building for our future

One of the things I’ve been looking forward to is the elimination of the open barn wood steps in our great room. The new stairway in the addition replaces them and yesterday was the day for “the honorary Dr. Destructo” (me) to do the deed. It took a few hours because I wanted to be careful not to damage the floor, etc., but in retrospect, I am so happy that the job is done. Those steps were an accident waiting to happen with very poor construction and a lot of wood that was marginal in strength and quality.

After getting them down, it was time to carefully repair the barn wood wall where the old stair landing was previously located. Longer boards were needed and I was able to use the bottom railing from up on the landing for part of the filler. I did need to butt-splice two pieces, but it will not be glaringly noticeable once the room is put back together. There were three small areas to repair on the floor, but some careful dye application followed by shellac made them all but disappear.

I’m happy to say that we are now ready for Myron, the stair-master, to start his work later in the week, installing a new railing system across the loft and into the addition.

Drywall continued through the week leading up to the Christmas holiday. All the mud work is complete, save some sanding which the dynamic duo of Chris and Chris will take care of next Thursday. In fact, the multi-purpose room is sanded and ready for paint...we need that space for the 11" wide pine flooring to acclimate and it's arriving next Thursday morning, too. The gutter folks finally started their work on Friday. I'm glad. Maybe that will stop the rain!

I know...I’ve been remiss in posting lately. Work and business travel to China intervened with my ability to deal with this over the last two weeks...but there certainly is some nice news to share: We started drywall...’rockin...yesterday!

Last week, a lot of odds and ends were completed in preparation for the Sheetrock, including some last minute electrical wiring changes, the rough framing inspection, the porch soffit, a water line into the attic for future use for a humidifier, and so forth. Jim and Keith completed the break-through into the existing house both on the first and second floors and framed in the ceiling over the loft in the great room at the connection to the new structure. They also did some additional framing around the sprinkler tank area to provide for keeping drafts and dampness out of our home.

And Monday we got rolling on the walls...the team of Chris and Chris are excellent craftsmen when it comes to drywall. I have yet to see them bugger a single piece of drywall and they work very efficiently, too. Even with that job only about half done at the end of today, it’s been transformational for the whole project...even more so given the free visual access into the addition from our great room.

Next week, the stair folks will return to work on the railings and I expect that prior to the Christmas holiday, we will be ready to start interior finishing work, such as the wide pine and green slate floors, green slate on the shower walls and then on to painting.

In the mean time, here are some pictures from Friday through today.