out.

The cross rafters are removed to raise the ceiling in my studio.

A support beam in the library that had been been cut is sistered together.

The wall separating a bedroom and bathroom is rebuilt.

A section of dining room wall is again supported from floor to roof.

Perhaps we should leave town more often!

2 OUT OF 3 CLOSETS

This house has but 3 closets.  Two out of the 3 closets have beautiful diamond-paned casement windows.

Despite their disrepair, they are quite pretty and can be rejuvenated with new glazing and paint.  It seems a shame that they remain hidden in the back of closets.  For these reasons, we have decided to move the library wall 12 inches and the bathroom wall and interior window 6 inches.

Pre demo : Wall and interior window in the 1/2 bath

The wall separating the library and the 1/2 bath was removed due to rot to the floor joists (see April 2011).

 The joists and floor were replaced  2 months ago using rough cut 2 x 10s and plywood.  Moving the walls slightly will give us a niche for a desk and we'll turn the space under the back stairs into a closet.  In rebuilding the walls we used current day lumber.

The soon-to-be-more-beautiful window (I have begun the mammoth re-glazing project) is now exposed and letting in the afternoon light.