The basement floor continues to be dug up. Lee found some pieces of coal, so either that well became a place for a coal furnace or there is a diamond mine there. We're also considering bottling the water that is now covering the floor and selling it. We can even give tours of the fabulous spa-like conditions. Anything to help defray the costs.

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They have framed out the new guest room and laundry room and upstairs back hall. It's looking very good but the back hall seemed a bit smaller than we hoped. Peter had a great idea to open up the stair well at the top and just have a railing instead of a wall. That will make a huge difference in the feeling of space there and Lee and Miriam agreed. Originally the back stairs led up to the servants rooms and bathroom so I guess it didn't matter to the homeowner that it was small and a bit dark. The down side to our opening it up is I guess this means we are not going to be having servants. Too bad.

This is a view of the guest room taken from the bay so you can see the closet all the way on the right and where the built-in dresser will be to the left of the closet and beyond , where the windows are, is the laundry room.

We also spent alot of time discussing where to build in the ironing board in the laundry room. Peter and Miriam were very serious about which way the board would face and if the door to the room would have to be closed during ironing and if that's a bad thing. I don't know how much ironing they think is actually going to go on here.

The third floor now looks like a dormitory in a very run down school. Most of the walls are down and the ones remaining are only studs. I'm glad we decided to do the third floor now even though it wasn't in the original plan. Lee found that the roof was still leaking by the chimney in Sarah's room and alot of the studs and rafters were compromised by water damage. So everything will get fixed and some sketchy wiring will be brought up to code.

We decided in Sarah's room to make the existing closet into an alcove for a dresser since it was under an eave where we couldn't even have a full door or much of a hanging rod. A new closet will be built with better headroom and reasonable hnging space (for a visit).
The 'sharing closet' will get some of the space from Sarah's old closet for shelves and we are moving the door around the corner which will allow good hanging space and easy access to the new shelves and better play area in the hallway.

The only troubling thing at the moment is the positioning of the powder room and coat closet in in the addition. If we leave it the way it is there is an issue with getting the plumbing through the foundation in the basement. If we flip it, some people think it closes in the entry from the vestibule to the family room. Peter and I will go look again and decide by Monday. I have a feeling it will end up staying the way it is and we will have to have some bracketing for support underneath. Lee said he will do a mock up of the bracket so we can get an idea of how that will look in the carport.

We also have to decide about the copper roofing for the bays - should it be the untreated copper which eventually turns brown and then green. Or should we go with the lead coated which is gray and weathers to a milky color. Originally I wanted the lead-coated but when we put the samples up to the new trim color, it seemed the brown copper was better. Then when we put it against the roof, the lead was better. So that decision also must be made soon. This photo shows the trim color with the 2 copper choices leaning against it and the bluestone that will be on the walkways and terraces.

I won't even start about the toilet decisions. I'll save that for next week.