Slate Roof repairs, Painting, Window Progress

What happened since last time: Plumbing is complete and we passed our inspection!

HVAC is still working. They are on spring break. 

Electrical- Levi is doing this and it's almost done. 

What comes next, you ask?

Well, we have to get each of these inspected (plumbing is done, but hvac and electrical have their own inspectors). Then we have to get another construction inspection to make no one cut too much of our framing out and made our structure unstable. Then we can insulate, and then we can put up sheetrock. 

Levi and I were planning on doing a special plaster veneer to emulate the original plaster walls. We found one guy in Paducah who could do this, but it was incredibly expensive. $40 K just for the finish work, say WHAT? So we were back to the drawing board. Levi had signed up for a plaster class up at Yestermorrow in Vermont. It's a really cool design-build school that has short 2-5 days courses on all kinds of topics. (www.yestermorrow.org). However, the plaster class was canceled at the last minute. Levi emailed the school and got the name of the instructor and emailed him. He wrote us right back and agreed to come to Paducah and teach us how to do a plaster veneer in 1 1/2 days. He said its very simple, he uses a mixture of plaster and joint compound on normal sheetrock. No special tools, no drywall finishing. We can even do this after our trim has been installed and there will be no cracks. We can tint the plaster and then we don't have to paint. We are really excited for Buzz to come to Paducah!

In other news, here's whats been going on at the house:

Alonso has been painting the exterior, I can't believe what a difference it makes! We have some minor repairs to do to the front and sides once Levi gets around to it. 

We are almost ready to install the upper front porch windows. I have been cleaning the hardware. I was planning on some gold spray paint, but once I sanded them down I thought they looked kinda cool raw, so I'm spraying some clear polyurethane to prevent rust and calling it a day.

Here you can see the windows with their glass installed, glazing compound applied, and primer + 2 coats of paint. They need to be scraped and cleaned and they're ready!

This is the first of our upstairs large windows installed. It works like a dream. The upper sash lowers and the lower sash raises. They are counterbalanced with the original weights on the original pulleys which Joseph cleaned up for us. Joseph spent many hours fighting with weatherstripping and figuring out how to get this in. I think it looks great! We are very proud of this window. This was originally one of the most damaged windows as it gets most of the weather. 

New zinc weatherstripping, new sash rope, old pulleys with the paint sanded off.

Joseph has also fully completed installing the glass in the kitchen (except for one window) so we almost have a weatherproof house. Almost. 

Today was a beautiful day and Levi decided it was time to repair our slate roof. I have ordered some slate roof tiles on ebay but they were larger than ours. First we had to cut them down to size. Let me rephrase that. First we had to figure out how to cut slate. Then, Levi cut them down to size. Luckily, our friend and brick/tile man Darren kept popping in at just the right time. 

Then we had to figure out how to safely get Levi on the roof without damaging it. You can't walk on slate because the tiles can crack and break too easily. So we duct-taped foam to our ladder. Then we set up 5 levels of scaffolding. Then Levi rigged the bottom of the ladder up to the top of the scaffolding. And just walked right on up. 

I think our roof looks pretty good! I climbed up the scaffolding once to take a look at it. Our guttter on the other hand.... 

Levi: You can see just to the left of the lowest foam a missing shingle. It's now replaced

My view from the flat roof of the back addition. Ok, sorta flat roof. I lasted 2 minutes.

And a PANO version, with my finger, oops. 

Here's my view from the upstairs window. "Everything ok up there?"

This is how to open a beer with a nail gun. Just so you know.