Airing My Dirty Laundry (Room)

I have high hopes for today in the land of real estate! As of 9am, I am under contract to sell my condo! Whoop Whoop! My friend (and current renter) is moving to Arizona (booooooooo) and the thought of having to get another tenant and play landlord to stranger is not exciting me. I would much rather sell the place and focus on the House of Leo. After a few days on the market, I got an above list offer. SIGNED. It is bittersweet. I lived in the condo when Michael and I first started dating and it holds a lot of good memories from our early years. I was very unhappy when I initially moved from NYC to Salt Lake and things didn't improve until after I bought the place and moved downtown. Like I said, bittersweet.

Bye-bye condo

Across town at the House of Leo, things got started early this morning. As in, I had to bargain for the hot water to stay on until 7:35 so I could shower off after the gym. Today is the day that the steel beam is going in. Our laundry room is by far the most disgusting place in the house, even before we started construction.

The litter box really brings the room together

This room is a pass through room between the (future) TV room downstairs and the apartment. In this shot, I am standing on the TV room side looking back at the interior apartment door. Shortly after purchasing the place, we had the footer hole cut. It is a messy job and we wanted to minimize the impact on our living situation once we moved into the apartment. You can see that the lovely litter boxes in the picture above are being supported from falling into the bowels of hell (12 inch dirt hole) by plywood. Today they removed the plywood:

This is my house people.

Since steel is as strong as, well steel, they are going to install the support beam from the top down and THEN pour the concrete to minimize any chance for measurement errors. The crew had removed the old water heater and installed the new tank-less water heater in the time between my 7:35am shower and departing for work.



The tank-less is on the wall

Old tank is now in the garbage

The crew had also removed the water heater pipes(?) that ran all the way upstairs and through the roof.

Before: Pipes and existing support post

After: No pipes, just support post

The next step is for the crew to build temporary support walls. This will allow them to remove the support post pictured above. Then the steal I-Beam will go up and a new support beam will be directed through the powder room walls (by the tank-less toilet above) and secure into the footer hole in the laundry room. Everyone follow that? Basically, out with the wood in with the metal = open concept floor plan. It is days like this that I have to keep reminding myself that the house will look amazing some day in the near future. Here is the inspiration for the laundry room:

Some day, we will be able to walk through the pass through between house and apartment without bouncing on plywood. The pets will stop fearing the dirt void that lies beneath, and I will smile at myself in the stainless steel back-splash and know I made it through the tough times of the renovation. Until then;

This.