Changing it Up: pt 2

Getting Set

This is what the construction process is best at producing:

Huge, nasty, dusty messes.  You see the lovely blue curtain?  A tarp, which is all that stands between this mess and our quality of life.  I thought I had dust before.  Now I have icing – drywall icing.

You know how people used to sweep things under the rug?  Well, these guys throw things out the window.

And eventually, out on what used to be the lawn.  The lawn had suffered from a surfeit of shade, what with all these wide-spreading trees.  But there are fewer trees now.  Fewer than we expected, actually – which is sad.  Once the second floor was framed, they got up there and cut down the branches we’d have had to build the house around.  See the pink tape?  That’s my efforts to preserve the Lily of the Valley bed it took me fifteen years to coax out of the ground.  And my daffodils.  And that green plastic safety fence?  That’s to preserve my puppies, who otherwise might find themselves underneath slab and insulation piles.  Or worse.

This guy is actually just cutting the room off the house with a Saws-all.  What an odd idea – like slicing bread.  And no, we have not yet taken down the Christmas lights.  It’s been TOO COLD.

Okay, here you can see the holes they cut in the room so that they could pass these wide belts through.

And the knee bone connected to the ankle bone.  Actually, I think maybe instead of the Moffett, I want a back hoe.  They really are handy for so many things.  Think how much time the thing could save you, just pulling the accumulated stuff out of the bedrooms?

This is Les, our contractor.  He’s a great guy.  The thing I treasure about him is that he talks to you.  He doesn’t wait for you to ask questions you would never have known to ask.  Instead, he asks you questions about what you want, and how you’re going to use your space, and what your dreams have been, and what’s really important to you.  And then he gives you visions of how the space you’ve decided on might be used in new and unexpected ways.  And he’s patient, and very good natured.  All that, and he gets the job done, too.  This is the man I’ve dreamed of meeting for a good two decades.  Yippeeeeee!!

Later: the actual moving of the room.  Weird.