Worse now, better later

How often did you realize things have to get worse before they get better? Well of course I am referring to our house expansion. They tore out the wall of our living room today. Imagine your living room with one of the walls (to the outside!) torn off. In all honesty, that was only for a short while. Since then they constructed a crude temporary wall with plywood. But there is no window. Yes, it is dark in here. Yes, we have the light burning in the afternoon.

This side of the mess we have a clear plastic sheet taped to the ceiling, shielding us from the dust created by this kind of work. So at this point in time, the living room that was way too small for our big furniture is now a little smaller, with all that furniture scrunched together a little more. I have to reach behind a cabinet in order to turn on the TV with my remote. That sort of defeats the purpose of a remote. But when our luxurious big screen TV finally does light up, we need to crane our necks to the left in order to see the action on the right of the screen. Left handed batters I can easily see, but when a righty comes to the plate I lean way over.

This is only an imagined hardship, I realize, and it is only temporary anyway. But for right now it is just as dramatic as I pictured it. The huge beam that was lying on the ground was destined for the support of our living room when completed. I commented this morning that it would take 6 men to lift that thing. Scott chuckled and told me that it was a lot easier for them to put it down on the ground. This afternoon they did lift the beam and fit it into the slot prepared, and it did take 6 men. Alright, it took 5 men and one supervisor. I was supervising and documenting the construction with my camera.

Here's what I saw.