Progress Report

April 30, 2011

It has been almost two weeks since I last reported on progress. Because of the terrible weather (cold and rainy), and Josh having to work quite a bit during the last two weeks, it seems that little progress is made. Following is a synopsis of what has happened over the last two weeks.

When we last left off, most of the work on the subfloor was complete. I was able to complete the subfloor by the 19th in preparation for Josh's return on the 20th for a couple of days.

With Josh back, we were able to start putting up the walls on the main floor. By the end of day on the 20th we had gotten the south exterior wall up, and several of the interior walls to help support it.

The 21st saw more progress. But by the end of the day we were besieged by cold rainy weather again. Very discouraging, but at least it is not tornadoes. You can see the water standing on the sub-floor.

This is a detail photo of the water damage that has occurred to the chimney chase over the lost 24 years. While it looks like it has been burned... it is really just rotten. Slow oxydation as opposed to rapid oxydation.

While josh was gone I was able to get a lot of stucco removed. I also worked on rerouting the broadband cable into the addition crawlspace, and spent a whole day in a cramped uncomfortable position putting lighting into the crawl space. I also converted the light by the garage door (adjacent to the addition) into a electrical outlet.

When Josh returned, the materials had not yet arrived so we spent the morning of the 27th getting rid of the above mentioned garage door, and preparing the posts that would support the beam. The folks at Home Depot have been really great to work with on this project. They made a special trip on the 27th to deliver the materials we would need to keep going, including the beam. After delivering the materials they actually helped us raise the beam into place. You can see it in these pictures.

The 27th was a nice day.

The 28th was a good day as well. I was able to work in tee shirt and shorts. I was able to begin putting up the floor joists on the second floor after I had attended to several other tasks that needed to be accomplished.

Among those other tasks was nailing the seismic straps on the south wall. There are three of them and they each take 30 16d nails. This is a job that has to be done by hand. It took me a while.

The weather of the 29 was cold and we had snow flurries all day long. None the less I continued to work on the second story joists and rim board. I shorted my self on the number of joists required, and ruined one through a mis-cut, so I will have to wait until Tuesday before the last of the floor joists goes up and we can install the second floor sub-floor.

This morning this is what I saw.