Basement beam

Duncan brought an engineer in to check out our support beams in the basement, and as he suspected, it needed to be replaced. This was unfortunate but better to catch it at this stage rather than later when everything's done. So his team worked to set up support posts, haul down the old beam and hoist up a brand new one. It was a monster job and they pulled it off beautifully. The team spent a late night getting it all done:

First they had to remove the old beam:

 Incidentally, that old beam is made of some beautiful old wood. We're using that to build our cabinet for the main floor vanity.

Next, the team hoisted a huge beam or more precisely, a few beams bound and bolted together:

Terri, Marco and Donny

Several supports stand in place while they get the beam in place.

Marco working on the beam.

And all that work brought our basement to something that's looking very much like a real basement compared to the serial killer's lair that it was before:

Note the missing staircase in the last picture. You'll see new pictures of the rebuilt staircase soon.

Around the same time, our back entrance was sealed up for the future wine cellar:

More to come...we're STILL not up to date on where the house actually is. Stay tuned...