Day 1

It’s the first day of summer and the first day of our garage remodel—the raising of the second story. Junior Brown and his crew showed up fifteen minutes early this morning. I can’t remember the last time a service person showed up on time, much less early. We were signaled to their arrival by a truck with giant metal beams parked outside the front of our house. The size of the beams made me very worried. I couldn’t imagine how on earth they’d be able to get them down the alley and angled into the garage.

Note to parents: You can click any of these photos to see them larger.

What came next was simply amazing. By trade these guys move old homes to new locations. This job was probably nothing to them, but to us they seemed like miracle workers. While a few of the guys lugged fat wooden blocks (giant blocks) to the four corners of the garage another guy got busy busting two holes through the side of the garage facing the house.


A few minutes later I watched a metal beam poke its way through one of the holes. I didn’t even notice they had unloaded the beams. Several minutes after that another beam appeared in the second hole. Once the beams were in their temporary positions the crew started stacking the wooden blocks in Lincoln log fashion. When they got close to the metal beams they used a jack to lift the metal beam up and squeeze another wooden block in. They kept doing this until the second story was held up on its own. We actually didn’t even know they were done until our contractor called us. We thought the crew left for an early lunch. The entire process took less than three hours! Hopefully what comes next will be as delightful as today (we’ll keep our fingers crossed).





Before and After, Day 1: