All that I wanted for my Labor Day present was to have siding and a roof. We didn’t make it, but it looks like a Columbus Day present may be achievable. This past weekend we prepared for Kevin’s mighty siding crew to be on site on Tuesday, 4 Sept 2007. We had some tasks that were necessary to complete before they could do the siding. Friday was a pretty yucky day for Pop as Van Nuys Plywood (location : Chatsworth) tried to hide the siding order (all 13,000 pounds of it) behind many pallets of other materials. Then, after confirming with Pop that our last window was available for pickup from WillCall, Milgard (location: Simi) delivered said window to Van Nuys Plywood. When Pop arrived at Milgard WillCall, there was great confusion as to where the window was. It was finally decided that the window could be special delivered to our house on Sunday morning. Pop arrived on site at about 3p and Mark and Linda and Pop and I unloaded about 1/2 of the siding (7,000 pounds). On Saturday, we spent much too long working on an ugly job under the house. Thanks to Auntie Kelly and Uncle Ray for taking Max and Lucy to the beach while Toby was doing a wedding and Pop and I were under the house. We finished up under the house at about 9 pm. Ugh! Sunday, we continued our list of pre-siding projects and waited for the Milgard window to show up, and waited and waited. Pop had decided to go home at 3:30p when a lady showed up with our window. It turns out that ‘Sunday morning’ meant 6a. She had stopped by but didn’t want to wake anyone. She was now on her way home. The important thing is that it was delivered. So Pop decided to stay a little longer to install this last window. While he was getting the tools together to install the window, I worked on pulling out the old window. I was a bit too aggressive with the last nail and the window shattered. All over the desks of the office. Toby was not happy.

Toby is not happy to be looking through a broken window

After we cleaned up the glass, the existing opening was about 1/4 inch smaller than the new window. We had to break out the plane and the chisel to squeeze this window in. Pop left at about 7p. Monday I cleaned up the front yard. Tuesday, Kevin and his mighty crew showed up and began to work on the siding. Yay!

East side of the new office
Pop doesn’t like it when the Tyvek is insalled up-side down

In the below picture, you can see the fantastic work that Granpa Seal did with the vents. It was a crazy ugly job because the floor joist and anchor bolts all seemed to show up right where we wanted to have a vent. It was a lot of work in the kneeling position. Thank you Granpa.

Looking down the west wall
You can see the first course of siding at the bottom of the picture. Look close.

Bay window with trim board

Soffetting under the trim board

Had a pretty intense cloudburst for about 2 minutes. The rain on the plywood roof is really loud. Not enough to leak, so far.

Looking back through the posts of the blog, I came across these two pictures. December 1, 2005 Artists rendition from the architect Actual view

Previously, I posted this picture of Max and me in the hole I dug for the sewer line work.

I thought that the line was going to be burst in place and there would be no extra digging required. Boy, was I wrong. Below is the picture of what I came home to on Monday evening.

Monday Night

By Tuesday the company had completed the work and refilled in the trench (mostly). They left a very tall stand pipe for me to cut down to size.

Tuesday Night

The kids and I spent some time listening to the water flow through the pipe. One would run in the house and flush the toilet and then run outside to listen. Then we discovered that we could look into the pipe with a flashlight. Tomorrow night, we will *watch* the contents of a toilet flush move through the sewer line. I bet you all can’t wait for the pictures from that adventure!!