You Gotta Break a Lot of Eggs...

We're not making omelets, but that famous word picture speaks when talking about remodeling an old house! It's going to look really bad before it starts looking better. Bryan and his crew pulled out all the old carpet & other floor coverings - only to reveal significant damage to the existing hardwood floors in the front of the house. These pictures (taken 6/27/07) show major areas of floor that have been removed due to damage OR to reveal the floor joists so that the house can be made more level OR to move and/or place new water & sewer lines in the bath/mudroom areas. The dining/kitchen area required temporary removal of a significant amount of flooring. Mike did excellent work here to level the floor...every floor joist here required adjustment! While he had so much floor out, he & Bryan decided to replace all the water lines - I'm going to have a brand new home disguised as an old house.
The floor in bedroom #1 had significant water damage along the east side. This blue is old paper backing left from removal of linoleum tiles.
This is the gutted guest bath! First picture is where the tub was (you can see into the hallway through the wall). The second is where the old sink cabinet once stood. The floor and sheetrock in this room had long-term water damage from old leaky pipes.
Hallway to master bedroom - seen from opposite side in bathroom picture above.

Master bath with all fixtures and some flooring removed - new water & sewer lines will need to be placed in this area, too. Blurry picture of new mud room area. Note portion of wall (where H2O heater was) has been removed as well as portion of wall into master bedroom. The washer/dryer will be on the left in this area with new cabinets above. (This picture and those below were taken 7/1/07)
Mud room (left) and hallway (right) as seen from master bedroom. New wall with mudroom door yet to be constructed.

This is the wall between master bedroom and master bath. The door into bathroom has been moved (hello Katie!). You can also see the frame for the new pocket door from bathroom into closet (the ladder is sitting in the new closet area).This is Rufus. He's a black silkie bantam chicken (I know, if he's a "he" maybe it's "rooster", does it really matter?). We inherited him along with at least 5 other birds (2 peacocks, 2 peahens, and a new "peachick"). I don't really know how to have birds, but guess we'll learn. Rufus is staying with the neighbor right now, so he won't starve to death...I have recently seen him running around in our yard a couple of times. Bryan says Rufus and one of the peacocks was on the front porch looking in through the glass doors the other day - I can only imagine what they were thinking about all this commotion going on! SO....do you think it looks bad? Kinda scary? Consider this. Have you ever seen a post-surgical face lift patient? Lots of bruising & swelling that resolves over a period of several weeks. Then - voila! Beauty!