Construction Update December 5 to 16, 2011

My wounds have all healed marvellously.  Isn't it wonderful how the Creator designed our body so it would mend itself... but when my car or a tool gets broken it stays broken until we get it fixed.

I think one of the most wonderful things is to have our new roof completed on everything.

When I think back over the past couple of months, it is amazing that these guys worked thru the rainy season...  with even some snow... and they got the existing house and garage done with no water problems.  This is Lance Vaesen completing the ridge cap on the garage.

Two of Lance's boys work with their dad... this is Kellen finishing off some flashing on our house.

Here Brant is working on a last piece of flashing on the highest peak... 29 feet off the ground.

After the shakes were taken off the garage the nails that didn't come out with the shingles got pounded into the strapping.  You can see how important it is to have a hat on as I was checking and nailing some of the sheathing that was missed during the framing.

The garage attic has never looked better since we have been here.  We totally cleaned out all the junk that used to be stored here...

And we have been running some new electrical thru this attic to a new panel on the back corner of the garage where our new service will soon be switched over to.

It took Wesley our electrician, Shirley and me, as well as a come-along to pull this heavy new service line from the back of the garage to the new panel location in our new closet.

I took the sheathing off the house to expose the old panel in the back of our closet.  All these wires will get moved to new panel on a dedicated wall of our new closet.  The day we do this switch over will be a busy day for Wesley and we will be most of the day without power.

Both telephone and BC Hydro power will come into this back corner of the garage... and Wesley installed a guy wire so the mast will be strong enough once the new line is connected.

We purchased three dozen pot lights at Home Depot...

and it is such a joy to have them working in the carport already.  Can you see the smile on our truck now that it can park in our new carport?

One of the items that the engineer caught was a double 2" x 10" beam that I didn't see in the drawing.  So, I had to cut in space under this window for it.

Once I got it all installed, with insulation behind, it looked like it had been there all the time.

Last week Thursday we picked up the drywall for the pantry.  On Friday I called the Building Inspector and asked permission to cover in this one room.  He suggested that I send photos of the room to the Chief Building Inspector and I may get approval to cover without waiting for the next week inspection.

So I sent off 15 photos with notes explaining all the steps I had done and by the end of the day I received a phone call from the Inspector with his approval to cover... and one of the nicest compliments with it.  He told me he had never seen a nicer set of photos.  That made my day.

Here I am last Saturday night starting to screw the drywall to the pantry ceiling.  Shirley should be in this picture too... but she was taking the picture.  Together we had the whole room done by Sunday noon.

I had never before used this cool corner bead that is designed to make smooth curved edges.

I didn't count how many screws and nails are in this arch, but I am sure there are more than a hundred in all.

By Friday afternoon I had the third coat on the drywall... so on Sunday with a little light sanding and a wipe off with a damp cloth we will be ready for the first coat of paint.

Shirley is anxiously wanting to get moved back into her laundry room, as well as this new pantry.  Every day it is a little closer.

Construction Update November 12 to 19, 2011

This morning we awoke to a skiff of snow on the ground!

I guess because we are about 600 feet above sea level, we get some snow that would not stay even a hundred or two feet lower.  Our temps rose to over 8 degrees C. this afternoon... so a lot of the snow melted.

The early morning sunshine and snow on the pampas grass.

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night." -Steve Martin

It is good to see so much of the roofing getting done.  This shot taken out of the side dormer window looking back to the peak.

Out of the same dormer window this shows the loft roof done... and the old shake roof on the living room and bedroom.  This is the last shot before it got torn off and replaced with new standing seam metal panels.

While Lance and his boys tore off those old shingles....

Brendan and I set up our longest ladder and Lance's long extension ladder to install the facia boards on this most difficult side of the house.  Monday was Brendan's last day working here so I tried to get everything done where I needed his help.

This is what this side looks like with the facia boards on.  I still have a narrow top board to do on the top of the dormer facia... but I will do that tomorrow if the roof is dry enough to walk on it.

