Yestermorrow’s Renovation class is here all week. Instructor Mickel leads the students in replacing three very different walls on the first floor.

Julien works mostly by himself in the dining room. So far he’s ripped out the old sliding door to the back porch and a chunk of the wall around it, dug away some rotten wood under the sill, and framed it anew to hold a hinge door and a window. The huge opening briefly made moving materials a breeze… too bad we couldn’t take the door out months ago! A tarp under the roof overhang keeps the rain out, and a couple pieces of plywood over the opening give the place a semblance of shelter at night.

Julien opens up the dining room wall. A green tarp protects this opening from the elements.

Meanwhile, Rebecca and Kyle tore down the wall between the bathroom and the living room. Their job is less wet (all indoors) but more complex as the wall contains lots of plumbing. Bob tossed the old toilet out the front door. The class removed the washer/dryer hookups (those move upstairs), and then rebuilt the wall in a stair-step configuration to create a new linen closet and accommodate a wet bar in Bob’s improved living room.

Bathroom/living room wall framed. The class subsequently installed drywall.

The third wall of interest is the exterior living room wall that faces the road. The house’s original front door no longer gets used, and as of Thursday morning the class had removed it. Mark, Hans, and the rest of the perpetual crew stay out of the class’s way, as we have plenty of finish work to attend upstairs.

No sh*t.