Big Help

Pam and Derald arrived last night, and got a tour of the project site. Evan went to bed shortly after they arrived, and I left to go visit Cari, and the guys discussed the plan of action for the next day. The window frames we designed so that we can put a layer of OSB and a layer of insulation foam board on the outside. The foam will help to keep the wood from bridging the cold outside with the inside during the winter. We were going to do that later, but the guys decided that we should cover the windows with a layer of OSB wood sheathing and a layer of insulating foam now, before the bucks are in place. The sheathing can help keep the wood bucks square, and since the design is made so that the foam on the windows is flush with the foam on the wall, having the wood and foam installed beforehand will make bracing of the windows easier.

So we started the day early, and Shawn made a trip to lowes to buy the wood sheathing and the foam board. Derald was out there working on setting up shop before the birds were up. We had a good breakfast and then we were ready to roll.
Here's the view of the window from outside. On this next picture you can see my father in law screwing some 2x4 on the bottom. This is so they could lift the bucks up because they were very heavy to handle. But you can see the inside of the window frame in this picture.
Once the wall is built, the framer will cut out the hole for the windows to go in.

While Shawn was at Lowe's, Derald and I put up the rest of the braces. Once Shawn came back from Lowe's, Shawn and Derald set up the big door buck and got it braced. Derald and I went back to putting up braces, while Shawn worked on building another row of blocks on the back so he could start cutting up the window openings. Here's a picture with all of the braces up. You can see Shawn working over by the door. Kaya arrived later in the morning, and he helped me to finish setting all of the braces for the house, so that Derald could go work on the windows. We got all of the braces up with the exception of the wall where all of the windows go.

During lunch, Kaya worked on cutting out the vertical rebar for the wall, as can be evidenced by this next picture.
Brian arrived, and he helped Derald with getting the sheathing and foam on the windows. Here he is with Kaya, while Kaya enjoys a break from rebar with a nice cold glass of green tea.

In the afternoon, Shawn worked on marking window locations and cutting the openings, while I worked on finishing the gaps on the third row of the wall.

Kaya finished his task with cutting rebar, and being the slave driver that we are, we didn't even let him get a break before we assigned him to cutting, bending and installing the horizontal rebar. He did seem to enjoy this task, so I don't feel bad for working him too hard.

As soon as Shawn had an opening cut, Brian and Derald were ready with the next window so it could be installed. We overlooked the fact that we need horizontal rebar underneath each window opening, but we were lucky that we caught after the second window was installed. So there went Kaya back to the chop saw to cut rebar pieces to size for the openings. We were able to slide the rebar under the window from the side.

The guys had three windows bucks installed by the end of Saturday. Before Kaya and Brian took off for the day, we had them help us lift one of the big bedroom windows for the back bedroom, so that we could installed in on Sunday.
Cari and Blair came over for dinner and to visit Pam, who must have had the hardest job of all: keeping Evan busy all day.

I am in awe of my wonderful mother in law who managed to clean my house, cook all of the meals, and handle the Big Guy, and made it look all very easy.

Of course, the day I wanted to take lots of picture, the stupid batteries die on my camera, the back up set were not recharged, and not a single spare AA in the whole house! So I did take a couple of pictures with my mother in law's camera. I'll post those when she has a chance to e-mail them to us.

We were very tuckered by the end of the day on Saturday. I don't think Kaya and Brian will be offering their help anytime soon!