Sister Wives

Remember this?

Yup, that's the attic. And yes, it's part of this giant remodel project. One day this will accomodate a master bedroom, bathroom, and hallway office.

Nowadays folks see the outside of the house and say things like, "The house looks soooooo good" or "You guys really worked hard! How does it feel to be done?". I'm not sure if it's more dejecting for those folks or for me to have to tell them we are no where near finished (and that the outside changes weren't even a part of the original plan!).

The most amusing experience I've had related to this was when a friend came over, walked inside our house, and said "Oh". Yup, you heard correctly. "Oh." Ouch.

We've been working hard though and should have some big changes to show in the coming months. 

Before we could put subfloor down in the attic, we had to sister the joists. This basically means nailing boards against all of the existing floor joists in order to reinforce them and level them out:

It took Will and friends several weeks to sister all of them. And once they had them sistered they still had to level the top of the wood (i.e. lots more backbreaking work by hand):

We also had to add some framing to the roof in order to reinforce it:

 The duct work went above it, which will eventually be drywalled in:

And more will go behind the space that will be enclosed by knee walls:

Not very exciting stuff...but all of this work is in preparation for a walkable attic space for the first time in the house since it was built in the 30s.