First rough coat of stucco

Replacement windows in front

OLD WINDOWS:
- Single panel glass (cold, street-noisy, and unsafe)
- Tacky acrylic safety panels for childproofing
- Rotten window frames

NEW WINDOWS:
- Energy star - efficient and warm!
- Double paned glass - hopefully we won't have to turn up the volume anymore when the bus goes by
- Tempered glass in LR - no more risk of shattering glass and falling to death on concrete sidewalk two stories below
- Solid wood frames

Not much stylistic difference (as intended), but functionally, these new windows rock.  And we can actually open them - what a novel concept!

Joy!

Old LR window

New LR window

Old DR window

New DR window

Fireplace selection

We had to face it: we're a fireplace family.  The kids love to curl up with books and hot cocoa in front of the fireplace on rainy days; R loves to enjoy the fire and Christmas tree lights in December.  And of course, I'm a sucker for that quaint, warm glow myself.  With our new plan to move the dining room into the old living room, we'd be losing a lot of our favorite fireplace moments.

We've decided to add one in the new family room/living room.  Here's the one we picked (totally different surround/mantle, though!):

http://www.regency-fire.com/Products/Gas/Traditional-Gas-Fireplaces/P36-%281%29.aspx

All waterproofed and ready for stucco

Paper and lath

Whileweareatit #1

Before - eaves removed on the right

After - properly vented!

We knew there would be a few additional things we'd want to do "while we are at it..." This week we took a detour for whileweareatit #1: fix the eaves and gutters.

For the 11 years we've lived here, R has had to bail out the gutters periodically because of the poor downspout design. We've also had an ongoing moisture/mildew problem under the eaves. These were the biggest design flaws of the house.

Not anymore! We've now replaced all the fascia boards, added all new gutters, and vented all the eaves.

Christmas came early, R! No more water will be sitting on our roof!

Loft windows

They installed the loft windows this morning!

Seeing through a glass brightly

These are the layers in the building wall sandwich:  interior gyp board, stud wall (done), plywood (done), exterior gyp board (done), 2 layers of paper (in progress), windows (in progress), lath (Thurs/Fri), stucco (Sat and into next week).

Today they installed several windows! We are incredibly pleased with the rapid progress that's being made right now.

Kid Bedroom #1

Kid Bedroom #2

Living Room/Family Room

Master Bedroom - interior

Master Bedroom - exterior

Gyp board layer

Back side of house - loft and master BR windows

View from the treehouse...

Also known as Sheetrock... Passed this inspection today...

The roof! The roof! The roof is on the house!

They're finishing the shingles today, hooray!

The luxury of laundry machines

Kitchen sink laundry...

Rocks...

Almost 2 weeks ago, I started doing laundry and found a flood on the floor after the second wash load. I asked our neighbor across the street if we could use her machine, and she kindly obliged.
A week later, thinking the drain had been fixed, I started the laundry again. The laundry drain overflowed. We looked at the mesh lint strainer on the laundry output hose, and discovered a huge hole in the end of it. We imagined a big clump of lint blocking the drain. I felt responsible for not noticing the strainer was rusted out.
I held off on the laundry... but after 3 days of watching the contractor try various snakes, the kids were out of pants and socks and I was resorting to handwashing (at least our dryer still worked). I didn't want to trouble the neighbor again.
Today we discovered the blockage: rocks! And sand! It wasn't lint - it was construction debris. We are glad to have persisted in asking the contractor to clear the drain.
The machine is humming away now... Looking forward to fresh laundry!

Plywood walls are up

We had our plywood nailing inspection today (passed, of course). All of the exterior walls are complete and covered with plywood. It's such a different feeling walking around inside now.
They added roof shingles today, too.
Next comes a layer of gyp board, then waterproofing, then the windows go in!
The weather has been crystal clear and was even warm today. There's no rain in the forecast at all for the next 10 days. Feels like a miracle. How can we be this lucky? The contractor's opinion: "God love you!"

Torturous tarps

30 mph winds + tarps over the house = wild banging and rustling noise all night long = no sleep.
Ugh. Need coffee.