I cleared out the mudroom and pulled off the molding. On a whim i decided to pry up a bit of the flooring as I have optimistic hopes that there is good looking fir flooring underneath. What do i find?

More ugly linoleum.



But under that is indeed some beautiful wood. Why would you ever cover this?

Then I knocked an exploratory hole in the drywall to see what I'm up against. The mudroom was (as far as I can tell) the old back porch which was walled in. The rear wall (where I want to put my french doors) is supported by a 4x6 beam which is only 74" above the floor. This is going to be a short set of doors! Julie wants to raise that beam but i don't want to deal with re-framing the roof line. Ugh.

So the client (my sweetheart, Julie) got home an hour before she said she would. Surprise! So rather than have all of my mess cleaned up, the house was a bit of a sty. She got upset, but we got through it. It isn't fair to come home early and expect that I'll be ready for her. We talked and set some better ground rules. Part of me is looking forward to sealing off the kitchen and just going to town with no outside observers. But until then, I'm trying hard to build while keeping the house as usable as I can.