Snow, snow, and more snow!

It was a doozy of a snowstorm!  Caleb and Eliza had two days off from school, many pine boughs came down under heavy snow, and two days of work were lost on the house; but as of today, things are mostly back to normal.  We just have a lot of snow...and it's beautiful. 



On Wednesday, we woke up to a blizzard!
This is the door to our basement apartment.



Looking out from the brick arches to Field House
(Scout in the foreground)...



A snow day for everyone (except Scott)!



Looking down the lane (Scout in foreground)...



Family room under snow...



Mother Nature's pruning job...ouch!



Thursday: after Carl and Chris dug us out!

Friday: supplies for the mudroom floor...



Mike measuring and cutting up insulation...Ger fitting it into
the new floor on top of the concrete slab.



Corner of the new mudroom floor...covered with a tarp
for the weekend.



The finished dormer on the new family room.





The dormer from the inside...



Caleb's update 1/12/11

Hello everyone sorry it's been so long since I have done an update but now I’m getting back into it. It’s a snow day for all the schools in Milton and Boston. This update is not going to be about the construction project but it's going to be about the wildlife that we feed right outside the kitchen window. Here are some pictures I took of the birds.

 a hungry black capped chickadee visits the feeder.

 two juncos scouting out from below.

 a blue jay having his turn.

a cardinal waiting patiently. 

a black capped chickadee waiting for his turn.

 a cooper's hawk pays a visit for a snack that's real "bird" food

but birds aren't the only wildlife that roam close by.

this black mangy mutt sticks close to the house.

Family Room is Framed (1/9/11)

Hello out there.  Although we got some snow this weekend (only a couple of inches) this past week was a wonderful week for framing a family room.  And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened here on the farm as you'll see from the pictures below.  The walls are all up, the headers are in and supported, the rafters are in and the roof is on, inlcuding a full covering of ice and water shield (love that stuff).  Mike and his crew are going to finish up on the inside of the family room while also shifting gears to the mudroom which will be just to the side of the F.R..  The foundation has been poured for that and because we're not talking about a large square footage that should go reasonably quickly.  Michael Wang will be here today to measure up what will be the kids' bathroom so he can put a plan in place for that and he'll also be finalizing plans for the kitchen--Laura is MIGHTY excited about that discussion (picking cabinets etc etc).  Dermot, the electrician, spent an hour and a half in the house Saturday counting outlets, checking switches, asking about recessed and surface lighting, etc...the wiring will be a big project!

Life on the farm is otherwise moving along.  Laura ran into the person who is trying to manage our deer population (bow only!) earlier this week and he reported having taken out a mangy coyote that we've been worried about.  We've seen this guy around more and more of late and have been concerned about his or her increasingly brazen behavior--the departure is welcomed news.  Caleb is in the process of finishing up his last school application and Eliza is 2/3rds of the way thru the many Bat Mitzvahs she has with her classmates this year. 



Friday afternoon -- getting that ice and water shield on!



Saturday - under a dusting of snow...

Work continues on the addition... 1-4-11

Clear skies, lots of progress on the framing of the new family room...



Family room starts to take shape...



The two hallway windows across from Grandma's bedroom
were taken out to be replaced by shorter windows.  They need
to be shorter to make room for a new mudroom roof below.




A crane to bring in the large rafters...

Backyard or lumberyard?

Making so much progress!





And one day later!



Caleb has found this framing project very interesting...plus he
loves heights (that's him clambering over a rafter).



This is an old foundation to a small porch off the kitchen. 
It was in disrepair, so was torn down.  It will be rebuilt as
a year-round mudroom and will become the family's casual
entrance to the house.  That yellow door leads into the kitchen...

How we spent our holiday:  reading by the fire!  Note
the three cats in the window behind Caleb.



We're home from Vermont

Happy New Year, everyone.  We're just back home from 2 weeks in Vermont (well, two weeks for Laura and kids while the old man slogged away for another week at work) to find the framing well under way on the family room.  The floor is all down, the side walls are up and the roof framing is going in now.  They've made great progress with a foot of snow thrown into that mix somewhere, some colder weather than normal and the HOLIDAYS as well (hope yours were great).  So here's what things look like now:

Here's what things looked like 3 weeks ago, below is what they look like now.

The wall on the side towards the carport with roofing starting.

Here is what the computer rendering of the framing will look like.

The view from the back of the house.  The three openings in the middle
windows and there will be doors on either side.

The view from the side looking back towards the carport.

The floor, as you can see, is down.  We just ordered a new Vermont Castings
woodstove which will go in diagonally across from where this picture was
taken (just to the right of the right hand window on the far wall).  That, and
the radiant floor heating, will make it mighty cozy!

This is what the old floor looked like before coming out 3 weeks ago.

The roof is just going in now, more to follow on that tomorrow.

The snow is melting but as it was 50 degrees today it made for a
foggy experience/look/feel.

We also came home to find our driveway BADLY misplowed
so Macker came to the rescue.  Two hours later, the driveway
was restored to its proper course (Thank you Macker, and Scott).

Pre Christmas quick update

I stayed around this morning later than normal to get a couple shots of the floor joists going in and the general look of the outside of the house.  Mike and his team have built a cover and they've mostly been working under it, although they have one guy outside taking out all the old brick work from the old stone patio.  The debris from that is being put aside since we pay by weight in the dumpster and we can use the fill around the house when we start the landscaping (2012, 2013, 2014????).  When i got home tonight the floor joist were in and the flooring is going on (cant get pics cause it's too dark in there).  All is good.  Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!

Its dark as its 6:45 but here is the look of the laundry room and the old
bedroom which was down there.

Terrible photo but shows the floor joists going in.

Brick patio all gone and the tent structure Mike's team built.

The dumpsters with the load of wood being used in the
framing process.