With the demolition of the old stairway completed, Tyler was ready to start replacing the floor joists that had gotten sawn in half to make the opening for the stairway. Doesn't sound too hard, right? But, that usually means the exact opposite.

Why is replacing the floor joists such a problem? Well, at some point a load bearing wall had been removed from the first floor to open up a space for the existing kitchen. The problem is that they didn't use a suitable header to truss up the floor joists after the wall was removed. They took a 2x8 board and nailed the floor joists into the side of it. So, over the years the board had started to sag in the middle because it simply wasn't strong enough to support this weight. It's kind of hard to measure, but we think the floor had started to dip by about 1 1/4".

To fix the sag, we needed to jack up the joists with a temporary beam so we could fix the joists and install the permanent beam. The trick? Getting 3 - 2x10x12' boards into place on top of three steel posts. And, this is where the fun begins...

While Tyler is banging away downstairs, I'm upstairs working on some other stuff. Eventually I hear him calling and saying that he needs my help. I go downstairs to find out what's up. Now, one of my main responsibilities during renovation is to act as the human post - kind of funny since I have a titanium enhanced shoulder and a wrist filled with sea coral. Anyways, Tyler looks at me - in all seriousness - and says, "I need you to hold those 3 boards in place while I put the posts under them."

Now, I HAVE been going to the gym and I can bench press almost 100 lbs. But, I took one look at those boards followed by one look at my iddy-biddy arms and one long look at him and promptly said, "NO WAY!"

Then, Tyler made the mistake of saying, "Well, how else are they going to get up there?"

My eyes scanned the room and I had a MacGyver moment. I said, "we'll make some L-brackets out of scrap wood. With some 2x6 scraps and enough nails, they should be able to hold the weight long enough for us to get the posts into place."

After a long "discussion" Tyler gave in and made the L-brackets. But, once they went up he said, "there's no way THOSE are going to hold the boards." Well, I settled that "discussion" by dangling from one of the L-brackets.

Next, we had to move the boards into place. At the store, I had commented that I didn't think the kitchen was actually 12' wide. Tyler reassured me that I had no clue about the actual dimensions of our house. So, when we started to move the boards into place I took another look at everything and repeated my comment. Tyler followed suite and repeated his comment. Not wanting to have another "discussion" I said, "Fine. If the boards are too long and you have to cut them, you owe me a backrub."

At this point, Tyler paused looked at everything and then reached for his skill saw - I got my backrub later that night.

After all three boards were resting on the L-brackets that would surely never hold their weight, Tyler threw some nails in them to keep them together and started lifting the temporary beam up into place. After almost cracking ourselves in the head a few times as the posts shifted and fell, we finally got the beam snugged up against the floor joists and started lifting the house.

I guess this is one they say, "Those who renovate together, stay together."  It's for the backrubs you win.