House is wrapped for Christmas

The house didn't really get buttoned up before the first big storm of the year. The house is wrapped, but the roof rafters are just going up.

Joel ordered the windows this week, which is a huge part of our budget. We'll be living in a fish bowl.

View from Lantern Lane.

View from neighbor's driveway.

Lantern Lane in winter, well, late fall.

Ready to find the perfect tree in Green Mountain National Forest!

Found it!

Break time.

Second Story is On

Now the house is a big plywood box. The whole second story is framed and the attic joists are up. The roof rafters are waiting to be put up next week. We went up to the exposed attic and decided with Joel to make a finished room up there with skylights to be used as a playroom.

Left: Master bedroom looking into the nook for the bed.

Kate's big walk-in pantry.

Apartment

Living room downstairs

South side from backyard

West side

Framing progress

The framing is going up pretty fast. We now have a sense of what the rooms will feel like. The cold weather doesn't seem to have slowed down the crew at all. Maybe they have more motivation to get things buttoned up before it gets really cold.










View out of the back windows.

Pantry

Old house is gone!

This week's warm weather helped the crew get the whole top of the old house down. The chimney was saved for use with the heating system. We'll have a whole new chimney for the main wood stove in the living room.

The plywood for the first floor subfloor is being laid down now. The framing will start going up this week, and we'll get more of a picture of what the whole thing will really look like on this lot.

We stopped by on the way to the Middlebury college soccer game. We parked at the house and walked to the game. Less than 5 minutes. Even Toosh didn't mind the walk.

Picked out windows yesterday. That was a big decision as we'll have more than 50 to buy. Also went appliance shopping to size appliances so that the cabinet maker can start on the kitchen cabinets. We decided to put cabinet fronts on the fridge and dishwasher so that they will blend in with the rest of the kitchen. Still haven't decided what we want the exterior siding to be for shapes/colors.

In other news, Nathan got a haircut this week.

Demolition Progress

Demolition still progressing slowly. Here is a picture from last Friday with some insulation ripped out. Kate stopped by today and saw someone taking the windows out. Not sure if the exterior will be done by the time that the "bad" weather comes. We had snow last week and more is expected tomorrow night.

Here is a picture of South Street leading into town from the intersection with Lantern Lane.

Since we don't have much house stuff to show, here are some fall pictures.

Wicked scary!

Demolition Ready to Start

The demolition for the current house is ready to start next week. The house is cleaned out, except for a leftover piano. Here are some pictures of the current house to remember it by. You can see why it is being torn down.

Big decisions that we have to make soon are:

1. Exterior siding

2. Color of window frames

3. Location of fireplace in living room

4. Location of the carport