Wood Pile Party

We got our woodpile taken care of-- finally!  The only thing remaining is the main part of the root system.

On Friday, G came over and helped us build the platform for the wood pile.  We reused all the wood in the platform-- palettes and a big stack of pressure-treated wood salvaged from an old patio.  All free, and all saved from the landfill.

G!  What a pro!

Salvaged wood

On Saturday, we had our Wood Pile Emergency party.  We had put out an S.O.S. to our friends, asking for a hand in splitting and stacking all of the wood.  And they totally came through!  We had a bunch of friends sorting through the pile, running the wood-splitter, making a million trips with the wheelbarrows, and stacking wood for hours.

We paid them for their services with beer, pizza, heartfelt thank-yous, and a life-time supply of firewood.

Supplies for the party!

We rented a wood-splitter for the day, and it helped a lot.  We were able to split up the large logs into manageable pieces.  And it was really fun.  A couple of our buddies wanted to try their hand at the splitter, too, and they had a blast.

K used her chainsaw quite a bit, too-- which she was not sad about!  Lots of long branches to chop up.

We worked ALL day on Saturday.  I hurt my hand from the repetitive motions, which was not helpful when I was at my photography gig that night! 

Then K and I kept at it on Sunday, but had a lot less to do.  She was determined to get it all done by the time she needed to return the wood-splitter, and she totally did it.  We also realized that the wood-splitter can go vertically, too.  I don't know if that really made it easier, though...  When it's horizontal you need to hoist the logs up onto the platform.  And when it's vertical, you don't have to lift the logs as high, but you need to bend down each time to place them.    Whatever...  It was a lot of work either way.

 

Laboring on Labor Day

National holiday?  Nope, no day of rest for the builders working on their own home. 

Not a huge day for us today, but kept plugging away.  K and I installed the trim on the corners, around the garage door, and at the top of the wall.  We got a lot of the j-channel installed for the soffits, too.

Scaffolding is set up in the front now

I love how the light looks, coming out under the eaves!  For now...

Pictures from Yesterday

Worked on the garage again today, but not NEARLY as long as we did yesterday.  It's starting to feel like the home-stretch, and we are so thankful for that.

Here are the photos from last night, although I stopped taking pictures once it got late.  Was just way too tired to think about it...

Lights!

The first great thing that happened yesterday was that we picked up a couple of shoplights and K installed them right when we got back from the Home Depot.  They make a huge difference inside the garage.

Placing the loft door

Before I got home, K had installed all the floor in our loft area.  We're going to use the space in the trusses for storage, so she put a plywood floor down.  We'll be able to enter the upper area from inside the garage, and we'll also have a door on the front of the garage to put long items and materials through.

House wrappers

Then we put up Tyvek on the remaining space on the front of the garage.  Some fun-sounding Spanish-speaking festival was going on somewhere close by in the neighborhood, so we could hear all this upbeat Spanish music and a really excited announcer.  At about 7:00, however, the recorded music switched over to live music, and the singer was... probably not someone who should be singing anywhere other than karaoke at the NE Palace.  Not a great voice, and really off key!  Yikes!  After about an hour of that, K grabbed the radio so we could drown him out with The Current.

Finished house-wrap

The last thing we worked on was installing the spring system so that we can actually open the garage door.  K says it weighs like 500 pounds, so ever since it was installed, the door has stayed down.   K had watched a video on how to do this spring thing, and said it seemed really easy.  Yeah... sure.  It took hours.  Plus we were both really tired and couldn't really wrap our heads around anything logical.  At least, not quickly. 

However, when we were listening to the radio, they said that storms were expected to blow in around midnight, bringing high winds and possibly large hail.  So we were on a mission.  To get that door functioning well enough that we could get the truck pulled into the garage, and out again in the morning.

Starting the spring install

And that's the last photo I took.  The rain actually blew in at just after 9:00pm.  Crazy amount of rain, it seemed.  It just kept on pouring for at least a couple hours.  And by midnight, it seemed that the worst of the storm had passed (with no hail), but we kept working on the door system until 1-ish when we got it done.

And then passed out until late this morning.  Had to be done!

Garage - SO Close!

