BALD EAGLE ?

I spoke with a couple after mass yesterday and they told me they had kayaked past our house one day last week. They said that in the course of their river trip, they had seen a bald eagle. The thought that we may be able to see an occasional bald eagle from our new home is exciting!

ANOTHER WEEK GONE...

Well, the framers finished up the front porch on Wednesday. I think it looks really cool and the guys did a great job despite the absence of any Amish in their bloodlines.

Barb made use of the sunroom to stain the beadboard for the porch ceiling. Since it was nailed over the rafters, we felt it would be much easier to stain it ahead of time.

BARB STAINING AWAY

And, the end product....

The HVAC crew started their "rough-in" on Wednesday and should finish that portion of their work by the middle of this week. Everything has gone smoothly with them.

The plumbers started Thursday and so-far-so-good with them as well. It's funny how things that seem to be minor decisions can make one's head hurt. For example, "where would you like the outside faucets located". I never really thought much about it but obviously it's desirable to have them "conveniently" located, wherever that is.

The roofers were supposed to start tomorrow but the rain has set them back about 2 days. At least the house is relatively waterproof now that the front porch is done. The foyer got wet three more times since I last posted and I think that comes to a total of around eight times it has been soaked. It still looks surprisingly good and worst case scenario is that it may require a little sanding depending on what kind if floor goes down. If we use tile, a backer board will probably go down first which eliminates any issues with the subfloor.

I met with a guy today who will do the trenching for the primary electric line from the road to the house. I met with three potential contractors for this work with the first one charging a rate of $3 per foot, the second one at $1.50 and the one today at $1. Since the trench will run about 700 ft. the difference was over $1,000 from the highest to the lowest. Good thing I didn't settle on the first one! More about the electric service to follow.....



CATCHING UP

This post is dedicated to my nephew Kevin who reported that he has been experiencing withdrawal due to my dearth of updates.

I am starting to think that we should stark work on an Ark instead of the house. More rain today. It's not that we have gotten a lot of rain...it's just that it has been raining frequently. Since the subfloor was put down about 3 weeks ago, parts of it have been soaked seven times now. Today the foyer got wet due to the fact that the front porch is not yet complete and the roof over the foyer can't be completed until we get the porch complete.

Since my last post on Thursday of last week, we have made great progress.Except for about a days worth of work to complete the front porch, all the framing is complete. Yesterday they installed the windows and also started on the decking for the screened porch. The latter task was completed this AM.

Since Forest Products created a bit of a mess when they delivered I joists and beams way back when, they made me a pretty good deal on the decking material (or at least they say they did). The only complication is that they were reluctant to deliver it since their inability to get up our driveway previously is what caused the problem. Although I have the pickup truck and an 8' trailer , neither would be sufficient to carry 20' long pieces. So, we rented a U-Haul for a couple of hours, drove to Piqua and picked up the material and delivered to the lot.

DECKING IN SCREENED PORCH

There were a couple of errors with the windows. Two of them which were ordered with tempered glass cam e in with standard glass. The supplier will be changing those out. The two windows in the garage were supposed to have been painted but came in with bare pine interiors. The supplier will pay for the cost of painting these. Most of the windows will be stained but we saw no need to stain the two in the garage.

Both the HVAC guy and the plumber met me at the house to walk through and discuss the rough-in. The meeting with the plumber was rather ironic. Twenty five years ago TODAY, he and I were working at our house on Neal-Pearson and he was doing the rough plumbing. That was Black Monday, the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 22%, the largest one day percentage drop in history. For me, it was one of those days that I will always remember where I was, somewhat like Kennedy's assassination and other such events. Rick and I were listening to WLW as they reported on the market decline throughout the day, wondering when it would all end. Hopefully my decision to use Rick again for this house will not be an omen as far as the stock market goes.

We're finally making some progress with DP&L. Tomorrow, I expect to receive their invoice for the cost of the installation. I'm holding my breath. Once I make payment we can get underway with the installation of electric.

