Day Three

The cat pee smell seems to be history. I’ll see when I go back next time after the place has had time to cook without the AC on. By the time we left yesterday, though, it only smelled like cleaning products so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. “We” yesterday, consisted of the GF’s parents, and me. GF has been out of town so she hasn’t even been able to bask in the glow of our new place. I haven’t told her I ripped the carpet out of the loft yet. That was something I wasn’t sure I was going to do but when I got there yesterday, I sat on the stairs and there was a definite odor so I’m not sure there was anything directly on it but the smell was in it and that carpet had to go eventually anyway so I did it. I think it made a huge improvement in the smell. And…it lead to a new discovery.



Let me back up for a minute. The “loft” as we call it, is a large room with a cathedral ceiling built over the carport. It’s 54” higher than the main floor of the house. I am sure that it is an addition but I can’t tell when it was built. My gut feeling is that it was not long after the house was built. Overall it is about 20’ by 23’ inside but if you look at the picture above, there is an interior wall aligned with the second mullion from the right. This ends up dividing the space into about a 12’-8” wide main room and a 7’ wide side room. In looking at it I pretty much determined that the small side (north side) was a screened porch at one time. The glass gabled end faces east, the south wall is solid with no glass and the north wall is all glass from about 24” up. Removing the carpeting all but confirmed the screened porch theory as under the carpet on that side was quarry tile. Unfortunately, there is a small rise in the floor at the transition because, inexplicably, the “outside” side is a tad higher than the inside. I’m not sure how the ramp up was accomplished so I have to take up the plywood to see what is under it.



Here's a pic of the upper floor subfloor and one of the beasts.



This one shows the transition that ramps up at the doorway. This will have to be taken care of if the rooms are to be combined. I'm not looking forward to chipping out this tile. The ramp looks worse than it is in this pic due to the coloration of the floor. It's only about a quarter inch.

The plan is to take out this dividing wall. I’m not sure yet whether I’m going to take it all out or leave a small area for some office space toward the back end. GF wants to leave the wall and put my office on the small side and the family room on the other but I don’t think that is the best use of the space. Sure, it would make a spectacular office with all the glass and views but this room is the “attention getter” from the outside and I think it should deliver on that on the inside. 12’-8” is not enough to put in a decent family room layout. If I took it out to where I think I will, I’d end up with a 20’ x 15’ space that would take full advantage of the all glass gable end. Also, compounding the narrowness is the position of the door into the small side…it’s 8’ wide and right in the center. I could, of course, close off the doorway and either make it smaller or move it altogether and we’ll see how much pressure the GF puts on me but I think the “big family room” concept is where we’re headed.



You know that is the coolest railing ever but I forecast it is soon to have a structural failure. You can see how stained the carpet is and why I'm glad to be rid of it. I plan on opening up this staircase somewhat but I'm not sure how just yet. One of the attractions of this house is it has tons of storage so I don't want to entirely get rid of the storage under the stair. I can weld a little bit and my buddy Mike Pearce at Carbon Vudu can do even more so I think it will be metal. The wall to the right of the stair, where it is a halfwall up top is a planter (tre chic) and will be summarily shown the trash heap eventually with just a railing in its place.



This is the living room that I spoke about on Day One. You can see by the piano (came with the house!) that there was a wall over there previously. I guess it was a 4 bedroom house. It's now three and the 4th bedroom was turned into a decent sized walkin closet and extra space in the living room. Really makes me wonder what the purpose of that built in to the left is. It would have been in the hallway. The mirrors will be the next to go.

What have we learned? Carpet is disappearing. I'm ignoring my GF's wishes. I'm putting her parents to work for my benefit. I have beasts. Metal is cool.