Looking back from Deck Three the new dormer plywood exterior stands out.  Once the windows are in and they are trimmed with white boards it will blend in with the rest of the place.

This is likely the last photo of this part of the roof before the shakes got torn off.

Brant is flashing around our new skylights that will be over our master bedroom.  This wonderful idea provides beautiful daylight in our formerly dark bedroom.

On Friday afternoon I removed the insulation inside the skylight curb and cut thru the drywall.  Shirley was on ladder in the bedroom to catch the 22" x 46" piece of drywall so it didn't fall on the floor or the bed.

We will finish these off with drywall and paint them when we do our new closet... hopefully we can fast track this so we get it done before Christmas.  Our new mid-term goal is to get the pantry and the closet finished ahead of the studio... so we can get our house back to normal as soon as possible.

Lance was a little reluctant about tearing off this side of the roof on Friday... the clouds around were dark and unpredictable.  But once they decided to do it I was amazed at how quickly this crew tore off the old shakes and had it cleaned up ready for the Titanium underlay and metal panels.

I was on the phone when I looked out the window Friday afternoon and saw these huge snowflakes falling out of the sky.  By the time I could finish the phone call and went out to take this picture all the guys were off the roof... and the roof was papered.  

The snowstorm only lasted 20-30 minutes and soon after the guys were back up there putting metal panels of roofing in place... they got a good start on this section.

Coming in after shooting some snow photos the morning sun was on this yellow hibiscus.  Sad the blossom only lasts a day.

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." -Dr. Seuss

Construction Update November 6 to 11, 2011

On Sunday I worked by myself putting down all the plywood sheathing on the roof that connects our house and the new closet for our bedroom and then extends over to the mid point.

On Monday the day started off with some serious rain.  We tried to work anyway, but we got cold and kind of wet... so Brendan suggested he would be happy to take off the rest of the day and go to town... which was fine by me as I thought we wouldn't see any roofers that day.

Within an hour of that decision Lance and his crew showed up and decided he wanted to start on the new roof over the studio.  We already had the Titanium UDL down, so even in the rain he could work here.

So I had to get cracking and get a couple of skylights set up on curbs and cut out the plywood between the TGI's... so I pushed and got it done before stopping for a late lunch.

Lance has a machine that takes 24-guage pre-finished metal off a roll and can form any length of standing seam panel right on site.  On the first day they did most all of the highest roof and up to the skylights on the lower roof.

When it wasn't raining Brendan and I put up as much facia board as we could.  Here we are doing the facia on the new pantry.

This is Lance is putting down the first layer of "torch on" roofing on the pantry.

This section of the our closet and bedroom is now ready for the metal panels.

Don't these metal panels look good?  This is the canopy that connects to the new closet lower right.

Lance with two of his boys are doing the second layer of "torch on" thru the cricket.  With five skylights so close together, this section is extremely time consuming and difficult.

On Thursday Shirley helped us clean out all the junk stored in between the trusses.  There was a lot of junk up there that we inherited from the previous owners and didn't even know what all was there... plus there was some of our stuff up there as well.

Then Brendan and I installed plywood on most of the ceiling in the garage.  When the old shake roof gets torn off, if we didn't have a ceiling here there would be a lot of debris that would fall into the whole area below... and it would be a huge mess to clean up.  Now we can just vacuum in the attic and then set insulation between the trusses... and save the mess getting into all our stuff.

With a ceiling in this area it makes it easier to heat this space if we so choose... plus it really makes it a nicer environment.

This time of year painting outside is not practical... this type of paint has an emulsion that needs some warmth to get it to dry.  So we have turned our cottage into paint shop for a few weeks... with poly on the floor.  Shirley has been painting almost every day here this past ten days.  The good news is the end of the facia boards is within sight.

This next week I will take more photos with the finished facia boards installed.  It is looking really good, but with the rain on the weekend we didn't take any more exterior shots.

Once again, thank you Shirley for the photos.