Cottage day 29

Good afternoon.

The crew from Blitz finished on Thursday about noon. They cleaned up the area and left without much ado.

Since they have left, it has rained multiple times here (Thank God), and we have found that the roof leaks on the new house just where the main roof  joins the porch roof. We have found that it was poorly constructed and that the transition piece, which is sheet-metal, does not go far enough up the roof to prevent the swirl in a heavy downpour. The construction manager is due to return this week and make the necessary repairs to stop the leak.

Since the walls are up on exterior of the building. It appears to be much larger than it did before. There are some boundaries to your perspective as the walls are up.The house seems quite large inside.

Mike and I have put up all the interior walls and the house still looks large. There are now some defined spaces and each room is larger than we had expected. The only exception is the office, which has the closet for the second bedroom within it. If we ever decide to turn the office into a third bedroom,  a door can be added to the closet and the closet can be divided in half.

We are pleased with the progress that has been made in this last week. Although it has been raining, we expect the concrete for the front porch to be poured before the weekend. We have not seen our concrete guy since last Friday, but there's no rain in the forecast for tomorrow or Friday and we expect that he will pour the porch on Friday.

We still have to add the exterior walls, and the straight walls without any windows should be easy. It's going to be quite challenging to frame and build walls around the windows and door.

There is a new addition to Dove Creek Farm and Stable, and she is gorgeous.
Her name is  Pecadora. She is a five-year-old mare with some of the markings of Chico. Her mane and tail are completely blonde. And she is a sweetheart.

Pecadora in Braids

Mike and Barb  could not leave one horse left by him or herself while they took the other two out riding. As you may know, horses are herd animals and  they do not like to be left alone. They will become so anxious while the others are missing that they may hurt themselves and even kill themselves. Pecadora is the  answer to that problem.
It is so funny, to see them establish hierarchy within the herd. Fiesta has made it abundantly clear that she is alpha female, and Chico is the alpha male and leader of the herd. She is the enforcer of that hierarchy.

Tata for now.

Cottage: day 21

The crew arrived about 6:30am yesterday morning. They began work on the roof installing sheet metal. They were waiting for the construction manager to get here from Kentucky, so he can instruct him on the hip roof for the porch. He called around noon, stating he was just leaving their storage yard, after picking up ridge vents for the barn.  The ridge vents were supposed to be there but didn't get delivered to the yard until 11:30. The yard is in central Kentucky.
The foreman of the crew could not wait for Doug to arrive, so he decided he could figure the roof out himself, which he did. The porch is all framed and they started installing the sheet metal on the front of the cottage.

We found out yesterday, that the house was not supposed to be wrapped in the insulation, but somebody loaded it on the truck and  delivered it. Since it was here it was decided that it was to be put on at no charge us. Judging from the thickness of this wrap, we assumed it was R1 or R2, but it turned out to be and R7. With the house wrap, in combination with a R 19 insulation that we are putting in the walls, Mike told me, that he was probably going to go with R 40 in the ceiling. With that much insulation. We hope the utility bills will be reasonable in summer and winter.

some of the crew

ridge vents in garage

wainscoting sheet metal

The guys on the crew had their bags packed and on the back of the truck. They didn't say so, but it appeared that they were hoping to finish yesterday and move on to their next job. One of the guys told me that a job this size usually only takes two days. They get paid by the job. So they are losing money on this one, still, they're doing a first-rate job.

They left last night about 6:30 or quarter to seven, so they put in a long day in temperatures in the 90s and high humidity. I expect that they will finish today and be gone as early as they can manage to get out of here.

Tata for now.

Siding

The crew from Blitz came today and immediately started putting up the siding on the cottage. They work quickly, and got three sides, and all of the Windows and front door installed before they quit for the day.

Doug, the construction manager, is due tomorrow and he will help the foreman with the framing of the porch. They are due to move the porch posts out about a foot and the framing will begin from there. It is unbelievable to me that they can work on these freshly installed posts without moving them around too much. But they did it with the other posts and everything is fine.

As you can see, they're putting insulation underneath the sheet metal. It serves two purposes. One, it stops sweating of the sheet metal and 2, ads about R1 or R2 insulation factor. This will surely help with the utility bills on this building.