At 1 am this morning, the new Dodge Ram went to sleep in the new garage for the first time.  The big garage door is functioning, after a lot of futzing and tweaking.  This evening, the radio was reporting expected storms around midnight tonight, which would include high winds and large hail.  Since the door was already on and we had the hardware here, we shifted gears from Tyvek and siding prep, to making that garage door functional.  The idea that we could save the new truck from "large hail," by putting it in the garage tonight, was an actual possibility for the first time.

And then the storm hit at just past 9:00 pm, so who knows if we'll get anything that bad tonight.  At this point in the night, it doesn't seem so.

The next time K says, "It'll take like 10 minutes-- the video looks really easy," -- I WON'T believe her!  We were out there for hours installing those springs, and then she worked on them for close to an hour when I went inside for a break.

My shift today: 3:30 pm - 1:10 am.   K's shift: even longer-- don't know what time she started outside, but she had all of the plywood floor installed in the loft when I got home at 2:30 today.

We're exhausted and feeling optimistic again.  We're SOOOO close to being done!  Finally!

Garage Windows

The installation of all the garage windows is complete today!  K installed the four windows on the sides of the garage.  G came over to help, too, and we pre-made all the boxes for the windows, so the process went really quickly.  Then trimmed them out, and they look great and they work!  It's a good feeling getting these big steps finished.

Installing window #5

Windows and trim on the side walls

I was taking the pictures on my phone today, instead of my good camera, and when I looked at them on my computer I saw that my phone had done something really funny!  --  I took quite a few pictures of K installing that same window, because the delay on my new phone is really bad and I kept missing her.  And when I looked at my online backup, I saw that my phone had decided to turn this series of photos into an animated GIF!  Ha ha!!

K in action!  Speedy window installer!

Garage Doors

Time to post some exciting pictures!  I had very little to do with the progress today-- K and her brother installed the big garage door today, and I helped K lift the utility door in place.  And they got a bunch of siding done this week, too.

Garage door from the inside

Both sides of the garage look like this now!

At night -- it's starting to look more complete!

Garage Windows and Siding - Day 492

So many days into this project and I've lost count.  And I haven't even been involved in the majority of them.  K has been knocking it out with her brother, our friends and by herself.  And sometimes with me. 

We've gotten a lot completed, but there are so many steps in the whole process that we just have a lot left to go.

A couple weeks ago, K and our buddy G installed the three windows on the back wall.  At the last minute, K decided to not install the salvaged 1950s windows that we've been storing in our back yard for the past year.  Those windows are double-paned, which is good, but they also don't open and she thought she would have a lot more work framing them in.  I told her to do what she needed to do, so she bought six basement egress-style windows from the Home Depot.  Mid-priced, standard-sized, with screens.  She did need to frame in the openings quite a bit, as the new windows were smaller than the ones we had planned.

She did also get to use one salvaged window-- a great crank-open window, which she turned on its side.  It's a lot bigger than the others, and it looks fantastic.

K and G were out there all day, and they didn't even make me come help.  I just refilled water bottles and went on a sub run.  Lucky me!

CUties!!  I love this picture.

So, forward to the present.  On Friday, we worked on the siding in the back from 6:30-11pm.  We brought some lights outside to keep going, but it was tricky.  No pictures from that night, because I wanted to hurry and just get inside.

On Saturday, we went out there at about noon, and worked until 8:30pm.  We made pretty good progress on the siding, considering I'm a newbie at this.

I also tried to keep up on caulking the seams and any nail holes that were too deep.

Nail hole

Caulking all the holes

It was a long day.  Our friend, G, came over again to help us for a while, and so did one of our neighbors.  It was nice to have the help!

By the end of the day, this is about where we were in the progress.  All in between the windows.  Nice, short pieces.  It feels like it goes up quickly, but it really takes time to get it right.

On Sunday, we were out there for another 7 or 8 hours, I forget.  It started raining quite a bit around 7:00 or so, but we kept going whenever it slowed.  I was cutting the metal soffit material and she installed it, and we both kept going with the siding up onto the gable.

We had to raise the scaffolding higher to reach the top of the gable and the soffit, so I was standing up there with my head leaning against the eaves!

Too tall!  Bumping against the roof.

Tall scaffolding

K putting in the soffit covering

Lots of progress!  Feels good!