649 6th

ever so close

The siding guy came back on Monday and almost finished. All that is missing is a few more siding boards on the front, the cornice detail, and the sofits on the dormer. If it takes as long as it did to get him back out here to finish up as it did to come back this time it'll probably be sometime around the first of December.

Last night we continued to hang sheet rock. Still working on the second floor. The deal we made with each other was no power tools after 9:00. The good neighbor policy we ike to call it. That also means that the window of opportunity on any given evening is about 2 hours, which while not a lot does chip away at mountain of tasks.

more partial siding

Looks good, right? Problem is house has looked this way since Thursday, as in no work on Friday or Saturday; worse no explanation for WHY no work. So over sunny mild autumn weekend when every other construction site in the neighborhood was bustling with activity, we got zilch.

cheesy rhyme

To the one I love in Deutchland... a picture to make you smile so grand.

patch, check
reinforcement, check
flashing, check
wrap, check
siding, check

Granted there are areas that still need to be finished this same way but, at least Tracy's side is sealed!

partial siding

The guy came on Monday to install the siding. He did an excellent job trimming out around the door which even he said was a trouble. The green planks didn't start going up until after I got home from work so hopefully when they return today it will be quicker work. Stay tuned for the fully covered pictures!

all about eave

When the guys got done on Saturday they had one small problem. It was the new front eaves-- in that there were not supposed to be any new front eaves.

All of the houses in the neighborhood have parapet roofs. The small wall that comes up a the front of the house makes perspective work much better. Don't get me wrong the eaves weren't bad. It was probably, from a purely functional perspective, the better option (less maintenance and less prone to leaking). In the end aesthetics got the better of us and we asked them to go ahead and trim the tails and build the parapet wall.

Boy am I glad we did. It works much better with all of the other houses in the neighborhood. And, with the dormer wall stepped back, it makes the third floor addition much less prominent.

As you can see the framing is almost done. It's almost 7:00 now and the they're are still here. I take this as a sure sign that these guys want to finish up today.

Roofing materials arrive tomorrow

rafters

From inside what will be the third floor. As you can see the shape of the atic room is starting to reveal itself.

rounding 3rd

Yesterday that last remaining vestiges of the old roof were cut away. The sub-floor was put down and the new 3rd floor began to emerge. The dormer walls were completed at the end of the day and this morning they are up there constructing the rafters than run on and around them. The head framer is telling that by the end of he day today the entire thing will be framed. Stay tuned for more pics!

filling the cavity

Empty cavity 9:00 AM

New joists for third floor installed 5:30 PM

The party wall solution.

tomorrow finally came!

Not a lot of words but a few pictures:

7:30 AM

7:30 PM

Master of my own container!

...excuse me I think there's a line

If you're wondering if we are still recoiling from the discovery of rotting studs. Have no fear! The contractor, unlike when he didn't have any of our money and could start tomorrow, got the down payment and finally worked us into his work queue. Let's just say the real world is about two weeks behind the "as soon as we get the payment" parallel universe.

The up shot is they are scheduled to begin a week from tomorrow. At only two weeks later than he originally said it's really just a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme.

I had some dental work done on Saturday morning, the rest of the weekend I was out of commission foggily woozing through Saturday and Sunday. Michael did more planning for the yard. I think we are getting closer to a design for the trellis. Right now it's a combo of wood and copper pipes. We'll see where it ends up.

Tuesday we plan to meet with the contractor to tie up a few lose ends and then hopefully next week at this time it'll feel like christmas eve.