The new deck is done and the house is ready for company

Livingroom DE-construction is DONE!

The 'little' project that started way back on 3/11 has finally turned a corner.  All the structural problems with our livingroom are fixed!
The roof is supported and has new roofing so it no longer leaks...
here is Kurt with the new beam that is holding up the roof back in March...

Here is a picture of the new blue metal roof.....

The living room floor is all one level and is fully insulated.  Here is the floor in early May...

Here are Betty and Joanie getting VERY dirty crawling under the livingroom to  put up the insulation under the floor.- in late June.

the crawl space is sealed from little critters and has no hanging electrical wires- Here is a picture of the cement and wood skirting under the house...taken in early July...

 both exterior walls are coverted from 2x4 to 2x6 studs - here is Kurt re-constucting the front wall and resizing the window openings for our new windows....picture taken this Sunday...

and the doors and windows have proper sized and supported headers!
Here are the last shots of the undersized headers

Here is the new framing

And here is how the house looks now!  New windows inplace!

Oh, and did you notice the new deck- we wil finish the last part today or tomorrow. 

New deck and windows take shape

Time for a new deck!

With everyone home we undertook the next stage of our remodeling- rebuilding the deck.  Here are Lisa, Kurt and Tim starting to pull up the old deck.  Somewhere we have a picture of Kurt and Lisa laying this orignial deck- Lisa is about three years olds....she was just about as helpful as Mark- who was lurking underneath the deck...

Mark popped up in every opening we made...

Progress

By the end of the day the deck was mostly gone and the wall was dismantled too.....

Next the door was moved to the right

Then the old window was removed- a replacement window is on order...

After wrapping one wall in Tyvek we moved on to sealing in the crawl space

Betty was the hero of the next step- she spent one whole day underneath the house putting up rigid insulation- and she never complained even though it was dirty, uncomfortable work.  Thank you Betty!.

Kurt had to go under once in a while to give guidance and suggestions. (Ellie, Catharines dog, also had a few things to say about the work)

After everyone left Kurt did the final sealing off steps- wood and metal barriers

And finally- a concrete base and spray foam insulation for all the remaining cracks.  We are going to have a toasty house this winter!

Family visit- round 1

Lisa, Amy, Tim, Mark and Lilly are here for a week+ visit.  We have been having a blast with everyone here- We take wagon walks everyday

and have enjoyed many meals outdoors

Mark is in his element- digging in the dirt, finding strawberries in the garden, riding on Grandpa's excavator, and 'swimming'

And sometimes, but not often, we wear him out so much that he just falls asleep where he is sitting....

We took Lilly to meet Silver the horse (here I am making sure Silver decides to eat the carrot in my hand- and not Lilly's foot)

She wasn't so sure she liked Silver

We miss not having Betty here for round 1- but she is in constant contact via cell phone.

Finally, we turn the hammer around

The interior of our livingroom remodel has moved from demolition to construction.  The floor is all one level, the new roofing is on and recently Kurt put in the ceiling joists that will hold up the sheetrock.  He was forced into doing interior work because the weather for most of June was crappy.  Here he is cutting something- using the umbrella to keep the saw dry. 

Here are some of the new ceiling rafters.  Besides a lot of shoring-up he has also worked on wiring and foundation stuff.

 The ceiling awaits insulation and wall board.  The slanted ceiling will be done in wood.