front deck

It's amazing what Matt can accomplish in an afternoon! He had a meeting in the morning, but then got home, ate lunch, and got right to work. He started with pulling up the scrap OSB we'd been using all winter as our temporary surface.

Before I left for the afternoon, he'd gotten the perimeter board installed, and had started a few deck boards.

Looking out the new kitchen window...progress is being made.

And when I got home, he'd gotten it all the way across the door, so it's fully functional! The rest will wait a bit as we're getting a removeable grate for part of it, and we haven't even ordered that yet.

 Went inside and found a surprise...Krassimir was ASLEEP on the chair in the dining room! (He loves to climb up with a few toys and sit up there in the afternoons.) But that boy NEVER naps! Still not sure what was up...he's not sick, nothing out of the ordinary in his schedule...must have just been the lovely sunshine shining down on him. :)

Still something sweet about a sleeping baby, even if your "baby" is getting close to 21 years old! 😍

Soffit!

 The weather is getting pretty decent here in Minnesota, and Matt and I got a chance to go out (between a public health nurse meeting and a client meeting!) and start putting up the soffit material on the overhang over the new main entry!

I am very useful as the holding end on the second ladder.

Once we got to the shorter pieces, Matt's all good on his own.

And by the time supper rolled around, he'd gotten the last board up. One small part done.

Leah's track meet

Leah's running on the track team this year (as a senior, having never done it before, but close to 70% of the senior class decided to join track to get one last hurrah together!) and it just happened that the one meet closest to our house also happened to be the most gorgeous day, so we *all* went. (Even Owen showed up at the beginning and overlapped with some of us, though had to leave before Leah ran.)

Krassi does NOT look thrilled at this moment, but in general he was having a pretty good time and enjoyed the cheering. Mira is next to him, shaded from the sun by the bag we have her suction machine in. Bobbi was there only because Matt had to run mid-way to pick her up from work, but she stayed in the van...

Leah's by no means a track star, but she did run a personal best in the 800 meter with us all there cheering her on! 

Getting the whole crew out for any event is daunting, but days like this make it so worth while, and I know it means a lot to Leah to have the whole family there. :)

Easter afternoon

 While Krassimir's favorite place to spend his time is the floor, it did make me laugh to see 50 % of the children all laying on the living room floor Easter afternoon! