New roof almost done!

Things are moving along! We've been blessed by great weather -- where else could you reroof your house in February? Well, Australia, maybe.

Last week they tore off the old roof shingles, and put plywood sheeting over the entire house (to replace the old skip sheeting). Unfortunately, one of the old boards was rotten and the roofer put his foot through the master bathroom ceiling. Fortunately he didn't hurt himself! (I was kind of hoping that he'd done it in the guest bathroom upstairs, which we don't care about, but unfortunately it was in our already-remodeled master bedroom. Our contractor assures us they'll be able to patch it and fix it as though nothing had happened. Maybe we'll get them to fix all the nail pops while they're in there!)

By Wednesday evening, they'd completely papered the entire roof, with the new shingles perched atop. Regulations require that the chimney be higher, so they're going to add some rebar and brick to extend the chimney before putting on the shingles. All the gutters have now been replaced, and don't they look nice?

Inside they've finished cutting and nailing all the shear walls, so the framing is now done. I think. They'll remove the shear walls (plywood) as needed to put in the electrical and any additional plumbing, then they'll nail them back up. The rough plumbing for both the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom is in, and we're working on getting a gas line strung out to the upstairs deck for a BBQ. Unfortunately, we can't do a wall-mounted outdoor heater, as there is not enough space to hang it. So we'll have to figure out some alternate plan.

Yesterday, we went to the house to find Ed, our foreman, working away, finishing all the final work necessary for the windows. The windows will get installed next week, and at that point, the house will be completely watertight and secure. Once the house is watertight, the HVAC folks and the electrical guys (the electrician plus the security system and home audio/video/server installers) will be able to install all their pieces. It's looking to me like they should be able to start the finish work in mid March at the rate things are going.

Meanwhile, back at the scraper, our water heater sprung a leak on Wednesday evening. Fortunately we were around when it happened so we could turn off the water to the heater. We've been trying to work around as many problems with this house as we can, since I hate to waste money (even other peoples' money), but it's impossible to work around a broken water heater. One needs hot water. Our landlord was able to locate a used water heater from another property and had it installed the next day, so we're all set for now. Based on our discussions, it looks like we're guaranteed to still be in this place until the beginning of May (at the earliest), so I'm quite relieved. I'm fairly certain I can convince the city to let us move back in at that point, even if there is still stuff to be done, which there will be. (Like the kitchen, for example.)

So... that brings us up to date! We are getting a big tax refund which will help defray some of the many many ever-increasing costs of this remodel.