Wow, three months without updates, almost exactly all Winter. That’s an ignominious record for us. Despite that long dry spell of writing, we have been working on the house. Life has been extremely busy, as it tends to be. The list of excuses is long, from holidays, winter illnesses, work craziness, Wednesday swim lessons, literally all of Diablo III, and an aversion to working on the house when it’s cold and gets dark at four thirty. Quite honestly a large reason for the lack of updates is because I no longer have time at work, we only have one computer set up at home, and Sarah’s been working in the evenings. But! Tonight she’s on the phone with her mom, so let me try to get something written.
In Progress: Left window old, right window new
With the last post back in December we put in the first front window on the second floor. Mike helped with a lot of the exterior work that followed. We started with the two side windows of the front bay. We’re leaving the center window of the bay because it’s our way onto the porch roof. We stripped off the rest of the siding on the front of the house and removed what was left of the original front gable soffits (rake). We framed the new opening for the attic window and got the rest of the front of the house covered in house wrap.
Next we tackled the roof of the bay. That was a big project, since the old bay roof was flat and the new roof comes to a point. More than that, despite moving the new attic window up, it was still in the way of the bay roof, so we had to cut the height of the bay walls down by about six inches. Mike cut some insane angled birdsmouth rafters and I mostly stood around holding things. We have that covered in ice and water shield to keep the rain off.
Attic window framing, ice and water shield on bay
I came back and tried to get the attic window installed, since we had just covered the opening in house wrap and it was flapping like a drum in the wind. I got the jamb extensions on and the house wrap in correctly, but when I went to put the exterior rigid foam on I realized that without the rake, cutting the foam accurately was not going to happen, so I switched gears and started working on the rake. I framed a ladder from 2x4s and then had to haul the thing up a ladder and try to screw it to the house. I realized that I’d made it too big because math is hard, took it back down, made it smaller, hauled it back up, then needed Sarah’s help to hold it while I cut back a piece of wood that was sticking out of the side of the house. The process took so long I only got the one side up, so I have yet to finish the window. Attempts to do the other side in subsequent weeks have been thwarted by the same types of excuses I listed above.
Front of house progress
During this progress on the outside, I’ve also continued working on the attic floor joists, but I still plan to cover all of that in its own post, which hopefully I’ll actually get around to writing. It’s Spring now and I’m really trying to get back in the saddle.