East wing taking shape

Back up a month to the beginning of February and you would see the east wing at it's foundation.  Contractor Dave had just received the almost ton worth of garage door header beams and was gearing up to install them.  I was eager to see this, since he would be raising them up by himself.  He utilized a couple of lifts, one for the smaller beam:

And three for the larger, double car header:

Well, he pulled it off!

Got a delivery of open web floor trusses in the next couple of days that he promptly installed:

One with beautiful, icy morning light:

And moving forward with the decking:

Judah, testing it out:

Very exciting!

Boy howdy, are we ready for more framing!

Be excited with us!

It's really happening!

From the other side:

And the front:

Look at those huge window openings!

Then, Dave started removing brick to get started with roof supports:

Here come the ridge beams!

More brick removal:

This was an interesting day--when Dave hoisted up the ridge beams--using lifts again:

And a little help from Gabe, since he was home sick.

Installed!  Whew.

Now to start in on the rafters:

It's getting real!

Mmmm, look at our yummy driveway:

From inside the space:

And then, we got a window delivery!

One of the boxes bottoms broken open, so I got a sneak peek:

Here they are stored in the garage space:

From the outside--the window placement looks a little haphazard at the moment--that will be less confusing soon:

The inside spine is taking shape:

Excited, goofy family!

Notice the two garage windows were installed:

Last Wednesday, Dave started sheathing the roof, as seen from the inside:

And tying into the existing roof structure:

The last bit of news will take a departure from the east wing and focus a little bit on developments on the west side.  On last Tuesday, a digger showed up to dig a trench to prepare for the underground power lines we are getting.  As you can see, the finishing of the roof depends on it:

It has been tarped over for the last month and a half, waiting for us to wade through all the red tape Dominion Power put us through. 

It was fun to watch though!

Our wonderfully torn up yard:

Hey, for a good cause, right?!  :)

Last Thursday, the utility power company showed up, without coordinating with anyone, to finish the job, switch over the power, and asked if an electrician was coming by.  I called our contractor Dave, to see what he could do last minute, and his electrician switched around an appointment and came over, in short order, so we wouldn't lose power for very long.  All told, we were without power for one hour.  Way to save the day, Dave!  Funny thing about that though, we hadn't lost power in quite some time, and then this, the day before "wind-mageddon", which knocked out our power for a solid 24 hrs!

New location of electrical box:

While we are on the subject of west wing, let me show you one of my favorite new developments--a few new windows installed!

First the master bedroom egress window:

We plan on switching all of our windows over to black exterior trim.  It's just going to be a matter of time before all the existing windows are replaced!

I love these triangular transom windows that went in!

And that's a (Tyvek) wrap, for now!

'Til next time....