Ladder Work and Summer

The second story housewrap took some ladder work. I'm glad that someone in this family can take heights as well as my husband can! His assistant was such a help: he's the kind that reads the fine print on the side of the ladder while he's holding it for you, and tells you about all the rules that are being violated at that moment. Well at least someone in the family reads fine print. 

 

 I want you to note the beautiful blue sky in the background. Seems like a perfect day to be doing exterior work, eh? This photo was taken on the same June day as the one below.

It was the first day of summer, confirmed by one of the local signs that summer has truly arrived: smoke rollin' in. 

Kid Power

 

It was discovered that people that had attained a certain height were very capable of putting the new house wrap on. 

Yet another thing that could be done in the day time, during Dad's working hours. 

There's always that youngest one who gets all ready, and then gets left out.

Thanks to a kind and patient older brother, he was able to at least learn something about house construction!

Ooh that feels interesting, and squeaky.

He wanted to try and lift siding, too... sometimes it is hard to get babies to let go!

Another evening shot... can you find the builder?

Siding up!

That was fast, wasn't it? Sorry the light is so dim in this photo (remember a lot of this happened in the evenings after an hour commute home from work), but what you are seeing on the second floor is siding!

It sure did look like a local-dirt-beige, but when we put some white with it, it wasn't too ugly. 

With the InSoFast being so sensitive to sunlight, it was decided to put sections of it up and then put siding over it ASAP. So instead of the amusing prospect of getting to see our house looking like a giant stryrofoam box, we had to content ourselves with glimpses of what might have been. 

Exterior Insulation Install

 

In order to put the InSoFast up in a hurry (because we were always in more of a hurry than normal people), the boys pre-started the screws, "in the comfort of their own home." 

Doesn't that sound nice? Well, it had to be done indoors because this stuff isn't supposed to be exposed to sunshine for long. 

The InSoFast has composite "studs" inside, and the screws went into those....

...and then into the house. 

Later, the siding would be put into the composite as well, so the siding is not directly nailed to the house.

This isn't a photo of the siding being lifted by a crane or anything. They are trying to get the lightweight panel in and that safety rope is hanging in front. As much as I begged everyone to use the safety rope, they hardly ever attached it and constantly told me it was "in the way."

Homemade Scaffolding

 (Does that title make you nervous?)

With the boxes of InSoFast baking in the back yard (remember, we did not build a garage/shop first), time was of the essence and there had to be a way to quickly get things up on the back of the house. There were several things that made it difficult to move the metal scaffolding all along the cut in back, so my husband had to improvise. 

Looks kinda narrow, doesn't it?

As iffy as that looks, it did hold up rather well. I hated watching anyone walking on it though.

In the meantime, the crafting went on in safe places.

Clouds

As we built this house on the hill, it became apparent that we had a really amazing site for watching the weather roll in. 

The clouds always seem so close here. 

We enjoyed a pause from work to watch rain storms sweep across the valley. 

We get a lot of our weather from the west. Leftover maritime weather I guess!

Sometimes when I am talking to my folks back in the Willamette Valley, they will mention "oh a storm has come in," and in about four hours we can see dark clouds coming from the west.

 Funny thing, though: from the satellite weather maps it is often seen that there is a sort of dry circle right over our immediate area, so sometimes the rain goes around us and we won't get the deluge we see coming. It is especially annoying to the children in the wintertime, who sometimes see it snowing over there when they want it here. 

Siding Color Reveal

We finally made a siding choice. 

 Although we liked farmhouse-y white, we didn't want white because it would "stick out" too much and we were already prominent on top of the hill.  Red would make us look like a barn. I liked a creamy yellow but my husband didn't. The HOA rules were to choose a house color that would blend in with the surroundings; a lot of the neighborhood has opted for browns, greens, blues or beige. We didn't care for green or brown. Blues are too hard to get right and tend to fade fast around here. My husband works with a lot of beige all day in his profession, and we both agreed: NO BEIGE.

Our last option seemed to be gray, but we could not agree about the shade: one preferred light dove gray and one preferred dark grey. 

One day my husband called on his work break: we had to make the siding color decision because the order had to go in that day! We had to decide about gray! But in half an hour we had changed our minds.

We went with a color called "sailcloth."

Which is basically beige. 

The truck delivered the siding on a gray rainy day. 

We aced the "blending into the surroundings" bit!

I was sure that we had been subliminally influenced by the dirt. 

As with all major decisions, we were worried we had made the wrong one. When we saw it in person we were all rather disappointed. One of our kids said it reminded him of an "Airplane hangar metal building."  I renamed it "vanilla pudding" to make myself feel better. 

The funny thing is-- that once it was off the ground (reflecting the blue sky) and on the house (in shadow), it changed to a pretty creamy light yellow...just the color I wanted!

A little random today

A little bit of contrast for you....

The boys were getting faster at moving scaffolding, taking it down, or putting it up

When you build a house with your family, you will find many, many, things that you disagree with each other about. Large things, small things, design things... we were warned by others that it could be hard on us to build a house together.

 I'm so glad we have the same taste in side-door-stoop roofs though. 

Isn't it pretty??.