It seems things are moving much more quickly on our renovation now that we have professionals involved (more photos here). This week, Steve and Mike (our carpenters) finished framing the bathroom and utility room, framed the front wall, and removed the rest of the staircase in the back of the store. We now need to do quite a bit of work to make the back corner of the store presentable (plaster repair, building a railing, painting, etc.):

Our plumber, Scott, installed all of the supply lines and drains this week. Below, you can see the rough plumbing for the bathroom sink, the toilet and (in the background on the right) the tub.

We hit a bit of a snag with our tankless hot water heater, though. We were planning to use a Stiebel Eltron electric unit, but the power company told us that the maximum load required would be too much for the infrastructure on our block--which seems pretty incredible to me, but there it is. We've already purchased the unit and can't return it ... so, if you know anyone who's interested, send us a line.

Instead, we'll probably go with a tankless gas model, most likely a Bosch. There are a few negatives with a gas model that we were trying to avoid: 1) gas tankless water heaters are more expensive initially and, 2) they require venting (which increases installation cost). This changes our plans a bit, as we need to figure out where to vent the unit, but I think we can figure things out in the end.

I also got up onto our roof for the first time ever, in search of two spots that seem to be leaking. I think I found them and I'm pretty certain I was able to patch them with some nasty black goo. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take the camera with me, so we don't have any photos from or of the roof. Maybe next time!

After officially receiving permission to spend funds--which took a bit longer than we last reported--things are (finally) progressing quickly. We are very, very excited to see things taking shape!

We decided to contract out some of the framing we had planned to do, in part because we needed to jump-start the project if we were to move forward at all before summer--though the very reasonable bid we received certainly helped. This week, our contractor lifted up the sagging floor in the bathroom, framed in the bathroom and utility room, removed an extra door to the shared hallway, removed part of the stairway from the second floor to the main floor, and installed a floor where the stairway had been.

Repaired floor joists:

Bathroom/utility room framing:

New floor:

A lot can happen now that the bathroom and utility room are framed in. First, all of our plumbing lines can be run--which should actually be happening later this week. Second, we can have a gas line run for our furnace, dryer and stove. Third, the electric from the new meter outside to the panel in the utility room can be installed. Finally, our furnace and ductwork can be installed. Seeing as all of that work requires expertise, we'll be hiring various contractors to complete it. And that means that a lot of this could be done in the next month or so. How exciting is that?

If you're interested, you can see more photos on Flickr (scroll to the end for the most recent photos).