Carpentry work in our home

We have a room upstairs where we have our office and a spare bed (mattress on the floor). The stairs were a glorified ladder which was very frightening to climb up and down, particularly since there is no railing around the opening for the stairs on the second floor (and the floor downstairs is concrete, if you follow me). So, we finally hired a carpenter to make a new stair.

This is the old stairway.

The condition of our bedroom while the work was being done.

While the stairs were gone.

This is the saintly Sahayanathan (translates to Supreme Helper) working - no power tools, all hand work. (You can see my neighbors in the background.)
Here they are. My neighbors Mariama, Shemi, Janaki, and Jayanthi

He put new shelves in the kitchen.

Here are the new stairs with railings.

And, here's the bed he made, getting the mattress off the floor. Sigh.

We are waiting for him to come and paint the stairs, railings, shelving, and woodwork. If the transformation is exciting, I'll put pictures in the blog (but I sort of doubt it.)