Weekly update - upward!

It was neat to arrive Monday to see second story walls up! Visible progress has been slow, despite the fact that work was being done on the floor joists, which turned out to be rather complicated. The complicated floor structure is due partly to the 6" overhang at the back of the house. This means very few of the upstairs walls rest firmly upon the lower walls. To support overhangs on four sides, the joists must run in two different directions. Had we known this earlier we would have tried to avoid the 6" overhang at the back, which hardly seems necessary given the added complexity. I guess the benefit of the doubt must be given to the architect. Fitting the rooms in the footprint of a 1950's tiny bungalow was not easy.

Our excitement at seeing the second story walls framed in was dampened when we saw that only the front walls had been done, and then learning that the trusses needed to be re measured and due for delivery 10 days later than originally planned. Then, it was discovered today that a section of the new floor under the rear bathroom had been measured and built in the wrong place - off by a foot. Thankfully our builder realized the problem and has set about to correct it. He estimated a delay of about two days, and considering the trusses were delayed also, hopefully the timing will all come together next week for getting all the framing completed.

Last week it was also revealed that the design and construction of the stairs is not owned by the architect and his engineer. When stairs and railings are made of wood and typical framed walls, the building code covers them. For anything involving non standard materials and techniques, the city inspector may require an engineers stamp. And it's a good idea to have one, since we certainly want things to be sturdy and safe. There's a fair bit of figuring out to do though, regarding stairs, so I'll post more on that later.

Nobody said renovation was going to be easy. Quite the opposite!