Friday, June 29, 2012

Our Retirement Home Part Nine (Windows, Doors and Shingles)

June 29, 2012

Gary and Amy, June 25th, Montreal 2012

Phone light from Phil and Fer from Mexico!

Goody bag from Lara and Jessie

SAQ gift card from Christina and Patrick


Marie and I spent this past weekend in Montreal visiting Amy and the kids who went out with us for a special birthday breakfast downtown - I was laden with gifts and lots of love and I want to thank you all for a wonderful day!! Then back to the property to prepare for the arrival of the roofers and windows and doors. I am writing this outside on the terrace of the Pizzeria Lac Megantic who have free wifi - a nice change from McDonald's where I usually go to update the blog when we are not in Montreal. The house is up, all 25 windows and 5 doors in, the shingles almost all on and once the scaffolding comes down the hard part will begin for us - preparing and finishing the interior! But for now its a day off as we spend Saturday with Mario, Adam and Zoe visiting from Massachusetts. We want to thank again the great crew who did such a professional job of building the house for us - Fred, Guillaume I, Charley and Guillaume II. The pictures tell it all!.......Next week - laying out the radiant floors! gws 



Arrival of  Vaillancourt windows and doors

Building skylight frames


Plumbing the basement


View of skylights

Basement

Putting in the 8 triangle windows

Windows in!

Marie by kitchen window, front door to her left ready to go!

Basement patio doors in

Charley putting in ceiling insulation (R40)

Temporary stairs from first floor to mezzanine

Shingles being craned to roof

Skylights finished

Charley and Guillaume building entrance way roof

Shingles and skylight

Guillaume I, me, Fred, Charley, Marie and Guillaume II enjoying a much deserved beer in front of house






Saturday, June 23, 2012

Our Retirement Home Part Eight (Floors, Walls and Roof)

The complete package!

Monday arrived and Marie and I headed back to the property again to supervise the erection of the house, stopping first in Barton, Vermont at the Radiant Floor Company to pick up the manifolds, pumps and other pieces we will need when we install our PEX in the three floors of the house.


 But that will be another story - coming up in July. But in the meantime we had to get back to the property to be on site for the arrival of the flat bed truck at 0630 the next morning carrying our new home. Things didn't start out well at all  (we both suspected as much when we saw the face on the driver) as the truck was way too big to back up into our driveway and up to the house location over 600 feet away. It got hopelessly stuck at the bottom of my drive and jammed itself against a rock and spruce tree, bottoming out on the road in the neighbors entranceway, blocking Maxime for three hours. With a lot of tugging and cursing from all, including me as my trees, sign and roadway were all taking a beating, using both the crane and a bulldozer it inched its way up the drive (another 2 hours) and just before noon was in place. The first part of the wall was lifted off and set firmly in place... Slowly but surely over the next three days the house began going up! The weather cooperated - hot and sunny - and everything went well as you can see by the pictures. A long weekend is now on us here in Quebec (La Fête nationale du Québec) ....work will resume Tuesday when the windows, doors, roofers and plumber arrive - should be another hectic week which I will report on as soon as I can get a minute. As they say here -  bonne fin de semaine and Happy Birthday to my dear sweet Mother! gws


Stuck trying to get up my drive

Meantime as we wait for the truck work begins...


Almost there!

Finally the first piece is craned off the truck and put in place

Just like LEGO blocks!

Here comes part of the living room floor

Nailing it in place

View inside basement

Main wall arriving

Craning in steel load bearing beam

Setting it in place
Marie standing in our bedroom - who is that strange man with her?


Early morning (6am) day 2 awaiting arrival of carpenters

Main walls going up

Nailing into place

Main beam for cathedral ceiling being lifted up

Setting beam into notches

Lifting part of deck into position

Leveling deck piece

Next deck piece arriving

6x6 posts being set in place to support deck (28x12)

View from mezzanine before roof plywood put on

Close up of roof trusses

Roof trusses before being closed up

View from below as roof almost finished

Day 3 Building peak, piece by piece

One side of peak finished