How is everyone doing!!!

We are doing well.  We have been busy with our new house getting it ready for the winter but I will show pictures of that another time.  This time something different.  Jeanne and I were talking about how the winter has settled in here with snow and cold temperatures.  We also talked about the lake freezing and that I was able to walk on it the other day.  But there is still the danger of 'weak' spots in the ice so it is not totally safe yet and certainly not ready for the ice fishermen and their trucks and cars.  The day we discussed the possibility of going through the ice we did have an accident here.  Later in the afternoon, when it was getting dark already, we noticed an activity of many trucks going through our neighbour's lot and driving towards the lake.  Also around 8 pm someone knocked at the door and explained what had happened and why so many trucks were driving around here.  He had gone through the ice with his Jeep and was trying to pull it out.  These are some of the pictures Leo took of the efforts of pulling out this car.

This is the Jeep stuck in the ice

They had to put down some plywood to distribute the weight of people and later the car.

Here we are attaching the chains which were attached to winches on the trucks on land.

They also had to put some ramps down for the wheels to climb up on.

 

Here you can see how deep the water water was.

That water must have been cold!!!

Trying to get these ramps in the right place.

Here we finally have success.

Back on land and yes the car started.

I am glad ice fishing season does not start until December 11 as I hate to see more cars going through the ice.  Luckily this one went through where the water is pretty shallow so they were able to pull it out.  Who knows what they do when it goes down where the water is a few meters deep.

So this was one of our adventures last week.  Next I will post some pictures of the tree cutting process.

What about that roof!!!

It is DONE!!!  Yes believe it or not but after having 3 sets of crew trying to finish it we finally have a roof.  There are still a few minor things to be done to it but we are protected from the elements now.  Which is good as we just had a few days of snow, 15 to 20 cm of snow and cold weather on top of that minus 14 with wind at times.
So how did it all go?  Well as you know the first company totally bailed out of doing the roof and the second company sent us a crew of one good worker with a couple of helpers.  I have to say he did a good job but he could only work a couple of hours a day and on weekends only.  Slow progress of course.  Well then he decided he could not do it any longer so the company sent another crew of 2 out.  Well first they took at least half a day to figure out what the first guy had done and decided to finish it their way.  Again they only did so much of the roof and then had all kinds of excuses why they could not come to finish it.  Finally our contractor said the heck with it and asked our carpenter/framer to finish it.  We were happy as we really trust the carpenter and his work.  He decided to take of part of the roof which the second crew had done and do it all over again.  They worked hard to get the roof finished as snow was forecasted for the next day. They worked even after it got dark and they had to turn on some lights but they got it done.  The snow did come so we were very happy.  They also worked on the inside and finished the dividing walls on the top story and the passage way from old to new.  This last part did not happen in one day like they thought it would and took a total of 3 days.  Of course they had to finish lots of things.  Like installing the door and build a roof above the door.  At the same time we had the eavestroughing guys come to do the fascia and soffit for the whole house (old and new) and they also took 3 days to do this.  They are to come back in the Spring after we finish the siding on the house so they can hang the gutter.
But that was not the only thing happening.  As you read Leo had fallen down a hole in September and he did not know if he had hit his head at that time.  I guess he must have as on October 24th it looked like he had a minor stroke and his symptoms actually got worse.  On Sunday November 4 he took another fall and I took him in to emergency to have him checked out.  The doctors did a CT scan and they discovered he had bleeding on the brain causing pressure which also caused the stroke symptoms.  He was taken by ambulance to Calgary and on the Monday he had surgery.  They drilled a hole in his skull and put a tube in to drain the blood.  It worked.  I can tell you that I have never seen someone change so much in an 1 1/2 hours.
Leo was in the hospital until Wednesday and I went back home Monday night to 'supervise' the final building process.  But now Leo is home again and we can start planning on finishing the inside of the house.

But first some more pictures of the last stages of the house.

