Week 3

Yet another week has gone by. And we're that much closer! The carpenters weren't at the house this week. They've been waiting on the siding to come. Which arrived yesterday!! So it's waiting at the house. Hopefully today or tomorrow they will start putting it up. They are going to completely finish the front (south) wall and the west wall with all the windows and siding. Then they'll fix the east wall and rebuild the stained glass porch. Then it's on to the addition! And things are going forward there too!

There was some necessary damage done to the stone wall when the excavator dug out for our basement and removed a section of the basement wall. So before the guys could get on to leveling the gravel and preparing for the concrete to be poured, they had to repair the wall. They added a weight bearing beam and studs and are now working on repairing the stone wall.

This week they also got all the leveling done and a layer of styrofoam and plastic in the old basement. 

They've even managed to get the steel reinforcement on top of that AND last night Sindre started installing the in-floor heating cables and the electrical wiring for outlets. BECAUSE.....we've ordered the concrete!! Yay! The concrete truck is coming (for some reason I've got an image of the Coca Cola trucks all lit up with "The Holidays Are Coming" playing in the background) on Monday and pouring the floor for both the old and new basement. Yipee!! Once that's poured and dried, then the guys can start putting up the walls for the new basement using leca blocks. Apparently leca is not common over in Canada so here's a pic in case you're curious. 

Then the carpenters can take over and build our extension. They're doing the entire build, installing the new roof on the back, and inside they're putting in the separating walls for the various rooms and the floor between the first and second floors. This is pure luxury for us! When we built our current house, we had the contractor put up the house, windows, siding and roof but it was just a shell. The inside was completely empty, from the concrete slab to the rafters. It was sooo much work. 

And we learned a few (or more) things from our first building experience. We knew without a doubt that we'd be getting pre-painted windows this time, for example. After painting 3 coats of oil paint on e.v.er.y s.i.n.g.l.e window in this house we learned that you really don't save any money after factoring in all the paint and the countless number of hours it takes. We don't do plastic or vinyl over here. Everything is made of wood and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

I've also been contributing this week as well. I can't do the heavy labour but I can paint. The carpenters are putting up the trims and decorative blocks around the windows so we needed to get a coat of paint on them first. Which means I had to choose a paint colour. Thank goodness I decided to take a sample of the prepainted windows with me. To me they looked pure white. But when we started comparing colours we found out that they're definitely not pure white. The colour is called cotton which has a bit of yellow in it. So I chose the same colour for the window trims. It would have looked awful if I had gone for pure white. The windows would have looked yellowed and dirty in comparison. Phew! 

Above is my window trim work station. Sounds professional, doesn't it. It's not. And it's SOOOOO cold in that house right now!!!!! Insulation was a brilliant discovery and I can't wait until it's yellow glory is gracing my walls. ;)