Day 3 - The carpenters were back at it again today. Still working on reinforcing the joists above the garage. In my mind, they seem to be making good progress. One thing for sure, they keep at it. No sitting around doing nothing.

I have never been involved in a project like this before. It is interesting to see how these houses are constructed. Normally, the dry wall covers all the structural stuff so you can't see what is there. Now that most of the dry wall is removed in the garage, getting a look at the structure is easy. Also, you get to uncover the sins of the original builder. Our house was built in 1976.

In today's photo you can see one of the sins. On the left side is one of the joists. It covers a 22 foot span. You will note that it isn't even sitting on the beam. There are a few nails holding it up. It is also nailed to the floor above which keeps it in place. I guess the philosophy of the builder was don't worry about it and cover it up with dry wall as soon as possible. There are others we have uncovered. The carpenters are very good and they do a great job of fixing things and putting them right.

Our general contractor is Jeff. He is great to work with. He doesn't get flustered. When we were looking for a contractor we interviewed six of them. So how do you choose? My son Robert just finished a major renovation to his basement and has recent experience. His advice was to choose a contractor with good bed side manner. Jeff has that in spades and we are happy with the way things are going.