My House: Week 15 of Reconstruction

From mid-November until today, the last week of February, we’ve been under construction and living with family members with all of our things in a 30 foot deep storage unit. It has been tough to be without a home but Matilda is getting a lot of quality time with her grandparents.

We lost three weeks due to incredibly cold temperatures that were well below freezing even during the day. It was brutal. We’ve lost 5 of 15 weeks total which is why I’ve only published 10 videos (including the one embedded below). I publish a video every week that there’s progress and there hasn’t been any for a while but the crews are working tirelessly when it’s safe to do so and I appreciate that.

The big breakthrough is that they’ve finished our roof. At least plywood and waterproof sheathing has been put on as of today 2/20 but they did something interesting. Three weeks ago, my GC said that trusses would be next to impossible. They’d be built in PA, would be shipped here and a crane plus on-site storage would be next to impossible and he couldn’t really get creative so he proposed stick-building my roof. I asked if it would cost more and he said it would not. We agreed. So the team got to work building a roof over my roof. It sounds weird but I think it’s kind of genius.

The next 10 days will have 4 inches of snow and rain and temps from 5 degrees to 50 so now the crew, who has already built a temporary wall with rock wool insulation in my home can demo my roof and the front house of my house that will be re-framed with 8′ ceilings with literally a roof over their head. The temps are high enough that we won’t have to winterize the house and we can support a full steam ahead progress to getting the new framing done with a roof literally being built over the old one. It’s like my new house is eating my old one:

One week from today, 2/27, they aim to have the roof, framing and final structure complete which will enable us to proceed with insulation, windows and other items.

Everything for the house (siding, stone, windows, doors, roofing) has been picked and is on order so they can put in the new windows and get things buttoned up. I’m really excited because once the house is insulated, they can move quickly to get things done.

Here’s a final palate for the house (thanks Heather for putting this together):

There are still a few risk items I’m tracking:

• Garage slab pour, 28 days to cure and then 4-8 weeks to emit humidity so I can have the epoxy team come in and seal it
• HVAC, I know the quote is $25,000. What does that get me? I have no idea
• Solar panels, they were removed, will they go back on no problem and can I move all of them to the front of the house?
• What’s our freezing pipe risk? I have a LOT of beer and wine on site in an insulated basement room with space heaters so I hope it will survive when we fully shut down the house to re-do the roof system

These are all issues for future Adam so we’re going to see how next week goes and if the crew can keep making progress. so far, we’ve only been billed about 30% of the total quote so I imagine we’ll hit 40% very soon but we still have all of the subs to come due (roofers, insulation, plumbing, HVAC, electrical and the driveway paving along with final landscaping).

Here’s this weeks’ video (week 15 of the remodel)

I took a few drone photos which I’m really proud of:

Finally, some super interesting views of the roof going over my roof which just makes me giggle a bit :)

Thanks all for following the progress. I’m hopeful we’ll be in the new house by May but I’d love to move back home in April. We will just have to see.

I’ll leave you with one more photo and that’s Matilda standing in her new room. She’s never had her own room and honestly, for a 2 year old, she’s really excited to have a real bed, book case, space for toys and a view of the lake. When I mention it she says “and I can see the eagles and the ducks and boats?” I assure her that she will be able to see the bald eagles fishing and the loons and ducks and geese. She’s so thrilled: