August 2nd, Changes in the utility room

This little room, which is attached to the west end of the house, is our utility room. Until yesterday, there was a door in that solid wall you can see. It was on the north side of the room and when it rained hard, the rain would come into the room. The floor was too close to the ground where we have a water problem when it rains.


Our clever builder, Rick, decided we should move the door to the west end of the room, and VOILA, by the time I got back from town it was done. Amazing. There's no real door there yet, but you get the idea. I think it will be a much better location for the door. Plus they pulled the old wood burning furnace out and moved the gun safe out, so now we have scads of room in there for whatever. All that remains in the room now are the water softener tank and the hot water tank.


Vince, the concrete guy (and roofer), made the ramp into the garage yesterday. Denis is wetting it done so it will cure properly. Who knew concrete had to "cure". Not me, that's for sure. Notice the BIG dumpster that used to be at the side of the house is now gone. It did a good job for us but I'm glad it's gone.

August 1st, Shingles on the house

Once again, I'm trying to show the shingles on the house roof, but the light just isn't right -- too much sun coming in from the west I guess. Anyway, that's the west end of the house, over the living room.

This shot is from the north, looking at the back porch and kitchen roof. That pile of blocks is what used to be the well house, that I told you was going away. I think the blue tarp is covering the pressure tank which will be moved to the utility room.

July 28th, Shingles finally arrived

Due to the slow down in the building industry, nobody had shingles available when we were ready for them so we had to wait two weeks. Finally they came in and the first thing to be roofed was the old garage, which sits north of our house about 200 feet.

The shingles are primarily green with some other earth tones mixed in. The camera doesn't do a good job of showing the true color. They are pretty though.

July 25th, Back porch all roofed and papered

Here is roof of the back porch all decked and tar papered, ready for shingles. Denis took this picture from a window in the room above the garage. This is a picture of the back porch, taken from what will be the doorway into the mud room. There will be a walkway from the mud room to the back porch. It will not be covered.

Here's a view of the porch from the north, to show how it fits to the house and in reference to the garage and well house.

Denis told me he had a surprise for me, regarding the house and wanted me to guess. I couldn't do it until I looked at the pictures he had taken and he gave me a hint. The suprise is that we are going to tear down the old well house, move the pressure tank to the utility room and just have a manhole cover over the well itself. That will be a big improvement, to have that little house out of the way. It was put in crooked anyway and that has always bugged us. This may be the last picture you see of it.

July 24th, Framing and roofing the back porch

The Sky Trak machine is moving some more trusses into place for the back porch roof. That machine is really handy. They also used it to lift the three slates for the pool table up to the room above the garage.

Rick is pushing the truss into place while Randy is ready to nail it in.

Randy and Tim are securing the roof trusses to the existing structure. Note that Denis (not me) had to be on the roof to take this picture. I know there are some other people looking at this that would not have been able to do that.

The back porch is taking shape now. The other lumber is for the gazebo.

Decking has been placed over the roof trusses on the back porch.

July 22nd, Framing the back porch

I was out of town when the back porch was getting framed in, so I'm catching up on posting pictures.

It will be totally screened, so the builder wanted to come up with a good way to do that, using 4 foot removable type screens. Here is his first idea with basically a header at the top of the wall and a footer at the bottom. Luckily Denis was here and nixed that idea as soon as he saw it. That would have cut off too much light and the view out of the porch.


Here is the AFTER picture, with the top header removed. The footer is there to keep dogs, or other critters from tearing into the screens too easily. It may still happen but not at ground level.


This is a view into the porch area, from where the walkway to the gazebo.

July 18th, Concrete poured, half bath framed

Concrete was poured today for the patio and gazebo. Denis is wetting it down for the "slow cure".


Wetted down like this is kind of looks like a little pool. By the end of this hot day I was wishing it was a pool of cool water.


Upstairs in the pool room (the game, nothing to do with water), the half bath got framed in.


The old carpet and subfloor got torn out of the living room. Here is the result, to be hauled off to the burn pile tomorrow.