When one door closes... another opens!

Rumor had it that the original floorplan of our Rummer had a door between the dining room and family room. Our dining room wall was covered in diagonal tongue and groove cedar planks and must have been installed sometime in the mid 80s. The only way to find out if a doorway once existed was to remove the planks... yes, more demo!


Our daughter, tore into the diagonal planks over spring break and uncovered the original door opening. My first "design" idea was to move the door closer to the kitchen wall (only 10 inches), but after electrical and construction costs nixed that idea we decided the door worked just fine in its original location... I mean, in keeping with the original architectural intent and design integrity, we chose to keep the door where it was.

Demo continues:


First, the sheet rock had to be removed. It's very therapeutic to slam a hammer into a wall. With sheet rock removed we could see the outline of the door frame and the overhead beam. (Steve had an interesting incident with the beam... and construction adhesive! This of which we do not speak of!) ;-)

Next, we had the electrical re-routed. We temporarily lost power to the dining room light, but did a quick fix until we can get the electrician back in.


With the electrical moved, Steve removed the 2 x 4 framing and sheet rock on the family room side of the wall. Since we are not touching the family room right now, it was important that we didn't go too nuts with the demo on this part of the project.



Finally the door is OPEN! The flow between the two parts of the house now make sense. I love it. We will finish off the wall edges when we put up the new paneling in the dining room, then paint the overhead beam the same brown as the rest of the beams in the house. Should look great... and so much more functional! We can now walk from the kitchen to the dining room.