Adventures In Header Replacement

So as we got closer to having all the drywall hung we realized that it was time to do something about the sag in the header over the opening between the dining room and living room.

Not so easy to see above but here you can below.

At nine feet long and about and inch of sag in the middle we had to fix it.
Hmm the trim was level... because of the nice stack of shims...

So we were offered some help by friend Scott Craig (who by the way if you were at our wedding... made the incredible chocolate coffee beet cup wedding cakes).
We built temporary walls on either side to... er hold up the... uh ceiling.

Yes. This is me saying 'Now you are sure this will work?'

The answer is yes, with a BIG new beam .

The next few bits of this project we were not able to take pictures...
mostly because our hands were rather full.

The gist of it was cutting the old beam out. (for a good laugh everyone 'hid' behind the kitchen wall and gave me a 'very insuring thumbs up' while a cut through the old beam). My dad and I built the new beam and put it up with the help of a rather large sledge hammer.


New beam up, but still waiting to take down the temp walls
Dad pulling apart the temp wall.
Rather ominous at night...

But in the morning...

A new (and quite straight) header. Good Stuff.









Have I mentioned how much fun we are having?!