I don't believe they will side the front until the porch roof  framing is done. Then they will start doing the roof and the cupola.
They have installed the soffit vents and there will be ridge vents along the entire ridge of the building. This will help the attic breathe and help keep the attic cooler during the summertime. The porch is supposed to be completely vented and this will also help keep the attic cooler in the summer time and dryer in the wintertime. We are pleased with the progress they made today.

On a sad note, Mike and Barbara lost her second cat in two weeks. Both kitties were from the same litter and she had had them in her family for the last 15 or 16 years. It is difficult to lose a beloved pet, as we will know. We have all lost a pet at one time or another. There is one more kitty from the same litter, and we hope nothing happens to him in the foreseeable future.

As I've said before, I will keep you informed as progress on the house continues.

Tata for now.

yea!!!! concrete

Monday the termite guy came and sprayed all around where the concrete slab is going to be. Our concrete guy, came back and placed the vapor barrier, wire, and finished forming the garage. By one o'clock Monday afternoon. We had been inspected and we were ready to pour the concrete on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning at five o'clock Mike and I went over to the house and Duck, the concrete guy, was already there with his crew. At 5:35am. The first concrete truck showed up and began the pour using a powered Georgia buggy. By noon, all the concrete was poured and the troweling was well in progress. These guys really knew what they were doing as a slab turned out really, really nice.

Mike and the AC pad

Mike wet down the slab last night and I wet it down again this morning. We don't want the concrete to dry too quickly as it will crack. There are some low spots but nothing that can't be filled with a little thin set and/or padding for the carpet.

The crew from Blitz is scheduled to return tomorrow morning and continue on the frame of the cottage. They will move the posts out about a foot for the porch and frame the porch. We expect that they will be completely done with this project, for their part, by Saturday. This crew work 12 hour days and work so well together that we expect they will be done by Saturday evening. The project manager is expected to be here sometime during this period to follow up.

While the Blitz group is here, they're going to do modifications to the barn. They are adding 4 skylights and  ridge vents and also fixing all of the leaks in the roof. Blitz doesn't advertise this, but they offer lifetime warranties on all of their buildings.

It surely is hot here. 80° at eight o'clock. I went over to the barn and clean the stalls. Then weeded around the fence line of both the East and West pastures. I wasn't sure if electric fence was working but I accidentally touched the ground wire and one of the hot wires and I felt a sharp tingle. It's workingggggg.

Tata for now.

House moves on.....slowly

Things have slowed down with the house since the middle of last week. It seems that the framing crew for the house can't seem to figure out the angle of the porch roof.
The crew also doesn't seem to be working off of the plans that were drawn, and so the porch is also a foot narrower than it should be. The construction manager from Blitz came down on Tuesday and told us that the porch would be fixed.

The plumbers arrived on Monday but were surprised to find the house was up. They came prepared to do the rough in plumbing with the trackhoe. They refused to hand dig for the rough-in, so they just left for the day.
Mike called plumbing company and was told that a crew would be sent out Tuesday to hand dig and do the rough in plumbing. That part is done and inspected and we are ready for the concrete guy to come back and fill in the plumbing trenches get ready to pour the concrete.
We had planned to pour concrete early this week, but with the plumbing delay and the holiday we now plan to pour concrete on Tuesday morning. Hopefully by the end of the week, the Blitz construction crew will be back to finish the shell.
We have the windows and doors on site and they will be installed by the construction crew.
When all of that is done Mike and I can start the framing on the inside.

Rough in plumbing completed

Brenda has now finally found a part-time job. It will surely help and give her something to do. She will be working for Scrubtastic, and as the name implies, she will be selling scrubs. Her initial schedule for the month of July is for 15 hours a week. She said the young man that hired her was really impressed with her, especially since she made the effort to come back as a follow-up.

Brenda went to the Bartlett fireworks show last night and met some family and friends from church. I didn't go because I had worked all day yesterday and was too tired. I was in bed before 8:30 PM.
If the show was as good as it was last year. I'm sure she had a good time.

I will continue to keep you informed as the house and Brenda's job progresses.

Tata for now.