Movin' On Up

The weather has finally turned cooler allowing us to turn our attention toward fall-ish things. Apples, pumpkins, sweatshirts, falling leaves, scarves, football (if you are into that), lattes and the list goes on.  It is  one of my favorite times of year.   And, more than any other year, I am so glad it is here!... because, this fall, we get to move into our house!

Yes, we have an official moving date.  Mid-October here we come!!

So, ready or not, we'll be moving! There is still a lot to do but we feel like we are making progress! Here's what still needs to be done:

• Hang the new front door (this week) 
• New Siding on the house (starting this week!) 
• Trim on the main floor (starting this week!) 
• Paint all the trim (starting this week!) 
• Install electrical outlets and lights (starting this week!)
• Finally get rid of the smell from the basement (this weekend!) 
• Lay tile in the bathroom (starting this weekend!) 
• Have the gravel for our drive delivered (end of September) 
• Get the kitchen countertop installed (beginning of October) 
• Paint (ongoing) 
• Get our ducts cleaned and boot up our geothermal system (Mid October)
• Get one last coat of sealer on the floor (Mid October) 
• Move in!! AHHHhhhh (Mid October)  

Who knows if we'll get it all done or if we'll be barging in on my parents for a little while!... hoping we won't have to! Don't worry Mom!

So gearing up for the last leg of this reno race, it has been a busy couple of weeks. Luckily, I had some time off that I spent helping Steve preparing the outside of the house for siding and the inside of the house for trim. Which meant, windows! 

I was surprised how fairly simple it is to put in windows.  It really doesn't take very long, it just takes some fiddling. Fiddling with these things:

Shims.  That was my job! I was the shimmyer! Steve would prep the outside and I would help make sure the window was level and straight and secure.  We had a pretty good system going after installing 10 windows together.

The main level windows were a cinch.  Once we got the house wrap on, the window installation went pretty quickly.

 

It wasn't until we had to go up that the process got a lot more complicated and a lot scarier!


Because there are a total of 5 windows more than 10 feet off the ground, we had to enlist the help of scaffolding.  Dun Dun Dun....

 Now, I don't know if you have ever been up on scaffolding before, I hadn't, but really, it is not the most pleasurable experience.  I would not say I am afraid of heights but it did take a while for me to get used to the height and working on the wobbly surface. 

 In the picture above, we were working on getting the old siding off,  and so we were having to yank and pull on the siding to get it off.  It was a workout for my sense of balance, that was for sure.

In the picture below, we had finally gotten all the old siding off and had nailed down our foamboard and house wrap.  We were ready for the window... or as I called it, my escape route.  In that picture we were about 18 feet in the air. 

I was still not quite comfortable with the scaffolding yet, as you can tell from my halfhearted smile. It also didn't help that we were combatting some unhappy little creatures after knocking down their homes:

No stings.  Thank goodness.

Another challenging window to put in was the huge front window.  (Hello view!)

 We got a couple of extra helping hands in order to install this bad boy.  It was super heavy. 

From there, we moved up to the dormers on the roof.  Remember those almost 100 degree days we had last week?  Well this is what Steve and I were doing:

 Although we were over 20 feet in the air this time, I felt much less nervous.  I don't know if it was a gained comfort level with scaffolding or the fact that Steve built us a platform to work off of, but I was much more comfotable working up there.

Hand on the hip and everything.  Queen of scaffolding?

The window above the sliding glass door was the last one to go in.  And now our house looks like this:

 We are really looking forward to updating this picture once the new siding goes on! Stay tuned...

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