This was taken on the Wednesday just before the snow fall.  One of the carpenters had build a little landing as it was time to put in the door.  The door is leaning up against the landing next to the ladder.

Here you see Jesse working on the door and Ryan and Brian working on the eavestrough.  They had to do it all with ladders as they could not use their lift.

The snow is starting to fall and these guys just kept on working.  This is the drive way side of the house.

Again all ladder work.  Here they are working on the picture windows side of the house.

You can see the snow coming down is this picture.

This is near the end of the day on Wednesday.  Lots of snow had fallen already.

And now for the passage ways from old to new.  First the basement.

This is not the official hole.  The promised me it would be big enough for me to go through.

But I had to see what was on the other side, just could not wait.

And this is the hole after they were done with it.  I could now go from old to new without having to climb a ladder.

And now for the moment I have been waiting for since they started back in July.  The upstairs passage way.

This is Darren getting the 'wall' ready.  What he is working on is the old cabin wall which had to be cut out.  Darren is standing the the basement while I took the picture from the main floor.

These are the steps which will give us access to the new part from the old part.  You can see the hole to where they have to go.  This is also the hole Leo fell down in.  The steps to the basement are in the back.

Again the steps and Darren standing in front of the picture window trying to get cell phone access.

And now for the big moment. . . . .

Here Jesse is making sure that when they cut the hole the small pieces of cedar won't come down with it.

Before and

AFTER

This was done on Wednesday just when I had to leave to pick up Leo so I missed the actual cutting.  Which most likely was a good thing as I really did not like the idea of having the cedar wall 'damaged'.

But it is nice to have and I am sure we will really enjoy our new house once it is all finished on the inside.

I will keep you updated with the progress of the inside as we finish it.  But not as many posts as before.

Hope you enjoyed building our house with us.

And now for the roof!!!

Now that the windows are in the next thing is the roof.  As I mentioned the roof was supposed to have started on a Thursday or Friday but those roofers backed out of the deal and Jason, our contractor, had to find another company to do the work.  This was not easy as winter is coming and everybody in Alberta wants to get a new roof on before the snow flies.  At least it seems that way.  But he did find a roofer who is willing to take the job but can only do it on weekends in between his regular jobs.  It in itself is not a problem  and we were lucky that the first weekend was a long weekend so he came for the 3 days to work on the roof.  The unfortunate part was that he was all by himself with his son and another young helper so all the work, measuring and cutting, had to be done by him.  Again not a problem but for each piece of steel he had to put up he had to measure, up the ladder and stairs, and cut, down the ladder and stairs.  After cutting he had to go back up on top to install that piece of roof.  He could only do this for about 4 hours a day so he did not get a lot done this past weekend but he said he would be back coming weekend and bring a co-worker so it should go twice as fast then.  The roofer thought they would get it all done this weekend.  Let's hope.
We did have another problem occur though and that is rot in the rafters of the old house.  Our framer Darren, Jason and Leo discussed it yesterday and on Friday Darren is coming back to 'fix' our problem.  This has to be done before the roof goes on of course.  So in a way it does not matter that the roofers could only do it on the weekend.  Reason Darren is not doing it until Friday is because the forecast is for dry and sunny weather.   Right now would not be a good time as it is snowing lightly and windy.

This is the first day the roofers were here.  First they had to prepare the valleys of the roof before they could on the real roof.  Here the roofer's son is handing a piece of valley steel through the rafters for the workers on the roof.

 

Again the process of handing the piece of valley steel through the rafters seen from on top of the roof.  ( No I did not take the picture.  Leo did.  No way will I go on top of the roof.)

Again a view of preparing the valleys of the roof for the 'real' steel.

This is our roofer attaching the first piece of  'real' steel to the roof.  

This is why the roofer had to go down to cut the steel.  Too many sparks flying around and too dangerous to do that up on the second floor with all the wood and sawdust around.

The first day they also took some time sorting out the pieces of steel.  We had 2 containers, like you see here, of roof pieces in different lengths. 

