Builders Share: Movin' On Up

There is still plenty of work to do on the upstairs, but enough has been done to allow us to start using the space. I would've liked to strip and urethane the hallway, trim out the windows, paint hallway, etc. etc. but good enough will have to be good enough for now. The non-essentials will have to wait until after I get the upstairs bathroom tiled and the tub, toilet, and sink installed.

The move itself was not without some pain. After cleaning up from my last task of putting another coat of urethane on the baseboards, we tried to move the queen size mattress up the stairway. No go. The stairway is steep and narrow and is accessed through a doorway entrance from the side. It's one of the old-house charms that grabbed me the first time I saw it, but now it was getting in the way of progress.

For the past year I've struggled to get building materials and large power tools around the corner and up the stairs. All the while, I've stayed in denial about how we were going to move our bed and other furniture upstairs. Well now the dilemma faced us head on.

The only way we were going to get the queen-sized mattress upstairs was by busting through the wall at the base of the stairs. I was half-prepared for this. When framing the downstairs, I deliberately left that wall in place with its old hand-split lathing exposed hoping we could keep it. It was one of the few remaining vestiges of the original house. In the back of my mind, however, I knew that it might need to come down to move up.

Sadly, I took the hammer and pry bar to the old lathing and opened up a space for us to get the job of moving done. The new opening gave us just enough space to get our bed and dressers upstairs.