A little more progress

We had some help yesterday and got a lot accomplished as a result.  In addition to some work in the crawlspace (much needed, but never providing much "wow" effect), we cleaned up, laid some hardwood floor AND the guys finished another interior wall with "shiplap."  After they were finished, I realized that for the first time in more than a year, I couldn't walk in between the studs to get to the master bedroom.  I actually had to walk down the hall and go through the doorway!

Once we finish the flooring, we hope that the HVAC guys will return and finish their work so we can turn on the heat.  If we have heat, the plumber will come and repair the pipes that have broken during the MD deep freeze and we won't have to worry about them cracking again.  After the plumber, then the insulation...to keep the heat in and to satisfy the inspector and move on to the next phase of our permitting.  Approval on the insulation would be a huge step because then we could start closing up all the walls.  Talk about wow effect; that would be awesome!  I can't even imagine.

Here are a few pictures of the new wall.  It starts behind the front door, goes up over the entry to the dining room, moves up the stairs and then continues down one side of the upstairs hall, running up and around both the guest bathroom and master bedroom doors.  Compared to the studs we've been looking at for so long, it looks warm and inviting doesn't it?

Here are a few of the pictures of the hardwood floor.  It's only about 45 sq ft, but at least it covers the hole we've had for the last month or so.  A while back we had to rip out a significant portion of the dining room floor because so many of the boards were damaged in one way or another.  We cut out the bad, saved the good, re-laid the good and now that we're out of the original have started laying the new.  I don't know how many months we have had a big hole there (a hole that a forgetful bidder fell through yesterday!) so it's nice to have the walkway from the hall to the dining room covered up.  If we tried to refinish the floors the new, white pine would not match up with the old, heart pine so my God-given, brilliant idea is to just paint the entire dining room / kitchen floor.  Problem solved.  Now on to the kitchen floor (which has been missing for more than a year)!

Progress!  It's starting to feel a little more like a home...sort of.