Day 38: Part 1, We do more before 5am than some people do all day

At 4am Cheryl hears the shower upstairs dripping and gets up to shut the valve. But it isn't the shower, it is our son's ceiling that is dripping. So now she gets me up. We mop up the floor, place buckets and then decide that I should go into the attic to see if the source of the leak is apparent and put a bucket there instead. This is hard because we can't find a flashlight that works.

Red flashlight? Missing. BOGO solar flashlight? Dead from overuse by the kids who didn't put it back in view of the sun. Princess flashlight? Dead with corroded batteries since the girls no longer love Disney princesses, thank goodness.

Finally, Cheryl finds our head lamp flashlight, which is the best option anyway. The roof sheathing is stained in two easily-found locations, so I first tried the old "string to direct the leak into a bucket" trick, but I can hear that the rain is letting up, so there probably won't be much more coming in anyway. I pull up the wet insulation and find the pooled water near the light fixture. I ask Cheryl for a towel that she doesn't mind getting disgustingly dirty - she hands me a Disney princess towel (see above for why this is OK) - and I am able to mop up the water.

I take almost all of the pictures for this project, and this is probably a good thing, since Cheryl later observed that she considered going to get the camera to take a picture of me pulling up insulation wearing only underwear and a headlamp. At 4:30am that might have not been so well-received...

I went downstairs and noticed that there was still dripping coming from the light fixture. The light fixture, which is a dome shape, was full of water, so I was happy that the light's power was off (and I know that there is nothing hot in the fixture since I ...um... watched the guy install it). I untwisted the bolt holding the dome on and the rest poured out. I wiped the floor and went back to bed.

Day 35, 36, & 37: Rain and Roof

Wednesday it was raining so the builders didn't come to the house.

Thursday I was traveling, so I don't know what they did but Cheryl says that they were upstairs working.

Friday the framers switched the rake board trim from the straight 3" Azek that they installed to a similarly-sized but nicer-looking finishing piece.

Mike asked me if it was OK for the roofers to come on Saturday. I said sure. The roof shingles arrived in the afternoon and I went to Home Depot to pick up some plastic to cover everything in the attic.

More Day 37 pictures

Day 34: Starting to wrap the house

The framers came yesterday, despite it being Memorial Day, and finished framing the gable end of the addition closest to the main house. They added the trim boards to the gables and started to wrap the structure in tyvek.

The front windows for the mudroom finally got cut out -- they were framed but the plywood was solid so it was difficult to get a sense of the look. We changed this from being a door with solid and unopenable sidelights, to being a door with two windows so it lets in the same amount of light almost, but can be used to ventilate the room without opening the door to let the air (and bugs) in. The view of the room looking out is below:

More Day 34 pictures

Day 30 & 31: Front roof added, appliance and garage door search continues

The front roof was framed and it really starts to show the shape of the front of the house. Very exciting.

Shopping for a garage door is an absolute pain in the ass. Our door will be 9' wide and 8' tall (see Day 23 for more on that...) and for some reason all of the garage door manufacturers have decided that the same size windows at the top of the door will work for any size door, so the windows look great and proportionate for an 8' door, but look like the clothes on a kid in the middle of a growth spurt for the 9' door - just a little too small.

Mike send us the "have this thing by this time" list today. Cheryl and I will be discussing and debating the merits of gas vs. electric, 30" range vs. 36", 5' window vs. 6' window, over-the-range microwave vs. drawer microwave vs. over the counter microwave, and fiberglass faux-wood front door ($750) vs. wood front door ($1300) vs. Marvin® Wood front door ($3700). It looks like getting gas into the house is a $1300 expense, so electric is looking better all the time. If we could find a 5-burner electric range with 5 real burners in a 30" size that'd be perfect, but they don't seem to make that, only with a "warming zone", which means you can melt butter on it. We'll figure it all out sooner or later...

More Day 30 pictures
More Day 31 pictures

Day 29: Framing the Roof

The roof rafters were added today. A few shots...

More Day 29 pictures

Bryan indicated that we'll break into the upstairs bedroom and downstairs bathroom in the next two weeks.

Day 28: 2nd Floor Walls

The walls went up today.

More day 28 pictures

Day 27: We've got a second floor

The deck for the second floor was installed today and the 4 25-foot LVL's were raised into place. The LVLs are the same ones that were going to be installed in the way of the garage door opening, but are raised up now to be out of the way of the door. Bryan says that the big challenge is that the gable-end wall now needs to be built in place rather than being built on the desk and raised. Nonetheless, he says that walls should be going up on the second floor tomorrow.

Here's an action shot of Robert, doing, um, something on the new deck.

And here's a shot of the 4 LVL's that will be the base of the front wall of the upstairs

Cheryl and I are still grappling with kitchen design questions (e.g. 36" range or 30" range? 6' window or 5' window?). We also had questions on whether we wanted a 2x2 or 3x2 grid for a couple of windows, and what we wanted to do about the roof overhang for the addition. Both helpful questions since the plans specify things but Mike and Bryan correctly questioned the wisdom of these so we're reconsidering.

More Day 27 pictures.