Spring days

We welcomed the warm and sunny first days of spring playing music...

installing the first two windows...

building a flared sitting wall...

adding old trailer stairs...(why???)

...and relaxing on the beach.

Covered porch

After a few weeks of skiing, skating, swimming and just generally relaxing in the oddly warm winter weather, we finally have kicked back into gear on the house. We now have both covered porches built. The front porch, an extension of the one-story roof:

The sunset porch will be partially screened and partially open to the south deck once finished.

Green Box

The last pieces of wall sheathing went on this weekend... the house is now 99% closed in! The windows have been ordered and should arrive in about two weeks. In the meantime, we will start building the front and side porches.

In celebration of Ben's upcoming birthday, we took the day off to go tubing at the Camden Snow Bowl... great fun (and only a little terrifying!)

Roofed in

Finally, the roof sheathing is finished! They said it couldn't be done...

While we worked, the kids had a lacrosse/skating party downstairs.

We went down to the beach to celebrate and sing to the sunset... then closed our eyes and dreamed of warm and sunny shores. It seemed to work with Ben, he shed his hat and sweatshirt despite the 14 degree chill!

Merry Christmas!

The roofing project has been seriously slowed down by Christmas... but we did have a wonderful time!

Today was warm and sunny and we had the chance to get up two cedar brackets, a barge rafter and painted beadboard under the overhang.

Snowstorms and roofing

Two things that don't go well together... but fortunately the first snow of the year melted quickly. We were able to get 90% of the roof rafters up before the big blizzard hit this weekend.

Thanksgiving weekend

Despite several days of cool rainy weather, we managed to get two walls up on the second floor over Thanksgiving weekend.

Our first tiny wall section... just before leaving for Thanksgiving dinner at the Beach Rose Cottage:

View of the oak tree framed through the kids' future bathroom window:

Check out those staggered studs... this has worked out to be such a great (and easy!) way to frame a house. Besides providing room for some thickness of dense pack cellulose insulation continuously along the wall length, staggered studs are also apparently used for sound proofing - which will be especially useful since this is the kids bedroom / hangout / music room.

Ben "helping" Papa:

With a whole lot of faith, we relied on the math and just cut the entire gable wall using Mark's method... then did a test layout on the living room floor (minus the headers)... so far so good!

Sam lifted nearly the entire gable wall, piece by piece, up to Brad on the 2nd floor.

Lifting the wall...

Obviously very pleased that the math worked... the wall went together perfectly.

First lunch in the kids room! Amazingly warm for late November... we are dreaming of being completely done next summer and wondering why we didn't plan for a second floor porch.

Kids can only work for a little while before they start going crazy and goofy... yes, that is our lunch all over the ground. Does Ben look guilty? Sam is alive and well, in case you are wondering.

Two peas in a pod...

The boys thought Erik would appreciate our new wrestling ring:

And by Sunday afternoon, one half of the tower is up: