I don't get it

For some reason, L thought we couldn't use the Kitchen for dinner tonight. Which is just silly. We haven't even started on the Kitchen yet, just the Dining Room (and the wall behind the fridge). Of course, they do have to move a few things when they're working in the Dining Room. What the kitchen looked like last week vs. this afternoon.

The stove works, the fridge works. We even have access to the most critical items:

Microwave. Vitamins. Ibuprofen. Tea. Wine.

What else do you need for dinner? I mean, really.

Here's a tour of some of the changes in the last couple of days.

South side of Dining Room. This wall is about where the stairs and back porch were before. The plan is to commission The Cabinet Guy to do a shallow reproduction of this, floor to ceiling, wall to wall. It will be finished to match the Kitchen cabinets, which will probably be a light to moderate cherry stain.

Pix courtesy of this website, which has lots of illustrations, photographs and reproductions of vintage housing catalogs, including the house kits that were so popular in the early part of the 20th Century.

Elsewhere, there are some interesting architectural details.

This recess is where the old chimney used to be. The chimney was knocked out several weeks ago. The back half of the channel was closed in to enclose heating ductwork for upstairs bedrooms. The recess will hold the cable/TV equipment with the (small) flat-screen on a wall-mount arm. Below that, we have framed in for a gas-insert fireplace, which we will put in if we don't run out of money doing the Kitchen (grin).

This recessed bit at the stairwell? I cannot believe I didn't notice it for two months until right before the drywallers started. The wall can't be flush there for some reason, something to do with tying the new construction into the existing load-bearing beam, or making the stairs too narrow to meet code. It really annoyed me at first, not that I could do anything about it. But, now, I think it's kinda cool.