Waiting, But Not Wasting Time

I'm happy to report that this week really turned around for us after Tuesday.

First off, that presentation I was worried about last post was scheduled for this morning instead of Wednesday morning. So we actually had Wednesday and Thursday to work on it, much to my relief on Tuesday night.

Secondly, still no call from our home insurance rep. I'm still not sure if that's good news or bad news, but nevertheless it's given us (us, that's a good one because I'm pretty much useless at the moment) It's given Mike a chance to work on several projects.

Wednesday, he spent the day on gutters. Or, rather, preparing for the gutters. Because really once he got up on the latter and started inspecting the roof line, it was obvious that some prep work needed to be done first. One major area of concern was over the mudroom.

And we knew this was a problem because back when we did the roof, I noticed while cleaning out the attic - Hey! There's a big hole to the outside where the roof meets the wall! At the time, we brushed it off and said, "we'll take care of that with the new siding."

But of course with no new siding as of yet, and temperatures creeping below 0 lately - probably a good idea to plug that hole. So, using some of our extra PT decking (the ugly pieces left over from the farmer's porch) Mike trimmed out that area. Later, the gutter will attach directly to this piece.

Notice how the piece just melds into the farmer's porch. Perfect!

If the weather hadn't been so cold and snowy, Mike could have actually installed the gutters yesterday. He wanted to, the nut! But really, the snow plus major wind chill factor - even I'm not that much of a slave driver.

Here's the second area that is in desperate need of a gutter. This is the back of the kitchen, and when it rains, the water just slides off the roof. If conditions are just right, it can actually seep through that window and sometimes the wall itself. We had several major rain events one after another back in fall that caused a flood in the basement window directly under this kitchen window - not good.

Anyway, tomorrow the high temperature is a toasty warm 30 degrees. (Ooooo!) And sunny! (Ahhhh!) So hopefully Mike will be able to continue on this project then.

Yesterday, while the weather outside was frightful, (and at my suggestion) he started in on the baby room floor. If you remember, this room was the most unstable one. Jump on the floor and watch it buckle and shake the whole room! Not good if you can imagine the future shenanigans of a small Mike in there.

Our carpenter and good friend TJ suggested we just rip off the top layer of flooring altogether and put down 3/4 then 1/2" plywood before we hardwood to really firm things up. So Mike spent the better part of yesterday demo-ing.

In this shot you can see the old hardwood still in the closet area. The rest is the very old subfloor.

Of course, once the old hardwood was up, it became obvious just how unstable the actual subfloor itself was! It buckled to nearly the breaking point when walked on, nevermind jumped on. Luckily, we had some 2x6's in stock. (God, just call the basement the Miscellaneous Lumber Co!) And Mike began reinforcing the room from underneath.

He got quite a bit done and only has two more 2x6's to install to complete the reinforcing job. Very cool.

Plus - that's not all! Yesterday being the 15th, Mike went down to the FD and bought our burn permit. He spent some time burning what he could in the afternoon, but everything was still pretty wet and frozen. I imagine we'll get a fire going tomorrow too and continue making a dent in the ever present brush piles.

So let's refresh - this weekend:

1. Install gutters
2. Continue burning brush
3. Complete baby room beam reinforcement
4. Purchase plywood (?)
5. Dump run

I don't know about that plywood purchasing. We don't have any 3/4 in stock, and that's what we really need right now. 7 sheets of it to be exact. We have some 1/2" although I'm not sure how much. That'll be pricey. We'll see - we'll definately be at the HD anyway for some additional gutter connectors.

Oh - and lumber liquidators is tempting me with a 12months same as cash no down no payments no interest offer. I'm wondering if I should just screw the world and go for it. Buy all the 3/4 aztec cherry for the downstairs. (Which is really just the babys room, hallway, and living room.) I have to take some measurements and all that first... but it's almost tax time and I could use the refund to pay it all or at least make a dent.... right?

Something else to think about. We're officially more than halfway to Feb after all....