And this is what it looks like after they sorted out all the pieces.

Last Friday we had some dirt delivered to do the backfill which was done yesterday.  Leo did not only want the dirt packed up against the house he also wanted pieces of Styrofoam put in to prevent the frost from coming underneath the footings.  The following pictures give you an idea on how that was done.

Yes, just a bit closer and dump it there.

Here you can see the foam sticking out at the bottom (white) while the dirt is being dumped on top.

Jason at work.  And there is always people looking on right!

This is it again for pictures.  Yes I have way more pictures of course but they are all more or less the same.  Enjoy and until next time.

Are we there yet!!!

I am sure that is what you are asking about now.  "Are we there yet!"  Getting close just the roof and some finishing touches and the building part is done.  Then comes the 'landscaping' part and that is a totally different thing.  But first some more pictures to show you the wrapping of the house and the installation of the windows.

The work crew came back on Friday to finish the upstairs picture window frame, wrap the house and install the windows.  The finishing of the window frame was not too difficult and they could do most of it from the inside of the house but wrapping and installing windows was a different story. 

Darren doing some measuring.

Here you can see how the top window frame is starting to look like the bottom window frame.

 To make their work easier they had decided to rent a lift.  But here is where the trouble started.  Before they could drive around to the other side of the building they first had to level out the dirt around it and we had Herb to this while they 'boys' worked on what they could do.  At 10 am (they started at 7 am) the lift came.  Well did we have problems.  The lift got stuck at the side of the house and had to be pulled out by Herb's bulldozer.  Even that was not the easiest thing to do.

Here you see the bulldozer pulling out the lift.

As you can tell it sunk in quite deep.  I was told that these machines are extremely heavy and have a lot of ground weight.

Here is Jason standing and keeping is his fingers and toes crossed hoping it will work.

It is working but it is also pulling the machine a bit to the left.

Success!  The bulldozer won and pulled out the lift.

So now we had to get some more gravel.  But it is Friday late morning.  Jason tried every company he could to deliver some gravel.  All of them were of course totally booked up already and the earliest would be Saturday morning.  Finally he found a company which had trucks but no drivers.  By mid afternoon he had found a driver and a load of gravel would be coming.  But now that the machine was out they could at least wrap and install the windows on the one side of the house which they did.

Darren struggling with the wrap.  But it sure is a lot easier having a lift.

All the way to the top and some more.

Looking nice boys!

Here the almost finished product and . . . a couple of windows.

Finally our gravel came so first we had to move out the lift for the truck to drive in.  What is not shown in the pictures here that the materials for our roof arrived and are scattered around our yard as well so space was at a minimum here.

Herb do your best and let's hope it is enough gravel so the lift wont sink away again.

Herb did a great job and there was enough gravel to hold the lift now so they could go to other side of the house and finish the upstairs window frame and the wrapping.

Now we can get to work and get this done.

What is that bundle of paper there?

Is someone playing hide and see?  I see a hand.

Yes there is someone under all that paper wrapping the house.

This is why they need a lift.  Wrapping is so much easier this way.  As it is it still took 3 people to get the wrap stapled down.

And now comes the hardest part of the day.  The installation of the picture windows.  It is getting mid afternoon now and they want to get all the windows installed and take the lift back that evening.  I could not just post a few pictures of the window install as you would not get the right idea on how big the windows were and how they struggled with it.  So I decided to put all the pictures (60) into a slide show.  The slide show is about 5 minutes long so get yourself some coffee or tea and enjoy.

You can see the video by clicking here 

On Saturday Jesse came back to finish installing the casement windows and finish off some odds and ends.  No pictures from this day as we had to go out.  Tomorrow or Thursday the roofers are suppose to come which I hope they do as we have had rain now for almost 2 days and everything is getting pretty wet.  But I will keep you up to date with pictures again.

Thanks for dropping by and we will see you in a couple of days.