Everyone, including DP&L, has suggested that I have someone other than DP&L dig the trench for the electric cable which will run about 700' from the road to the house. So, Wednesday I met with a guy who does most of the trenching for Pioneer Rural. He told me his rate is $2.90 per foot. I met with another trencher from Greenville late this afternoon whose rate was almost half that, a potential savings of about $1,000. Unfortunately, he is not able to deal with the little creek part way up our driveway. It will be necessary to use a backhoe to dig a trench about 36" below the bottom of the creek and he does not have the equipment to do this aspect of the work. As a result, I will likely be meeting with yet a third person for this work.

I contacted the phone company to find out if they would want to drop their cable into the trench while we have it opened up. Would save someone some $'s if ewe can do this. After speaking with a prototypical utility company service rep, I was not left with a great deal of confidence that we will be able to make the logistics work on this.

On a positive note, both the HVAC and plumber will be starting work next Wednesday. Things are coming together nicely from a scheduling standpoint. We may be able to get started on the roofing late next week too which would be another giant step in getting the place "weatherproof".

I know I have mentioned before our expectations that the screen porch has the potential to become our favorite space. Now that the roof is on and the decking is down there, I am even more convinced of that. Barb is referring to it as our tree house which is apt. Because the terrain drops off so steeply, it's almost like we are in the canopy of the trees.

OUR TREE HOUSE

The porch is turning out pretty nice. We are using cedar timbers to create somewhat of a timber frame appearance. The rest of the exterior of the house is somewhat simple so we look at the front porch as THE focal point of the exterior.

FRONT PORCH

The plan is to lay stone veneer around the lower part of the posts. We will  be staining bead board over the weekend which will be installed over the cedar rafters.

THE FRAMING CREW

Jeff, the elder statesman in this photo, owns the business and has been framing for about 30 years. He knows his stuff!

NEW WINDOWS AND FRENCH DOOR TO SCREENED PORCH

TRUSSES GOING UP

We got a brief shower yesterday AM. Just enough to wet the OSB floor once again. Barb & I went out early and used a shop vac to pick up what we could. Despite the three soakings I think we will be in pretty good shape.

It was a bit breezy yesterday so they canceled the plan to set trusses. However, they did get that accomplisehed today. Now it's really starting to look like a house.

ROOF SHEATHING GOING ON SCREENED PORCH

I HAVE A FEELING THIS MIGHT BE OUR FAVORITE SPACE

SURE BEATS LIFTING THEM BY HAND

BARB'S UNCLE OWNS THE COMPANY THAT MADE THE TRUSSES

FIRST FLOOR FRAMED

The main floor framimg is pretty much complete. Unfortunately, the floor has been rained on twice but I guess that's just part of the deal. Both times we used a squegee to get the puddles of water off the floor to facilitate drying and to prevent the water from just setting there and soaking into the wood. If there is too much exposure to moisture, the edges of the sheets will swell up. If that happens, it might be necessary to sand those areas before any tile, wood flooring or carpeting goes down.

The truss manufacturer was running a couple of days behind so rather than getting them late last week, they came at the end of day yesterday. I was worried that the truck may have the same difficulty getting up the driveway as was experienced by the truck that delivered the joists. I am pleased to report that after two attempts during which he lost traction and any forward progress, he was successful on the third try.

The framer has a crane scheduled to lift the trusses into place. Not sure if that will happen today or tomorrow.

The concrete floor for the front porch (which also serves as the roof of the safe room in the basement) was poured last week in the rain. They were able to get a temporary tarp over it and ended up with a decent finish. Last task for the foundation contractor is to backfill around the foundation with abou four feet of gravel.

If I get ulcers from this project it will probably be attributable to DP&L. I spoke with them last week Thursday which was the first contact I had with them in two weeks. They had done absolutely NOTHING on a minor task necessary to go to the next step....a task that involves probably 15 minutes of someone's time. So, we continue to operate with a portable generator. If any of you know someone at DP&L who I could tap into, please let me know.

 THIS IS WHY THEY CALL IT "STICK BUILT"

 BEAMS ARE UP FOR THE SCREENED PORCH

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE SCREENED PORCH

EXTENDING OFF REAR OF THE MAIN FLOOR