JUNE 10 UPDATE: Where'd the granary go?

Lots of progress on the look of the house today! Notice I said "house," not "granary," as it's looking more and more like a place that someone who wasn't a sparrow or a mouse would want to live.

Paavo put in a good day's work taking siding off the east and west sides of the building, so now nearly all the siding is off -- just a bit remains at the very peaks of the gable ends. He took a break every now and again to help Dave and Walt, who were working on preparing to install the front door and the three big windows on the south side.

Just like all big projects, most of the time goes into the preparation. Not only did the framing need to be completed, which with an old, not-quite-square building required a lot of creative shimming, but they wanted to get out of the way all the things that required the moving of large boards on the south side of the house. (No one wants to install a nice big window, only to put a big plank through it two days later.) That meant taking down the safety fence they had been using while shingling the roof, and finishing the roof trim on the south side.

Then they put up the insulation and house wrap on that side of the house. I hadn't realized that needed to be done before putting in windows and doors, and Dave told me it doesn't necessarily have to be, but it works a lot better if it is done first.

With all that done, dark, hunger and fatigue set in before they could actually get the windows and door in place. Tomorrow is not likely to be a good day for that project, either, as it's likely to rain for most of the day.

But, wow, it's really looking a whole lot more like a house! I admired the roofline again on the way home this evening, and it really is going to be right cute. And, for all our worries about how long this is all taking, everything is really falling into place quite quickly, in the big scheme of things.

We wouldn't be anywhere close to how far we are, I must say, without the help from the two uncles who both traveled many miles to spend long days working on our crazy project of a house. (And, a number of those days, they worked together with a good deal of a language barrier between them -- Paavo's Swedish is better than his English, which is fairly minimal but still a good deal better than Walt's Finnish, which has progressed to two, perhaps three words in his time here.) We are really indebted to both of them. Walt especially has solved all sorts of problems I didn't know we had (including the overhang issue, which turned into such an asset in the great roofline). I'm sure we would have been stymied when these problems eventually did occur to us, but thanks to Walt, we didn't have to go through that frustration -- he figured out solutions before we would have realized there were problems!

Of course, I am some worried about what will happen after this week. Walt is eager to get home -- he's been here longer than he planned, and he's likely to have to delay his departure a few more days because of weather, but still, we've kept him far longer than we deserve, and Karen and the cats are eagerly waiting for him to come home. (To hook up the air conditioning, for one thing. Apparently it's sweltering in New York. ... Did I mention I put a hat and mittens on Sofia to go for walk here this evening of June 10th?) Paavo departs for his home on Monday, and I'm sure Leila has some projects waiting for him, too.

Dave has also burned through a fair amount of his annual leave, so work will be limited to evenings and weekends for a while.

We are getting close to the point where some hired help will be needed -- excavating a septic field, putting in insulation, and perhaps some other work. So hopefully we can keep progress going somewhat that way.

Here are some photos of today's progress:

This was taken just before lunch. Notice that all the siding had been removed from the east side already -- that was Paavo's morning's work. And the framing on the windows was well on its way.


Paavo steadies a ladder while Walt and Dave get the first trim board in place. Sofia was in front of them talking on one of her "cell phones." (She said she was talking to Auntie Mari, giving her directions in Minneapolis. Oh, I said.)


By late afternoon, the crew was putting the house wrap in place.


Here's the most recent photo I took, though the crew finished up detail work on the house wrap later in the evening and I didn't get a picture of that. A good day in the life of a house!