January 2008

December 2007

November 2007

October 22nd, 2007

Will this rain ever stop...

But, we're golden now as the black paper was put on to seal the roof. The final exterior element, the decks, are being installed and the house has its final shape. But, we still face challenges as we're having to raise the foundation to be six inches above grade. This means supporting the right side of the house and building a frame for the additional concrete. I'll bet Kenny (my contractor, see picture) is ready to run for the hills by now...

But, we're having fun.

One more thing - the last picture is our backyard which by next week should be completely leveled. We're doing the rough grading now since we have a easy way (through the garage and rumpus room) to get heavy equipment in (just like we pulled the pool out).

October 10th

October is a tough month after such progress earlier. The rain didn't slow us down but made for messier work. The setback was our sewer. We learned our pipes under the garage were in poor shape and we decided to replace them. The problem stems from an incorrect slope which increased the rate of deterioration. Anyway, we cut up the garage and pulled the pipe. Corrected the slope and installed new sewer pipe. Soon, we will have to cut into the front yard to put in a new cleanout (for city code). Fortunately, the ceramic pipe to the street is in good shape (we have a video to prove it!) so the digging should stop soon...

September 24th, 2007

Late September sees great progress as the roof rises. It is quite complex with several pitches and levels. We added a few additional skylights and we were delighted to find we will be able to stand upright in the attic!

September 2007 - more framing, shearwall and the roof starts...

During September we strengthened and expanded the framing, ordered windows, starting shearwalling (plywood siding) the house, and the roof begins to appear.