08-24-2010: Roofers, Electricians, Framers, Mantle

Today we had 3 crews out working at once!  The framers were working on finishing under the porches, putting up the partial wall in the basement, finishing soffit, putting flooring in storage area above garage, framing out shower doors, etc.  The roofers came out to put the felt and drip edge on the roof in preparation for shingles and to "dry it in".  The electricians were putting in wire, can lights, switches, breaker box, plugs, etc. 

Rick is keeping everyone on track, running into town to pick up items for the subcontractors, caulking & filling nail holes in preparation for painting eaves and soffit, and working a little on the mantle.  We borrowed a draw knife from our neighbor and removed the bark from the front of the mantle. 

Over the weekend, Rick and I dug footing under the front 2 columns on the front entry, placed 2 steel pipes to support the main 2 cedar beams, and poured a lot of concrete.  We had 40 bags and had planned to use the concrete mixer.  Unfortunately, some kind of bees or bugs or something built a nest in the motor of the mixer, and we couldn't get it to work right without burning up the motor or taking a huge amount of time to take it apart, clean it, and figure it out.  We ended up mixing all of the bags by hand on Sunday afternoon and night.  It was blazing hot outside, and we didn't finish until almost 10pm. 

The cedar beams were ordered yesterday and might be here as early as tomorrow.  We started receiving some exterior doors today (house to garage and garage to yard), but they haven't been installed yet.  The windows could start arriving this week, and the doors shouldn't be too far behind.  The glass block windows should be here around Friday.  The brick is kind of a problem--it won't be here for 3-4 weeks, but it may take that long for a lot of these other little projects to get done.  As soon as Rick gets the eaves and soffit painted, we can get the roofers back to put the shingles on.  The electrician will be back tomorrow, and the plumber and HVAC guys will be here tomorrow or Thursday.  When these 3 groups get finished, we can get the sheetrockers going.  We also met with the alarm people for a couple of hours last night.....lots and lots of decisions!

It was quite chilly tonight.  A strong cold front moved through early this morning, and the highs today were in the mid-70's.  It's supposed to be in the mid-50's tonight.  We had to break out the sweatshirts to be outside tonight with that strong north wind.  That's a big change from the near 100 degrees we had yesterday and over the weekend.