Structural component or not?

Before

This week we played a game called: "Structural component or not?" I had been pestering Halley for a while to agree to take out this decorative divider between the Pit and the kitchen. Halley finally agreed, and we broke out the sawzall to destroy this annoyingly unfunctional "decoration". Once we cut through it and pulled it apart, it came down about an inch with some decent force... "What have we done"... I immediately assume this is load bearing due to how much force it was bearing... We spend a good half hour pondering this, and decide to contact a structural engineer... While we were waiting for them to get back to us, Halley posted pictures online in hopes that friends and family could weigh in. Brian Ell, Ralph Ratcliffe, Pete Campagna, Jeff Ratcliffe, and Rich Hart all agreed that this was VERY unlikely to be load bearing. We had checked the joists on the Pit side, but I had forgotten to check on the house's side. I checked with a stud finder and found that the joists were parallel... So we removed it with a clear conscience.

After, also there is now paint

Once removed, we found a pleasant surprise we will have to deal with in the upcoming years. Our kitchen has multiple layers of linoleum. Hooray!

Layer linoleum cake and sloppy
joint compound

Sunday was our first actual party hosted. We had 13 people over and cooked on the grill (since our oven/electric is still being worked on...hopefully this Wednesday).  John and Dave came over early and the gents and I hopped in the pool. It was... a bit chilly :) but John would call it "refreshing."

John and Dave immediately broke Halley's rule of "no flips".  She struck a compromise and they agreed to only do acrobatics off of the diving board and straight out into the pool.  Photo credits to Dave.

Make sure to click the "gear icon" and select 720 to watch in HD

Almost immediately the aquatic acrobats determined the diving board was too "squishy" so John  and Dave took it apart and tweaked it a bit tighter.  Kids may not get as big a bounce, but now it's perfect for adults.

Last week we forgot to post some of the other projects we were working on. We planted some nice perenials, and hosta out front. The grass we put down is coming up great as well! Hooray for a week straight of rain!

 

We had also found some pretty cool blinds a while ago but forgot to post them here as well.

They have the "hex" design to insulate, but as you can see, they can go up from the bottom, but also down from the top for letting sunlight in while still having privacy!