A Hard Week

Though we have seen a ton of progress on the house this week, our electrician lost his 11-year-old son on Thursday evening to a heart attack, which has been attributed to a previously unknown heart disease. I had just talked to the little man probably four or five hours earlier that day, and everything seemed as normal as ever. I can't imagine and hope I never have to face losing a child. It is a grim reminder that we can't take anything for granted. I certainly made a point to spend more quality time with mine this weekend. Time I normally would have spent doing maintenance or clean-up was spent riding bikes and playing superheros with Kaitlyn and Evan. Kaitlyn had her 6th birthday on Saturday, and we had a swim party on Friday evening. It has been hard to do much else with temperatures climbing above 100 degrees most every day this week.

There have been up to five crews working at one time over the past week. We've had framers putting up siding, roofers, brick masons, electricians and plumbers. Hopefully we can keep this pace going for a while.

Plumbing for the washing machine and utility sink.

They finally blocked up from the basement and have started on the first fireplace in the living room.

This is the galvanized pipe for the furnace. I'm a little concerned about them placing it in the center of the form since the porch fireplace flue will vent in the same area, but we will see what happens when they start building that. It took about two days for them to do this and the inside portion. I don't know if they will do any work on this fireplace until they pour the concrete porch.

They finally put in this window in the garage attic. It wasn't on the plans but we had it left over after we removed it from the study. I was concerned it would get damaged before it was installed, but it appears they got it done.

They finished the siding on the back of the kennel on Saturday. I was amazed that just one man was out there cutting and installing this heavy cement board by himself. It looks like he did a good job though. I believe Andy plans on installing the septic system before pouring the kennel runs.

They finished most of the roofing on the house now, and the ridge vents are installed.

First view with all the siding on the front and side of the house, and the windows above the kitchen sink and in the dining room have been moved since the last entry. We had to lower the one in the kitchen five inches so a normal person could see more than the sky and porch ceiling when looking out of it.