Roof update and some settling - now

See our roofer on the ladder?

He's putting on the finishing touches.

That's right folks - he's done with the roof! And I like the color. It's some sort of dimensional slate color.

The company that sold us the shingles told us that the manufacturer of these shingles use a talcum type powder to make them. They said the white streaks could be excess powder, and will hopefully lessen after some rain. The pic on the left is the original. The pic on the right is after the rains we had this weekend.

The streaks are still there, but they are lighter.

I don't think they look as bad. The rep is still going to come out and have a look, just in case, but lets just hope they disappear over the winter months.

Now these two photos are right up next to the house. When we had all of the rain this weekend, the disturbed ground around the house settled. Not good. We are going to have to get some dirt and fill that in. We had tons of dirt that we smoothed out, and now we need dirt!

Cindy

Outdoor lighting - now

So, Dave comes home the other day and says, "I bought some lights at Menards, they were on sale, what do you think?" He shows them to me.
Me, "I like them, but I need to see them on the house."
Him, "oooohhh good, (huge sigh of relief) I can't believe you like them."
Me, "I SAID, I like them but I HAVE TO SEE THEM ON THE HOUSE."
Him, "I can't believe you even like them."

You see, for us to agree on light fixtures at this point is a good thing. We have a thing about light fixtures. I like old ones the best. I just do. I have almost all old fixtures in/on our house now. Except for the ones we've started replacing because I insist we bring them with us. It's taken me 15 years to collect them and have him get them rewired and hung up. Most people like newer ones and I figure they won't want the ones we have anyway. They came from garage sales, estate sales, auctions, etc. And when we first got married and tried to find some sconce lights for our bedroom....oh my gosh....he came home with lights from Lowe's three times before I found some very cute lights in a box at a garage sale for a quarter. They were copper, they needed rewired and cleaned up, but they were CUTE. They will be moving with us too.

And with him, he doesn't like the bulb showing through the glass...too ugly to see a bulb. He doesn't like the fixture to have to be unscrewed and the outer cover taken off to change the bulb...too much trouble. If the opening of the fixture faces up, it catches dirt, bugs, etc....never gets cleaned out.

So you see, light fixtures are a big deal for us and to agree at this point really is something.

But I had to see it on the house.
So we went out to the house, and he started holding the fixture up.



The family room entrance off of the porch...to the side, or above?

You see, we don't NEED the light fixtures right now, not really. But what we do need is to decide where to wire them. Because wiring has to be done before insulation and walls. All the things you never think about. And you have to decide, to the sides of the doors or above the doors. And if you go to the sides, you need twice as many fixtures as if you were going above.

I think with the family room/porch entry, above. There's only one window and not really enough room for a fixture on the left side anyway.

Garage door...

Above...it's a garage.

Main entrance...

To the sides. They'll look better with the columns.

Front porch areas with the two story section....to the sides. Columns again...

Oh my goodness....how many fixtures are we going to need? Never, NEVER, thought about this when we were sitting in the architects office! Let's see

basement 2

two story section 4

family room/porch 1

main entrance 2

garage doors, overhead, but two doors so 2

big garage doors 2

kitchen door -hmmm - do we need one there since we plan on building on in the future. Key words - in the future...yes we better....so 1 or 2 I don't know.....1 for now....let's add that up.

FOURTEEN!!!!!

OH MY GOSH FOURTEEN LIGHTS......

Then he takes me to Menards....I think this was all planned out......he shows me the prices and the choices.......now remember the rules.....can't see the bulb, easy to change, need to look old....

And yes, we could have gone to a lighting studio, or another store. We went to Menard's because it was close.....

and seriously, did we need more choices?

This was Sunday, I was getting over the flu from Saturday, and when I saw this......


I said, "I am very happy with the choice you made."

Keep them. Heck, buy two extra....just in case....should we buy more....just in case?

Cindy

Shingles - now

I have not been to our house site this week, but yesterday Dave took the camera with him, so he took these pictures for me.

See the roof. Looks pretty good right?

And remember that really high area I was concerned about?

Here they are, walking around like it's no big deal.

And see the off colored white streaks across the roof? That's the front of the house, by the way.

See them here, on the garage?

Nope...that's not camera shadows, or the sun playing tricks on our eyes. Those are shingles folks. Gaf ELK shingles. We have those same brand of shingles on our house that we live in now. We love them, we've never had a problem, and there was no discoloration like there is on our new house. I'll let you know what the rep says about it. He's on vacation this week. I'm going to be nice. I'm going to try to stay positive. I am not happy about it though.

Cindy

Store and Roof - now

So, I went to a rather large local building supply store tonight to pick up some lock sets. We were having them all keyed the same for our outside doors. The conversation went like this...

Me, "Hi, I'm here to pick up some lock sets."
Dude, "hmmmm, well I have no idea where those would be."
We have a stare down. Like I'm going to leave if he just looks at me long enough. I don't think so. I'm old enough to be his mother, I'm peri-menopausal, and even though I have no children of my own, I have mastered 'the look'. And the whole time I'm thinking...'why do boys grow sparse, scraggly, beards like that. Shave for crying out loud.'
There is a geek on the computer the entire time that only looked up once. If I had a gun in my hand, he wouldn't have known it.
Me, "well, you need to find them, we've paid for them, and we need them."
Dude walks away and returns empty handed. "I just don't know where they are...."
Geek, still on computer not looking up.
Me, doing the eye roll, "This is just why I do not like shopping here. We bought 7-8 doors here and door locks, we got a call they are done, and we need them. I have two kids getting off the bus in 20 minutes, so you need to find them now." I want to tell Geek man to get the hell off the computer, and help Dude find my lock sets. I am the customer after all.
Geek finally looks up.
I think they think I'm Cindy Crawford or something (see my 'other' blog) because they are just staring. Geek speaks. "who called you?"
"I have no idea what his name is. HetalkedlikethisrunninghiswordstogetherandIcouldhardlyunderstandathinghesaid."
Geek looks back down, Dude just stares.
Finally, when I kind of did the head nod eye bulge look, like you better get moving Dude...before I pinch someones head off...Geek man says, without looking up again I might add, "look in receiving."
There were seven of these in two boxes.

