This was basically because I was trying to cut down on the square footage of the house and I didn't want to skimp on the master bedroom/bath or the great room where we'll spend most of our time. Maybe I should have gone ahead and enlarged it, but it's going to be adequate for the two of us. When the rest of you come to visit we'll just be a little closer together in the kitchen than might be ideal, but we'll live through it!
Let's just get to a few pictures and then I'll describe a couple of problems later below. The picture below is taken from the road in front of the house. You can see the porch rafters and support posts as well as 3 windows upstairs. More on them below the picture.
As you may be able to see, the windows upstairs are close to being directly above three of the doors and windows below, but they are about a foot or so off right now. We had discussed this with Kathy Pearson before the final plans were drawn by the design people at Heritage Log Homes. We all preferred that they be aligned for strictly esthetic purposes. When we got the final drawings they had not made that adjustment. Kathy told us that was not a problem since it could be adjusted onsite by them with no problem. However, the one doing the actual onsite construction didn't get the memo from Kathy so he did what was on the plans. We discussed this today and we all agreed to move the windows upstairs so that they would be directly above three of the doors and windows that are below them on the first floor. Steve said he'd move them when they are back to work on our house again. More on that later!
Below you are looking from the driveway toward the house so that you can see the front porch being formed. It's going to be a nice place to put a swing or something some day.
The screened porch outside the master bedroom is shown below. Steve hasn't started doing the framing for the screen "windows" etc yet, but he did agree to put in a wide board (like the porch at Kathy's sister Rosie's house) at a low "table level" so that we can use it to put plates on should we want to eat out there sometime. After the picture below I'll show you a picture of her screened porch so you can see what I mean.
Below is Rosie's screened porch. You can see the way that her husband, Robert, who was the builder, built this so that it can be used to put things like plates, glasses, etc on if you need a flat surface a little wider than what would normally be there if you were just making a frame for the screen as opposed to making the frame for the screen also serve another purpose. We have always liked that. Steve said that he'd do that for us.
The image below is the roof that will cover the area outside of the dining room. It will be covered, but not (at least unless we find that we want to spend the extra money) screened in like the porch by the bedroom. You can see that the rafters are 4 x 8 inch beams and you can see the bolts that attach them to the support posts.
The view below is taken from the corner of the front porch looking toward the driveway since of the house. I can see a porch swing here someday!
Now, I mentioned a delay coming so here's the reason:
To make a long story short (and I know that all of you are saying that's not possible for me) a theft is going to cost us a delay of a few days! No, nothing was stolen from us or our job site.
We called Scott and Kathy Pearson this afternoon to ask them about moving the windows upstairs and she said she'd needed to talk with us today herself.
Saturday Steve went to the other job that he's doing which was only a few days from being completed to do a few last things. When he pulled up he found that his trailer with all his equipment (saws, nailers, compressors, etc, etc, etc) had been stolen sometime Friday night! He had about $35,000 worth of equipment in it and it was virtually everything he has. Steve even has to borrow some of Scott's tools to do other jobs and may need some of them later for our job.
The really bad news is that Scott said his insurance won't pay for it since it wasn't attached to his truck. He asked whether it would have been covered had he left his truck attached to it and left it there. The answer was no. I may have misunderstood, but I believe he was told that the only way it would have been covered was for him to have been driving with the trailer attached to his truck and then it come off or something like that. Whatever it was, basically his auto insurance wouldn't pay for it, the policy for the house under construction wouldn't pay for it, and he didn't think his own homeowner's policy would either.
So, Scott and Kathy believe that they are going to end up having to replace all the tools from their own pockets! Some of them are rare tools as tools go since they have to have larger tools (like 16 inch skill saws etc) because of the size of the logs and beams that they must cut all the time. So, that makes them more expensive and also harder to find as well.
Since Scott needs to finish the other project as soon as possible (to be able to get his final payment I guess) so he will have money to start paying for the new tools and equipment he needs to pull Steve and his crew off our house to finish the other job. They have agreed to work at the other site the rest of the week including Saturday to try to finish the other job for him. Kathy hated to ask us if that was OK, but we'd not only be cutting off our own nose to spite our face, but we also just be real jerks if we didn't agree since they're in a bind financially right now.
Steve told us by phone later this afternoon that he'd make sure that although he didn't get the windows upstairs moved today they'd do that when they return next week. Hopefully, they'll be back by Monday to our job, but I suppose that could be pushed back a day or so if it takes it to finish the other job.
We'll let you know when they get back to work!
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