Owner Building a Home - Week 20 - Yucky Weather = Little Work

Um, ya.  So, we tried working this week.  We really did.  And we did accomplish some things.  I taught school during the mornings and arrived onsite early afternoon and continued painting.  This week I was able to complete the hall upstairs, the master bath and the first coat of the master closet (at which point I ran out of that color) and the first coat of the kid's bathroom.  But we had stuff up on Monday and Tuesday night so that meant shorter working days for me.  Then Wednesday came and I wanted to work long into the evening painting.  And I did.  Sort of.  I was painting the kids bathroom upstairs, a halogen lamp providing the light and a heater providing some warmth.  The time was creeping close to 11pm and I needed to get home so Jay could leave and be a chicken farmer.  And then, mid-roller stroke, it happened.  The power went out.  I was standing in a pitch black room holding a paint roller in my hand wondering what to do next.  I seriously had only about 3 feet of wall left to paint but I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, nevermind the wall.  So I carefully found the paint tray and put the roller back.  In the dark.  I carefully found the doorway without touching the freshly painted walls.  In the dark.  I carefully stumbled my way through the hall and down the stairs and tried hard not to trip over the 2 air compressors.  In the dark.  I opened the door and stumbled down the very not-level-or-landscaped path (think very unlandscaped, dangerous-in-the-daylight kinda landscape) in the only-slightly-less-dark dark.  It was raining.  It was windy.  It was cold.  No, it was COLD!  It was dark.  I found the van and turned on the lights, repositioned the van so the lights would point towards the house and turned on the brights.  Then I grabbed my cell (which was almost dead) and called hubby to let him know I was trying really hard to finish up quickly but the power was out but he didn't answer.  So I went back to the house up the dangerous path by the really-not-bright-at-all light of the cell phone.  I made my way back upstairs and somehow finished painting that wall by the light of the not-bright-at-all cell phone.  I have no idea what it looks like in the daylight because I haven't been back to see it yet.  I finished painting and gathered the supplies and went back downstairs.  I quickly tried to stoke up the fire in the fireplace and add more wood by the light of the cell phone.  I locked up the house and brought the painting supplies to the van and then went to lock up the house trailer (our source of power, the bathroom facilities, etc.).  The cell phone had died by this point so I was using the van lights.  I remembered the bathroom light had been left on and the far bedroom light had been left on so I turned those off and locked up the trailer.  I just got back in the van, buckled in and started backing away when the power came back on.  And I left lights on in the trailer.  So, I parked the van, turned it off, got out and unlocked the trailer.  While I was trying to unlock the trailer, the "screen door" literally fell apart in my hands.  The wood pulled apart and the glass section fell out.   It didn't break, thankfully, but it is certainly no longer part of the door.  I turned off the lights, locked the steel door, propped the "screen door" back in place and finally was able to go home.  It was still raining.  It was still cold.  It was yucky.  And the last 20 minutes were a series of dumb events.  Whatever.  Memories, I guess!

Since Wednesday night, I have not been back to the house.  It started snowing sometime during the night Wednesday and so Thursday afternoon I went to buy paint (hopefully the last paint I need to buy).  The power went out while I was buying paint.  It has been that kind of weather.  Heavy wet rain/snow/ice that sits on the power lines and causes big problems.  Windy and cold.  Really, really yucky.  We have no source of proper heat in the house so I am not painting in 6C temperatures.  We do use the fireplace as much as we can but the wood is now all wet.  The little heaters help somewhat but when it is so cold outside, it takes more to warm up the inside.  Next week is supposed to be better, with temperatures returning back to seasonal norms.  So, I decided to go home after buying paint on Thursday and Friday I was in the city with AJ all day for a long doctor's appointment and shopping.  No painting Friday either.  Today I will return to the house and paint just as soon as the kids are finished lunch.
Tuesday was the final day the drywall crew was at the house, finishing up the last little bit of sanding.  Once again, I cannot say how fantastic they are.  Super nice people to work with and they bought treats for the kids at the end.  We look forward to having them over for supper when the house is done.  The kids have already invited them back!  :)

Jay was a trooper and kept trying to work this week.  The beginning of the week was beautiful (though slightly windy) so they finished up the siding on the back of the house,

almost finished the west side and almost finished everything on the front above the porch. 

They also started working on the front under the porch roof.  For the back of the house, there was talk about renting scaffolding but when I got there on Monday, they were busy working with Mr.W up on the ladders and Jay and his helper were on the ground cutting the siding and handing the pieces to Mr.W.  He would stand on pieces of wood that spanned between 2 or 3 ladder jacks.  He was harnessed in to the roof clamp so it was relatively safe.  It did make things move a little slower, being up high like that on a piece of wood but they did so great. 


Jay was glad to be on the ground and Mr.W did a fantastic job finishing up the siding and the soffits and faschia.  They continued to work like that on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday Mr.W was gone and Jay needed to take some time for chicken farming stuff so he was not at the house much.  He did do some prep for painting the main floor (blowing off the drywall dust from the walls, stuffing the electrical boxes with paper, stapling plastic over the windows) so that on Friday the main level of the house was primed.

Finally, a big decision was made this week.  We are going to do geothermal heating in the house and the excavating work will start next week.  That is a huge decision Jay has been agonizing over and I am so glad he made the choice.  It is not a decision that can be made lightly and I know it has been a stressful one for him to make but I am so excited about the choice.  It is expensive to put in but the benefits on our size of house should be worth it.

And to top it off, I ordered the hardwood flooring for the main floor.  Brazilian Pecan it is!  Woot, woot!!