In Between Before and After

In my haste to finish my post yesterday, I failed to include pictures of the in between stage.  After demolition of the old spaces, but before completion of the new spaces was when I began to doubt the whole project.

A little background, we were only the third owners of this 83 year old house.  The first owner was rumored to be involved in some mob activities, which wasn't uncommon for this area.  Well, the kitchen floor in our house had a huge hump in the middle of the floor.  Now I was sure that during the demolition, we were either going to find a large wad of cash or a dead body under there.  Unfortunately and fortunately, we found neither.  Just some really crooked joists which of course meant extra work (cha ching!).  The first of several surprises to add to the budget.  Once they removed the entire floor of the old kitchen, the floor joists all had to be leveled out and a new subfloor had to be installed.  Here is a picture of the old kitchen (new dining room) without a floor.

I was a little nervous that day when I stopped by to check on the progress.  Any reasonable person, even someone with some vision, would have a hard time looking at that and believing it could turn out okay.  Our contractor was great and he assured me it would all work out in the end.  He was right, but for me that in between stage was the most difficult.  Here's another look at the end result.