Take out the staircase wall?? I think so!

We got a little more done today!  Before I tell you about it, I want to tell you what I found yesterday (forgot to tell you last night!)  While we were removing the walls from the closet & above the stairs, I was up on the little "shelf" above the stairway...kind of like a cubby in the closet.  I was pulling the wood paneling off and pulled a piece of trim from the top...stuck my wonderbar behind the paneling and pulled it toward me to start tearing it out and something rolled toward me.  It looked like a little light bulb or something.

 This is where I was...right under the light bulb on the right, sitting on that little shelf and working on the top of the wall (also on the right)

 Here's my view of the top of the wall...

right in there where you can see insulation is where I was prying the paneling....

and this is what I found!  A glass marble!  It's about the size of a ping pong ball.  What on earth was it doing up there.  As far as Kadecan tell they've never used the attic for storage - the only way to even get there is through the ceiling in the garage - and we were on the other end of the house.  Unfortunately it wasn't gold or cash, but it's still interesting. (at least it's interesting to me...much more interesting than the 2 cigarette butts that I found in the wall back there!)

Now, to focus on the things we worked on today...

 

Turney's checking out the septic - and where the pipe is that actually comes to it.  Got all of that figured out.  Kade knows where to use the jackhammer, etc.  So that is good.  Should be able to start working on that next week!  Yeah!

Here's our entryway from last night...the view from what was the living room.

 

Here's the stairwell, going down to the basement.  It was lined with rough cut cedar.

 

Here's what it looks like now!  We took that cedar down row by row...I might be using it in one of the bathrooms or something as an accent wall.  Took out the top half of the 2x4's and put up a temporary railing.  That REALLY opened up the entryway.  I still hate that you run in to something like 4ft. into the house...but a railing is much better than the solid wall that was there yesterday!!

 

We're still trying to figure out how to work the railing and closet right as you walk in, but we've got a little time before we actually have to have a plan!

Next we moved to the basement...tonight we worked on the "utility" side.

Here's the before...

Don't you just LOVE the glitter that was on the ceiling??

We had to tear down all of the drywall so that we can run new duct work for whatever HVAC system that we decide to go with.  Need to make a decision on that SOON!

There's Kade finishing up the last little bit of drywall that I couldn't reach.  This is how we left it tonight!  Ceiling-free!  Only took us about an hour!

So I guess we did get quite a bit done today.  Tomorrow it's more ceiling on the other half of the basement (about 3 times what we did tonight) and I'd love to get the carpet pulled up too!  Fingers crossed we can get both of those things done tomorrow!