Week 4 - midweek

back filling holes, getting rid of dirt piles, and general site clean up...

the jack posts in the first floor wall,

along with some other tasks, like the house wrap

Made good progress on the roof this week. It's really taking shape now.

Week 3 Day 6

All Exterior walls are now complete, at the end of 3 weeks

And a look from the inside....

One interior wall is up too.

Week 3 Day 4

With the floors all done, the walls started going up on Thursday, and FAST too!

Week 3 Day 3

Wednesday, the inspector came around 2:00 PM, passed everything, and we got the go-ahead to lay the plywood on the floor! YAY!!! :)

It was really wonderful to see my husband and my dad working so well together! :)

Week 2 Day 4 to Week 3 Day 2

Got a little behind on the posts, so I'm not exactly sure which pictures go with which days...

We had more progress done on the floor contruction, which was finished by the weekend, but we could not call for the inspection until Monday.

Called the inspector on Monday, but he can't come until Wednesday, so in the meantime, the boys had to work on parts other than the floor.... So they dug holes,

poured concrete footings and posts,

back-filled the holes, and patched the concrete! Nice job! :)

Week 2 Day 3

We got rained on really bad last night... The following pictures were taken AFTER I spent over an hour on top of the house, under the tarp, around 5:00 AM, pushing pools of water over the edge!!! Needless to say, we did not have proper water run-off... Makes you appreciate a roof over your head that doesn't leak, and lets you sleep easy when it's pouring rain!

Week 2 - Day 1 & 2

Monday was Labour Day, so not much happened. Did some job-site clean-up, so we have our walkway clear again. The bin is totally FULL.

Tuesday was a run-around day for Paul, he spent a lot of time on the phone making arrangments. We have more HUGE beams arriving, the bin was picked up and weighed in at 6 TONNES!

Oh, and regarding that gigantic 8" x 8" post that our architect put to support the back corner of our second floor: After searching, Paul discovered that no-one carries any 8 x 8 fitting that attaches the post to the concrete footing... only 6 x 6. When Paul phoned our architect to ask WHY he calls for an 8 x 8, he said he thought a 6 x 6 would "LOOK TOO SMALL"!!! So it turns out Paul is going through all this trouble for ASTHETICS, and not functionallity?!?! That's crazy if you ask me...

Day 6 and 7

Day 6 and 7 only a little bit of progress happend, due to aching bodies. The floor is a little further along, and the concrete footing for one of supporting posts was poured.

Day 5

The garbage heap is growing, and the bin is nearly full already!!!

The boys having a WELL DESERVED lunch break:

A lot more progress on the floor:

Even the kitty, who was traumatized for the first 2 days, ventured up at the end of day 5 when everything was quiet, to investigate what's going on. :)

Day 4

The floor is started...

Day 3

Only a little bit to go...

Here you can see the ramp where they knocked down the chimeney!!! That was a scary thing to watch!!!
You can also see on the right, more insulation for me to deal with... (itch, itch, scratch, scratch...)

And finally, at the end of Day 3, the roof is off, our house is flat, and the tarp is on and ready for rain:

And at 3:00 AM, it POURED!!! For about ten minutes, everything seemed to be holding well, our insullation stayed dry, and we went back to bed. Then we heard dripping, went to investigate, only to find water dripping throught the living room light fixture!!! So I spent a few hours of night and early dawn up on top of the house, on my hands and knees, across ceiling joists, bailing water out of the pools on the tarp! Paul went back to sleep in preparation for another hard day's work ahead.

Day 2

This is at the end of Day 2:

We have officially started our house renovation!

The first 3 days were the demolition of our old roof. This was a brutal job for the 4 strong guys doing all the muscle work, as the roof had 3 layers of shingles on it, and each section they cut out weighed A LOT!!!

My light weight job was to stack and bag all the insullation for re-use.

Jack & Jamie Blacquier

After going into premature labour, FINDING OUT I WAS CARRYING TWINS, and being in the hospital for a week, my babies were born on June 14th, 2007. I named them Jack and Jamie, and my twin baby boys are now resting peacfully in this beautiful little urn that Paul and I picked out.

Many, Many Thanks to EVERYONE who helped us through this very difficult time. Everyone was so supportive and helpful... I could not have gotten through that without everyone's support. I was truly touched by the amount of care and understanding from all my co-workers. I've said before that UME (and now DC) are like a family -- this experience just totally solidifies that statement! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU.

Where is Mom?

Mom went missing May 28th, 2007. She has been gone for 3 months now, without a trace.