And...They're Off!

The first day of the reconstruction of our home was today. The idea that we have owned the house for one month and five days and how far we have come in that time is pretty amazing to me. With the help of our friends and family we have waged a calculated battle with plaster, lath, drywall and duct work to the point that it needed to be. Having been in construction for a while now I even surprised myself when we hit the start date for framing based on the schedule I developed prior to actually owning the place, despite the snow, bad roads and end of year holidays. Look at us!

Since the majority of the sweat equity portion of our work is complete for a while I thought I should take a turn at updating the tale of our project.

We met with Michael the framer last Friday at the house to get his material list together and so that a few clarifications could be made to the plan. Two of his framers stopped by later in the afternoon to meet with the plumber and see the project for themselves. Being the in-control kind of guy that I am, this meeting put me at ease knowing that there was a minor amount of coordination that happened prior to firing up the nail guns and chopping up lumber. With a few changes to the plans ironed out over the weekend I spoke again with Michael this morning to describe the "last" changes, give him the key box code, warned him about the guillotine dumpster lid (Dad reported last night that he has a nice bruise and is sore but other than that is OK), clarified the revisions to the main bathroom and wished him well. That was it. They were off. "THEY ARE PUTTING OUR HOUSE BACK TOGETHER!", the voice in my head was screaming. But what about the groundbreaking ceremony? No marching band? This was tough for me. Something that we had worked so hard on and Laura and I were not there to see it. Hmmm. Was it going to be like this for the rest of the project?

During lunch I talked with our window guy Glen (windows are on order), I requested the final revisions to the electrical proposal (CFLs in lieu of incandescents), released the furnace contractor, and figured out that the drywaller that we are likely to be using is the brother of the guy in charge of the maintenance at a building I am now working on. Small world when you consider that these guys went to school with my parents. Not that it gets us a deal or anything but good to know. In general it was a productive lunch hour.

I spent the rest of the day agonizing over what was going on at the house. Waiting for the call with a question about a specific detail, or what we wanted this to be like. It never came. "They probably dropped off the lumber and left", I thought. After work I raced up the hill to see what happened. They worked all right. Most of the upstairs is framed out and in the right spot. A quick call to Michael on a few concerns I had (missing beam and wall in the middle of the window) and I started to feel at ease. We were moving forward at last.

Here is what happened today:

A new pile of lumber was delivered. It was so cold in the house that there was still snow on the floor. Nice!

The new pocket door opening was framed for the master bedroom closet.

The new desk and shelf "nook" was framed in the attic area behind the new shower location.

Because it was getting dark (and I have yet to put up the string lights) a lot more happened that I could not capture in a photo. The other upstairs bedroom closet and the hallway linen closet were both framed. There was a nice pile of sawdust in the master bedroom and another pile of old studs in the other bedroom. I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!