Saoirse is the first casualty

Even though she is nearly three years old, Saoirse (Sir-sha) still acts like a puppy–particularly one who desperately seeks affection from nearly anyone. Right now, the cool people are the workers in the house. They are very sweet with her and she loves them. Unfortunately, that love-seeking-missile-Saoirse managed to injure her leg Monday when workers arrived and planned for how to most effectively finish demolishing the kitchen and powder room. We don’t actually know how she got the injury because nothing appeared to be a hazard, but by the end of Tuesday, it was clear that she was in pain. She spent today at the vet and we got the good news that she didn’t break anything, but had enough of a soft-tissue injury that she can’t run or walk for about a week. She LOVES to walk and run and we need her to do so because she’s a huge bundle of energy without it. But for tonight, the stress of most of a day at the vet has her wiped out:

As sad as it is that she hurt herself, it was likely a very good day for her to be away from home. The workers made huge progress finishing the demolition, which was incredibly loud and so dusty that they asked us to turn off the heat so that the debris did not circulate through the house. Despite their venting to the outside and careful taping off of doors, we do, in fact, have dust all over. That’s to be expected.

At one point later in the afternoon, they all cheered and one said: “The moment we’ve all been waiting for!” Dan and I work hard not to get in any way of their work, but this had me curious. What was the breakthrough?! I decided to ask briefly. It was because they had rebuilt the framing connections between the old kitchen and the new addition so that they could take down the temporary support wall. Removing that enabled them to do some serious work on the demo–hence the subsequently louder noise and dust. I was super impressed listening to them clean up so carefully from my family room/office space in the lower-level family room.

Shortly before they left for the day, Dan and Saoirse returned home and she relaxed a bit. At the end of their work day, Dan and I (and Saoirse now on a leash so she can’t stumble into MORE injury) surveyed the progress and found some other pieces of history. Here is where our nearly ready to rebuild kitchen and bath stand (below). They might look ugly to our readers, but we are thrilled at we are making great progress.

But there is some pretty (depending on your perspective) history the powder room demo revealed! One cool find is what looks like the original wallpaper in the powder room:

Part of the reason I suspect it is what they used in 1936-37 is because it’s a strong echo of the wallpaper that looks like original in the kitchen right next door, but a little cuter, which would work in a very small room. You can see more in “Demo Revelations”. Here’s that photo:

It also appears that there is a 1970s-era treatment with this wallpaper tidbit:

Quite a different style after Agda and Glenn Welch left their home for others to make their own.