Here’s where we were up to in my last post – the kitchen island was taken out, the wall units were dissembled and moved, the tile backsplash for the stove was taken down, and the small wall and doorway to the stairs was removed entirely.

My teens told me that the drywall was badly damaged when taking down the tile wall, and I told them it’s not a big deal, we’ll replace it. They had a different suggestion – why not take down the entire wall closing in the staircase?

I had to pause to think about that. One advantage of having the door and the walls there is it makes it much easier to heat and cool the main living area. If it’s wide open to the second floor, that’s going to be much more challenging (read: expensive).

The door and wall made the two floors of our house more separate from one another, and provides our guests with a lot of privacy when they come to visit. We sometimes host guests of others for sleeping and the guests appreciate how much privacy they have, with a separate entrance to a completely separate apartment. But with the door already gone, the privacy and separation our guests had was already diminished.

Taking down the wall wouldn’t give us any additional space. The only thing it would do is make our living area feel more spacious.

Some people like cozy little spaces. I don’t.

I love, love, love open space. I don’t like to feel crowded. A friend visited a couple of years ago and commented that ever since she knows me (about twenty years), I’m always finding ways to maximize our space and make it more open. I had never been conscious of how consistent I’ve been about that.

Interestingly, since taking down the little wall that was behind our kitchen sinks, it’s much easier for me to keep the dishes washed. It wasn’t until that wall was down that I realized I had reluctance to stand in an area that felt constricting for me to wash the dishes and would therefore put it off.

Here’s a view of the stairs and the wall in question.

Having a feeling of more space was a gain for me – I gave the go ahead to take the wall down!

My boys were delighted. There’s a feeling of accomplishment that’s different than doing a little repair or hanging a picture when there’s a big project like completely rehauling the kitchen.

The bottom of the wall separated readily but the top wasn’t coming down so easily!

Teen boys need a lot of physical activity and challenge. During their last vacation, our three teens organized a two day bike trip around the perimeter of the Kinneret/Sea of Galillee with a few friends, and I was very supportive of a trip like this. Teens need meaningful activity and challenge; they get bored and into trouble when they don’t have it.

“One, two, three, push!”

I left them figuring out what to do to get the wall down while I ran a couple of errands. When I came back, the wall was gone, the rubble was removed and the floor was swept. And they felt very accomplished!

I am so happy with how this changes our space. Most of the year I keep my front door open to allow light and air in, but I’m now keeping the side door open instead. I have a nice view of our yard, great airflow and it feels much more spacious.

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Now that the wall is down we have another project. As nice and open as it now is, we can’t have a staircase with no railing! So ‘install staircase railing’ has gone onto the to do list.

I found a railing that I wanted on Yad2, a second hand site, but it was in a location I wasn’t comfortable driving alone to. And it was a huge heavy piece of railing that even with help I was afraid I couldn’t load onto my car. And once it was on, I was concerned about getting it securely lashed down. And then once it was tied down, I was worried about driving with it.

I don’t usually worry much about getting things done but once I had found and called about it, all of the other parts of it were outside of my comfort zone.

Bless my husband, who agreed to leave at 4:15 in the morning to drive there and get it, and then come back home and get to work.

So the first big part of the railing project is done – buying the railing. The next step will be installing it, and metal work unfortunately isn’t something the Werner family knows how to do. We asked the person doing the plumbing if he can help us get this done and he agreed. He said he’ll try to do it on Friday morning, when a friend of his who is a metal worker is available to help him.

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The new gas line has been laid and the stove moved from next to the staircase to its new location, and we were able to move the loveseat into the area that will be our new living room.

Here’s the stove in its new location, in what used to be our living room. The island next to it is temporary; there will be a long counter with a sink in it once we’re done. It’s nice to have the stove piece finished. Right now we’re keeping the curtains tied back so there’s no fire hazard; I’m going to replace them with blinds but that’s still on the list.

Yesterday afternoon the plumber began digging and drilling to put in new outlet points for the sink drainage to the main sewage line. Each of the two kitchen sinks will need their own lines. The sewage line for the first sink is finished.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to Beit Shemesh to attend the siddur party for my oldest granddaughter. I got notice this afternoon that ds7 will not be allowed on the school bus tomorrow and will have to stay home. Usually I don’t mind – he’s not hard to have around when it’s just the two of us – but tomorrow I won’t be here. I was feeling stressed trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t tell my granddaughter I’m coming, but I’ve had it on my calendar for weeks since she first told me about it and it’s a priority for me.

My husband can’t work and supervise ds7 (he needs constant supervision, it’s almost unbelievable how much he gets into and how quickly it happens). Our original plan was that he would take over for me at 2 pm when ds12 and ds8 got home – he can set them up with an educational video while he works. (Between the drive there, the party and then the drive back, that’s most of my day.) Then at 3 the twins come and at that point he would be fully available and take off of work.

Knowing how important it is to me to go to this party, he’s going to take the entire day off of work.

The electrician said if it rains he’ll come tomorrow and do some work for us. I’m the one taking care of the this project so I’d really rather be here when he’s doing the work, but I’ll leave detailed instructions for my husband in case the electrician shows up – it’s hard to get him here, and once he’s here I want him to be able to make progress! I have one place where if he can move a light switch, it will enable us to reassemble and attach all of the wall units so if he has even a small amount of time and can do that, it would help us move forward with putting things in order.

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I’ve had a question come up about my plans for the countertops. It turns out I need a small piece less than a meter long to cover a blind corner (the one to the left of the stove above). I contacted the business I bought the countertops from and he no longer does the cutting and installation. He does have the design that we bought so we can buy another piece, but we need to have a different company cut it to size and install the sink in the island countertop for the opposite wall. This has thrown a wrench into my plans.

I went to see the other company today to get a quote for the work and it’s going to be much more costly than I expected. That leaves me with a dilemma. It would be great if laminate countertops were an easily available option in Israel, but they’re not since stone countertops are the norm. I don’t want to spend this amount of money adding on to used countertops; the purpose of using the countertops was to keep costs down. Now we’re considering if we would be better off spending more and getting new countertops put in. Well, I’m considering it – my husband thinks stone countertops are a rip off.

Whether I add on to the current countertops or get new ones, the factory that cuts them won’t be able to have them ready until a few days before Pesach. I can find a way to work with that, but it delays finishing the kitchen well beyond my latest projected target date.

Avivah