It fits!

The first of the two beams was installed. It's something to watch these guys do precision work amongst a mess like this. The floor joists are attached to either side of this beam. Actually it's what's called a flitch plate which is a thin piece of steel. A piece of LVL is bolted on each side. It took three workers to carry the flitch plate in the house.

Tomorrow will be installation of the main steel beam which will make it possible to take down the rest of the temporary walls. Here's where it will live.

They used a couple of interesting tools today. The first is a pneumatic jack that did the final inches of lifting on the beam. The second is a little floor scraper they used to get some remaining flooring chips removed.

Our old kitchen left in a dumpster and was swapped for an empty one. Apparently the fill line is more of a suggestion.

Here's a view of the space opening up.

Our garden doesn't mind all the fuss, and it's pretty psyched about todays downpour. This is taken looking out from the dining room window. Yeah I have to finish my fence rebuild at some point.

With any luck we'll have pictures with no walls tomorrow!