weekends not riding my bike

the long drawn out saga of our house renovations continued this weekend with some actual progress being made. i've attached some pictures as well as a mock-up of what we hope the house will look like when we finish (laura hopes this will be sometime before we retire). i used a cool little program called google sketchup do the mock ups; it is free download and you can do some neat things with it.

removing the stucco took place in spring and we've lived in a tar paper shack since then.

the north wall stucco removal

removing the tar paper so we can start building up the walls. the plan is to put is to add 2" of insulation to the exterior and then cover this with hardie board (see diagram at the bottom).

the new window

tyvek - apparently it works better if you put it on upside down

mock-up of the back of the house. the hardie board siding will be cut into 3' X 8' sheets with the cut offs being used for the gable end. we hope to put a metal roof on - maybe in spring.

front view