Edward's Donut

New old barn in orchards surrounded by golden corn,fall leaves, and deep blue skies.
Pumpkins and mums distract but they are not the feature.
Crystaline sugar makes for sticky fingers.
Crunchy crust, cake almost falls apart but never does.
Matronly clerk always cautions,almost scolds, "leave the bag open,they'd hot"
At home I explain that the laws of supply and demand along with a bad economy make a baker's dozen mean ten.

Some Attic photos as it progresses

The Master Bathroom.
Loft Area, the new dormer seen in a previous post.
The masterbedroom. Cieling looks low because door is so tall but room is spacious 8ft.

Some Open House Scenes

A few of my favorite photos taken at the open house.

What happened to the attic?

Sometimes things do change. The attic project has dragged on for fifteen months. Sometimes it has moved along and at a couple points I threw my hands up in disgust in private and said I quit. At one time I'd thought we could be done by the 4th of July which came and went. After spending what seemed like every spare minute up there and feeling helpless I would get very frustrated.

Occasionally a brother would come by and help and a small burst of progress would occur. The long and the short of it was I needed someone to help me lift and shlep drywall. I couldn't manhandle 4 by 8 and 4 by 10, not to mention 4 by 12 5/8th thick drywall by myself.

When I had to rip out the tile floor that my mother and I had layed in the bathroom because of mistakes I had made I went into a depressive tail spin. I shut the door on the attic and walked away pretending it did not exist.

Then my nephew introduced me to a friend of his and I had an employee to help me on Saturdays. My new friend Dave and I got most of the drywall up and began taping. My friend Steve also came by and did some mudding too. Things were looking better and hope returned.

A few weekends ago I went up to see my Amish door maker fearing the doors would have been done long ago. They were not but my visit appears to have spurred him on as he has called two or three times with clarifying questions regarding trim work. So I began to worry that I was going to need to find a place to store the doors until things were ready to go in.

Last Wednesday after two previous false starts my brother and two of his crew came up to help out. The two crew have put in two long days and I have been retired to role of onlooker and contractor. It is easier and suits me well. The crew have drywalled the attic crevices far better than I would have and used up much of the scrap. A layer of mud or plaster has been applied almost everywhere.

The space is looking like rooms and the attic is disappearing. We are shopping for paint and flooring tomorrow.

Hurry up and wait is contagious

February is flying by and life continues to be busy. The attic project is stalled sort of. We are ready to drywall--except duct work needs to be run before it goes up. So it is kind of hurry up and wait. it took a while to get the recommended guy in town over then his quote was late. All that makes me a bit uneasy. In any case We said make it so. I have wired everything that I can except for putting in the fire alarm boxes and two plugs.

They aren't done simply because of laziness. The logic goes, "Well the furnace and air handling system isn't in so there is no rush as once I call the brothers to drywall it is going to take awhile to get on the radar." Brian called and said he would bring a couple of his workers an tools. I suspect that we will be able to finish hanging the dry wall in the weekend. Might even get the tape up if enough relatives show up.

Motivation is further dampened by the fact that it is hurry up and wait on the quote for replacement windows in what will be the master bedroom. I thought these might be difficulty to get as I want to preserve the small triangle pattern in the look. We may also be seeing our first somewhat unforeseen/unplanned increase in scope as the window guy said something like, "I could get you a quote on opening casements to replace those rotting fixed windows." And someone else said, "Ooh cross ventilation. I love it! Lets check it out."

Claire on the other hand has already redecorated and furnished the place in her head. In fact she may already be renovating the renovation.

Construction Photos

So this is the South end of the attic. The second photo shows the project after two days of work has been completed by the crew.

This is the view out the new window opening

Raising the Roof

When we were looking at houses almost nine years ago we looked at two in the neighborhood. I liked the Victorian behind us and my wife liked the bungalow in which we live. I was convinced to accept the bungalow by the walk up attic which I envisioned containing a Master bedroom suite and a spare room/storage.

My wife and I both liked the three dormers on the house and felt an additional one coming off the back of the house would open up, lighten and, provide ventilation to the area. Unfortunately, the three existing dormers had rafters running through the middle of the dormered area.

So after almost eight years and a couple false starts we have started work on my dream. We have hired contractor to raise the rafter cross ties , correct structural flaws, and add the fourth dormer.

The new dormer is now built and roofed. The window goes in tomorrow and siding will start to go up. We went with cedar beveled on the corners to match the other dormers although vinyl might have been lower maintenance.

At this point it looks like I will be using a contractor to get to the point where I can take over doing the work. This project beget a number of other projects when I began laying out the action plan working backwards and reads a bit like the fortunately unfortunately book.

Fortunately I can undertake this project but unfortunately I need structural changes. Fortunately these are doable but unfortunately the chimney is falling apart and must be dealt with, fortunately this means additional space and a conduit for utilities. Unfortunately this means rerouting and replacing the gas water heater. Fortunately my wife wants one of those new fangled on demand hot water heaters which unfortunately are expensive and require rerouting gas and water. Fortunately there is a perfect place for these which will give me more room in the workshop, unfortunately this means removing a concrete cistern with a solid six inch concrete wall and two inch thick concrete roof. Fortunately this will give me access to the basement bathroom supply lines should I need it and the plumbing route for a future master bathroom.

Hey! Aren't we supposed to be working on the attic?

With some luck we can get this work done in time to have foam insulation sprayed in before the winter. I'd like to be in a position to begin erecting walls and drywalling some areas this winter if my money holds out.

I will try and post pictures tomorrow.