The construction begins! Alan and Joe reinforced the basement ceiling (which is also the cafe floor). This took a lot of measuring and cutting and remeasuring and recutting when they discovered that the walls were not plumb. It also involved about 6000 nails in the nail gun. No injuries were reported.
The floor in the kitchen was excavated in preparation for tiling. Because the tile floor has to level with the wood floor, the existing kitchen floor had to be lowered by almost an inch. If you think about this, you will realize how big a job it was. Tiling will take almost 3 weeks! The kitchen needs to be tiled for sanitary reasons. The rest of the floor will be refinished wood...just like in the bookstore.
The contractors also started work. We hired a plumber to work on the pipes and a framer to frame out the kitchen.
These two photos are views from the front of the cafe looking toward the back. You can see where the kitchen is being framed in on the right-hand side. The counter, where you will place your order, will be in front of the kitchen.
These two photos were taken from the back of the cafe looking out toward the front windows.
This is the kitchen, complete with floor drains. The floor is prepped for the tile installation, which won't start for a few more weeks.
This is the framed-in bathroom. It will be nice and roomy!
Remember what the walls looked like with the plaster? This is the same wall with all the lath and plaster removed.
Now we head down to the basement, where most of the plumbing work is being done.
Look, pipes and plumbing stuff!
This is a shot taken from the basement looking up into the kitchen. We are looking up between two floor joists. Don't worry, it will get closed in.
