Let there be Lights!

Mark has been working diligently to get all the wiring done on the house, both inside and out.  We only have a few more rooms to discuss the placement of boxes and switches.  Joel and I went up at dusk last evening, and it was so comforting to see lights on in the upstairs bedrooms.

In the meantime, Lenny continues to beautify the dining room fireplace.  I absolutely love his redo of the bread oven!  We caught Steve just in time last night to talk about the mantle.  Now is the time to insert it above the existing bricks before Lenny continues his work upwards.  The three of us went down into the basement and picked out a gorgeous old board from the house that will be perfect once Steve trims it down a bit.

Steve has framed out our closet, and secured the roof in that room to the new rafters.  All good!

I will post more exciting news and pictures as the week goes on so check back soon:)

Stella had nothin on Steve!

Last Wednesday evening Joel and I had plans to drive down to Emerald Isle, NC for a long weekend getaway.  Then came winter storm Stella who dumped over 2 feet of snow on the whole northeast over the course of one day, Tuesday.  She was predicted to continue on into Wednesday, so we moved up our departure time during her lull, which was in the wee hours of the morning.  Before we left, Joel plowed out the house so Steve could get to work if he so desired.  He showed up!  He took this picture which shows the fresh blanket (or should we call it a down comforter?) of snow on the roof right outside our bedroom window.

We are back now, and Steve asked if I could come up to the house yesterday as he and the crew had some questions.  So exciting to see all that was accomplished in our absence!  Mark continues to put in switches and electrical boxes all over the house.  Quite a task and done so efficiently and quickly.  He ran into some issues with lack of space in the upstairs bathrooms, so instead of installing vent/heat/and light units we decided to do only light and vent and find a heat source elsewhere...perhaps in the floor?  Lenny was also "in the house."  The new chimney side and front walls that he is creating are spectacular!  He also shored up all the bricks inside the flue as far up as he could reach so that if down the road Joel and I decide to fix the flue from the roof down we will be able to have real fires.  I requested that we keep the original brick in place on the south side of the chimney and expose it for all to see.  Steve has finished framing out our bedroom and master bath windows.  Things are really moving along:)

Moving from Back to Front (or front to back if you are of Joel's mindset!)

Steve has completed the installation of the roof rafters in the Yoga Room!  Also, he has put up one collar tie; the other will be placed once we determine the exact measurement of the closet.  Right now the entire roof is just sitting on the walls of the room because as Steve placed the new rafters he removed the old, and the original attachment is now gone.  He has temporarily secured the roof down at strategic places until he and Joel decide how to best solve this new challenge.  Luckily the roof is very heavy...it is actually a roof built upon a roof, so we don't think it is going to shift or move.  However, it has been incredibly windy lately:)

Joel and I go back and forth on which is the front of the house and which is the back.  He considers the lakeside the front because he calls it "lakefront."  I think that the front of the house is the side that faces the street, you know the side with the "front" door?!  In any event, while Steve waits for Lenny to come back and finish the dining room chimney repair so he can build the kitchen walls, he has moved to the front part of the upstairs (I am sticking with my definition of front!) and built the walls for our reading room as well as the closet walls for each of the front bedrooms.

The absolute nicest thing happened late yesterday!  After Joel and I met with the owner of a local heating and cooling company who presented his proposal for our job, we headed over to my parents house for happy hour.  My dad had asked us to fill them in on what the plan was because he knew we were struggling with which way to go...forced hot and cool air, radiant heat in the floors, or base board heating and ducted cooling.  Well, were we ever in for a big surprise.  My folks offered to cover the entire cost of the HVAC installation!  We accepted with hugs all around.  Quite the happy hour indeed.  Thank you so much mom and dad!  Oh, and we have decided to go with baseboard heating, ducted cooling, and an AC mini-split to cool the Yoga and Rustic rooms.

Everyone Needs a Little Support Now and Then

Check out what Steve accomplished last week both inside and out.  We were blessed with 3 or 4 balmy days, so he took advantage of the good weather and alternated installing rafters in the yoga room with extending those beams all the way to the outside corner of the porch roof and placing two new support beams to hold that roof up.  The old posts were so rotten that when Joel pushed one to see if it was still doing its job, it just swung freely!

Steve and I met with August Raulli on Wednesday to discuss the details of the deck that he is going to create that will extend off the yoga room, facing the lake.   At this point we are settling on an 4 foot by 18 foot iron structure with really cool posts and railings.  I was excited to learn that we will not need cables to support it from the top or support beams that will extend to the ground.  With the size that we have chosen, August can secure it to the building with angle or T brackets and through bolts, thus no visual obstructions.  I am all about not seeing the supports anywhere inside or outside of the house just as long as they are there doing their work!

Getting Down!!

Cathy and I met again this past week at her house for phase 2 of the big chair re-upholstery adventure!  Since our last get together she sewed 10 little pouches, leaving a part of one side open so we could stuff each with goose down.  The feathers literally flew in all directions once we slit open the down pillows that we had purchased at the fabric store.  It took a bit of time, but we accomplished our goal for the day which was to get these 10 little filler pads stuffed and sewn up.  The clean up took almost as much time:)  We are thinking that one more full morning of work will be enough time to complete the job!

Steve met with a second heating/cooling company late in the week to procure another quote for the job.  Two more places still have to weigh in with their ideas and bids and then we will make a decision.

The Rustic Room got insulated, the dining room and downstairs bathroom got an application of foam insulation all around the edges and corners as an added protection against leaks, and Steve started work on the rafters in the yoga room.  All good stuff!

The Steve and Joel Show Continues

Boy is it ever cold up at the house these days!  Every time I pop in, though, Steve is happily working away.  He has the heaters and the radio blasting and seems very content with the project.  This past week he concentrated on shoring up the ceiling in the den because the Jacuzzi soaking tub will be installed right above.  He showed me where the floor joists were only inserted into the main support beam by about a half an inch.  That and the charred wood from the long ago fire make the room very unstable.  No worries!  Steve is systematically strengthening each joist with steel plates and 2 by 8 planks of wood.  Over the weekend, Joel set about disassembling the pantry by taking up the floor, pulling down the ceiling, and knocking out the walls.  Once he exposed the rough hewn ceiling beams, we realized that they weren't really holding up anything!  Joel set a board in place to temporarily support the ceiling.

Lenny Showed Up!

Our mason, Lenny, has been promising to get to the dining room fireplace project for weeks.  He began work on it yesterday!  Joel and Steve and I have been discussing various scenarios for the rebuild, and we think we have come up with a neat idea.  Rather than recreate the bread oven dome (which is going to be covered up by Sheetrock anyway) we plan on keeping the front facade of the oven, but only a few inches deep...perhaps 12.  Behind that we intend to recess my kitchen counter and the cupboards above so that when you are seated in the dining room, your view into the kitchen will not be as obstructed.  We'll see how this thought pans out.  In any event, Lenny is busy removing the old bricks.  Hopefully sometime towards the end of the week he will begin the re pointing and rebuilding of the chimney.