Beam's Done.

Here's that pesky beam I was so concerned about. It is SOOO much better than if the post had been inside. Kudos again to Jeff for making it work. You may wonder, as I did, what is going to happen with that big heating duct. It goes to the kitchen (directly above) and terminates in a heating vent just below a cabinet. Now, instead of going up in the center (right of the beam) it will now go to a vent on the left. Basically, it will go straight up. I'm pretty sure that the beam will be wrapped with sheet rock and painted. The question we were asked today was about the soffit. On the left, it must continue on up to the beam, to cover the duct. On the right, however, we don't need it anymore. We could remove the soffit from above the middle and right windows. Please comment if you have an opinion. I said to keep it all, because otherwise the left won't match the center & right. I'm afraid that the left would really stand out as different. But the huge beam between the left and the rest kind of stands out anyway.

There isn't much else to report on. Salty's guys continue to install a beautiful floor, but how many "in progress" pictures do you want to see? I mean, if I get comments saying that both all of my readers want to see each day's progress, you'll get it. Today's biggest excitement is that the tile/granite guys came to make templates for the kitchen counters, which will be made of granite slabs. I guess they'll be cutting and installing the granite soon! Also, we got to meet Pete Hazel, the owner, which is nice. His operation is pretty big, so we've met a lot of his guys, but it was good to meet him.

All of our doors have come in. They are made of Alder, and I think they are 2" thick. Hopefully, if I am wrong, Tim will post a comment to correct me. They are really nice, heavy, sturdy doors and I think they are going to be a very nice touch.