People are finally starting to say, "it looks like a whole new house" when they stop by to see what we've gotten done. So, why after over a year of renovations are we finally starting to get this reaction? Well, we cut a 14' x 12' hole in our subfloor - that seemed to get a rise out of people.

Since purchasing the house, Tyler and I have always planned on putting in a two-story foyer to give the house a little architectural detail and make it feel larger when you walk in the front door. To finish up the second floor, we needed to seal up the old stairs from the first floor. This meant that we needed to open up the foyer and install the new stairs. And, this meant that Tyler got to enjoy playing with his sawsall.

After Tyler cut through his first board, we listened for any sudden cracks or other sounds that might indicate that house wasn't too happy with our plan. (And 'yes' we did make sure that we weren't cutting through anything that was bearing a load prior to commencing our sawsall mania.) After several minutes of nothing but silence, we figured we had the 'green light' and continued along with our sawsall.