Day 46

Ductwork! I had to explain to the children that this is a DUCT not a DUCK. If there is any quacking eminating from this, there is a problem! Ü This is a shot of our main ventilation chaseway as viewed looking down from the attic. We will lose a bit of space out of our upstairs hall and 1st floor school room for this. But I guess heat and A/C is worth that! The duct work should be complete within a week!

Day 37

Day 37: Green Gables! Yes, we chose green for our roof shingle color! Our roofing crew arrived at 5:30am this morning and began laying shingles. I must say they are very fast and I was quite impressed when I witnessed one of them SPRINTING from the bottom of the main roof to the top. These men appear to be as comfortable walking on a roof with an 11 on 12" pitch as they do on the ground. Personally, if it were me, I would be tied on with a safety harness, hanging on, and CRAWLING, but I suppose that is why they are ones roofing my house and not me! The front is nearly done here and you can see that we do indeed have green gables!

Day 36

Day 36: Septic System
Last Friday two gentlemen from the Dept. of Health came out to our property and inspected our soil. Our soil passed the dryness test. The dryness test is VERY scientific. A guy bores a hole and takes a soil sample at the septic field depth which was 14" deep in our case and rolls it between the palms of his hand. If he can roll a little dirt snake that is 1/8" or smaller before the soil breaks apart, then it is too wet. No tiny snakes were happening in our yard so we were good to go.

We said "dry prayers" all weekend so it wouldn't rain and our certified septic installer came Monday morning to install our septic field. When you tell people you are putting in a new septic system (especially in our county) you get to hear every septic horror story. We heard numerous tales of folks who have been in their homes for years and still haven't been approved for their field to be installed so they have to pay to have their tanks pumped once a month. So we were THRILLED to say the least that we are over this hurdle.

Day 33

Well, things are quiet on the job site for the time being. Our framers have reached a stopping point until our windows are delivered which should be next Friday. Although this is perfect roofing weather, our roofer must be occupied elsewhere and won't be on our site until next Wednesday. :(

The Board of Health officials arrived today to do a soil test for the installation of our septic system. We have had difficulty getting our system design approved and we have heard horror stories about how difficult it is to get approval for installation. If the ground is just the slightest bit wet, you can't put the system in. Great news! Our soil passed. As long as it doesn't rain between now and Monday, our system will be installed! I am praying "dry prayers" as this is a giant hurdle I would love to be over!!!

Day 31

Day 31: Shingles
The roof is completely framed and shingles were delivered today. Just today we changed our shingle choice. When Barry touched base with the framers as he left for work, Merv brought up what he saw we had chosen for shingles which was a basic three-tab shingle. He said he personally would never choose that for a steep roof like ours that sits out and gets a lot of wind. He said we would probably have broken tabs every time it storms. So we decided to investigate and found that it wasn't a bad price to upgrade to a dimensional shingle. I spent my morning driving up to the roofing place to check them out. Fortunately, they had the same manufacturer and color in the dimensional shingle AND they were in stock. So, no delays and our shingles were delivered as scheduled.

Day 25

Day 25: More roof! The cute returns on the front gable have been constructed and the garage roof where Anna's room will be has been begun. There will be two dormers out the front where the garage roof rafters are missing.

Day 25: Porch Roof

Day 25: This morning our framers have been busy placing the roof rafters and have now begun lifting the framing members for the porch roof which are rather long.

Day 24: The Roof!

Day 24 (June 8, 2005): The roof is starting to go up! Now we can really see the full height of the house. This photo was taken from the back porch of our existing house.

Day 23

Day 23: Back porch roof has been framed and the rear kitchen roof has been started. Some of the basement windows are visible here along with most of the kitchen windows.

Day 22

The house is really coming along! It is looking pretty big to me. The second floor interior and exterior walls are framed. The walls are built flat on the floor and the exterior sheathing is nailed on at this time before they are lifted into place. Our fantastic framers (seen here walking precariously on the attic joists) completed the south wall first (right side of picture) which is nearly 40 feet long. They said it about did them in trying to lift it. There are only four of them: 3 adults and one young apprentice. I am happy that I talked Elizabeth into baking them some chocolate chip cookies!

Day ????

Can you say "way behind?" I have been taking pictures like crazy, but have run short on time to post them. I WILL catch up soon! The house is really taking shape and looking like a house!

Stairway to........

Day 18:
We have stairs! Actually this is the second set. Although they will eventually lead to our second floor, right now they lead straight to the heavens. Or if you not careful, straight to a nastly fall! Ü Elizabeth and Anna were kind enough to test them out for us.