Dude stacked one box on top of the other

and plopped them in my arms. They were heavy.
And this folks, is why I go to small locally owned businesses whenever I can.
People care at small locally owned businesses.

I'm wondering if stores should go back to commission.

But the good news is...right before that, I was at our house and I saw a truck pull up.

Full of roofing shingles.

And these guys get on the roof. They walk around on the roof like mountain goats.

These leg kind of things pop out of the truck

This crane thing pops out of the top of the truck

And it starts lifting roofing shingles to the roof!

They plan on starting tomorrow! WOOHOO!

It was very cold and windy out by the way. I'm sure these poor guys were freezing.

Cindy

Roofs, roofers, R&R - now

So, I pretty much had a melt down last Sunday. I get that way when I'm frustrated, and I have too much on my plate. I'll discuss it on my other blog at some point, but right now, let's talk about a roof(er). We finally have a roofer that says he'll start on Friday.

Here's the story. First of all, we have talked to about 10-15 roofers. We only got three estimates back. Two of them were for a standing seam metal roof. One was $27,500 and the other $24,225. Yes we are talking 27 Thousand and 24 Thousand! We can not afford that. So, we've switched back to shingles. Which means we need to talk to different roofers. Most of which cannot start until January, or later. Our tar paper will not hold out that long. Probably won't hold out until the end of the month. But finally, someone came through. He could start right way. We really wanted to hire him, but then Dave and I had a "discussion" about insurance. The guy did not have insurance and I refused to hire someone without it. I called our insurance company. I was ready to buy the guy insurance just to get a roof. Couldn't do it. He has to buy his own workman's comp, but I could raise our liability. How much liability is enough if he falls off the roof? So we went with the guy that can start on Friday, that has insurance.


These are the shingles we picked out. But here's the other thing. This guy doesn't like the brand of shingles the other guy liked, which is what we picked out. So we had to pick out another brand of shingles...but they look the same, I guess. I never saw them.

In the meantime, Dave's been working on this area getting it ready for seed.

Our framer has been working after hours on some extra jobs for us. This is part of the basement that we will be living in. He been framing it so we can put up walls.

And we all had a bit of R&R today. Dave, feeding Noah and Allie. They are the geese that live on our pond year around. Allie has a broken wing and cannot fly. Noah stays with her. Just like in the movie The Notebook, where Noah stays in the nursing home with Allie. We love our geese.

Dixie napping on the way home.

And I opened a bottle of port that has been on my kitchen counter a little over a year.

Cheers!

Cindy

Losing it! plus Windows and Doors - now

I have to say, in all of the books we've read on building a house, we haven't seen a chapter on "how to stay sane!" I thought yesterday was going to be the breaking point for us. Not with our marriage, but with the busy-ness and stress. It started Saturday. Dave worked this weekend and I was with my friend and cousin on Saturday. We decided to go to some craft shows and open houses. While we sat down to lunch, my phone rang. "Cindy, this is Mike, (Mike is the framer - I don't know the tar paper man's name so we'll call him TPM for tar paper man) TPM can't put the synthetic tar paper up because you need plastic caps, and the instructions say you can't staple it." Oh jeez...now what should I do. Dave is at work, so I beeped him and he called me back. "Try to staple it anyway." OK " Called Mike back...have him try to staple it anyway." Riiinnngggg "Cindy, he can't staple it. He said it will leak and it's just not the way you put it up." Me, "well what if I go get the plastic caps." Mike, "TPM said it will take him a week to put the synthetic up and it will only take him about three hours to do the 30 pound." Me, "let me call Dave." I call Dave, Dave calls Mike, Mike calls me back, Dave calls me back. TPM put up the 30 pound paper and now I get to return the synthetic. Six rather large rolls of over $500 dollars worth of tar paper. That was a lunch hour that I spent on the phone the entire time. Sorry Vickie and Teresa.

Then yesterday I was trying to get my sugar patties made for my bees, I needed to go to the house site and pick up the tar paper so I could return it today, had lunch plans with family, needed to sweep the floor in the house because the leaves and sawdust are holding water, I have a harvest celebration for the Community Garden on Wednesday, that I am in charge of putting together, I have to get my bees ready for winter while it's warm out (the next three days), we needed to make a list of the lumber we are having returned, I needed to meet Dave to take some pics of small problems with the windows that we want fixed....and all I really want to do is craft! I was so inspired on Saturday. And Dave is going to try to take a couple of days off of work, or at least half days, because he needs to seal the garage floor while it's warm, and we need to get some stuff put away and ready for winter.

After lunch Sunday, my niece and I negotiated a deal. She'd help me for one dollar and five quarters (just think of the gumballs/toys in the machine at the grocery store with five quarters!) She's the least expensive help I've hired so far, and she did a good job! I gave her the job of moving the wood out of the house so I could sweep.

And you thought Tyvek was only used to wrap a house!

And, we have windows!!! and doors!!!

The kitchen windows

Downstairs is a tv/reading room, upstairs is a bedroom

family room

Walk out basement view

Inside family room looking out

Looking out the upstairs slider window in one of the bedrooms

Looking out the upstairs bedroom

When my niece saw the upstairs bedroom she said, "wow, my room has a balcony!" It's so funny, my nieces think they have a room in everyone's house. They did the same thing when my parents moved.

Gotta get busy

Cindy