Almost complete

This is Mark writing again. Our carpenters finished up today. The stairs were the last item to complete. Today, the roofers started. They will finish tomorrow. Just electrical and dirt work left to complete the project. We will need to work on finishing out the upstairs later as time and money permits.


The garage doors were put on Saturday and the painting of the houe and garage was completed on Sunday. The blue film on the garage doors is protective. The doors will be white.

Last but not least are the fish that I caught on Sunday. I went off shore with my neibor and his boss. We had a great trip and I put most of the fish in the boat. In addition to the fish below, I caught a 29" redfish that we released. I could have tagged it, but it looked kind of funky--like it had had a few run-ins with sharks, etc. The red snapper in the picture are all in the 5-7 lb. range the redfish is 24". I can't wait to go back!

First Day of School

Well, Ava started Kindergarten today. I thought I would be sad but so far I am ok. I think the morning was to crazy for me to think long enough to get sad. Anyway, here are the pictures from this morning. Ava was so busy looking around that she wouldn't look at the camera and smile. Of course, I wanted the pictures to be perfect and wanted to fuss about it but then had to remember that it was her day, not mine. I hope ya'll enjoy. I'll let you know what she says when I pick her up this afternoon.

We are getting there

Sorry that I haven't put up any posts lately (this is Mark writing), but I have been working hard to get things in order around here. We were sweating about Hurricane Dean, but it looks like we will dodge this one. Good thing too, because the garage would fall down without two sides upstairs and no doors and windows! I trimmed trees two weekends in a row both for asthetics and to keep the trees from being top heavy, with saturated ground, and possibly falling over in a high wind. After the tree work I got conscripted to work on the garage (the contractor wants more money, so I offered my time). I have been putting on the hurricane straps and clips for the last four or five evenings. I basically plan to work every free moment around the house until we start to see light at the end of the tunnel. I started building steps to the porch (we are going to demo out the brick steps). I got the posts set and the boards cut. I have a couple more hours of work on the first set of steps. Two more sets to go! The back stairs (our normal entry facing the garage) will be a small deck with a roof and handrail. I have designed this, but haven't purchased the materials yet.

The garage is taking shape. The carpenters estimate four more days until they are finished. They will complete the framing, construct the stairs (opposite side of the garage) and put up the siding. The contractors will then roof the garage and paint the garage and house. They still need to put in all the doors and windows and do all the electrical work. After all this, they will bring in dirt and caliche for the parking area. Then we will have lots more fun trying to get everything up to Stephenie's specifications. That could take a lot of time...and money!

We will keep you posted. Our to-do list is long, so we should have something to post pretty frequently...weather and money permitting.

House siding finished--framing begins

A new crew started on the siding on Monday. They seem much more professional. The lead man is actually a carpenter (I am not sure what the other guys were). They are the ones who will also do the framing on the garage.

By Tuesday, the siding was almost done. Most of the lumber showed up today. The house is looking great!

The house looks finished from the back. Just some trim to finish tomorrow before framing starts.

The guys laid out the ground floor framing today after finishing the house details. We are happy with the results so far.

The framing was in full gear today (Thursday) The center garage door is huge! We can have a nice big boat in there (you can tell that it is Mark writing this :-).

We hope that the garage doesn't dwarf the house. However, I am very happy with the amount of floor space that we will have in the garage. The footprint is about the same as the ground floor of our house! Steph and I talked about landscaping today. We will have a lot of work to do just to prepare the grounds before planting anything. It should be worth the work in the end.

Tyvek to Concrete

The house guys got the OSB and Tyvek on Wednesday. The concrete guys worked on making revisions required by our new engineer. He appears to know more about how to build a windstorm rated building than the last guy. The previous engineer only seemed to know one way to do things.

The house is looking cleaner, but he yard is getting worse and worse.

The rain held off here long enough to allow the concrete guys to get their work done.

The picture above is where the stairs will go.

We have some work to do on the yard. They drove right up to the house with the cement mixer. We are in construction mode, so we will deal with the damage later...