"Before" picture

"Before" picture

Sunday, August 8, 2010

10 more days and lots more progress

Wow, you go on one little trip to British Columbia and a lot of stuff happens. First, a word about my trip: Over.

As soon as Ken dropped me and my sister at the airport on Saturday morning, he had his crew assemble and get to work. Don't worry; he supplied them with Dunkin Donuts coffee to get their motivation up before the heat index hit over 100 degrees.

The day started with Ken and the guys realizing that perhaps there should be something holding our house up now that there was the very big hole under our dining room and the back wall of the house was missing. But a pesky concrete block was in the way. Enter Chris B., who with arms of steel knocked that block off. Hee! Then the header went in and our house didn't fall down after all (well, not yet).


Once that important piece was in place, the guys headed up to the roof, where everyone took turns with the circular saw to cut through the sheathing. It only took them six saw blades. Then they all ripped roofing and sheathing off with their bare hands (or so I'm told) and nearly filled the 20-yard Dumpster that had been gracing our driveway.

Since August can be a teensy bit filled with thunderstorms, they left some roofing around the edges and maintained the A-frame supports to have something for ye olde tarp to be supported by. I have this weird thing about it raining inside my house, so they wrapped it up nice and tight. Who doesn't want their home to look like this?

It's a new fad, and I encourage you all to hop onboard this trend train.

But seriously, lots of work happened while I was 3000 miles away, blissfully selling technical books to statisticians. In the photo above you can see that the shrubs in front of the house are gone and there are sonotubes in strategic locations. The shrubs had survived the weekend we tore down the deck because we simply ran out of time to kill them, but they're gone now. They trucked outta here with that first Dumpster load. Yeah, I said first load. We have a new 20-yard Dumpster in the driveway. It's better than pink flamingos in the yard, right? Right?!

There are so many people to thank: Chris B, Mike G, Phil B, Wayne D, Dad M, Jay W, Shawn N, Todd S, and Jim C. And, of course, my fantastic hubby, Ken. I feel like we won an Academy Award, but actually it's even better because I am getting a new kitchen, people. And if you've seen my current kitchen (I'm too embarrassed to post pics just yet--got some reorganizing to do), you know that's a huge deal. The master suite is just gravy. I want a new kitchen so badly I can withstand huge holes being dug in my yard and my house having neither a back wall nor a roof for a few weeks. It's like camping because you can hear the cicadas as if they are in the room with you. And there's a layer of dirt on everything. Neat.

OK, that's all I can manage for now. Lots more happened in the time the boys and I were gone, but I'll have to update you on the rest in another post. I'm feeling sleepy just thinking about all the work those guys did last weekend.

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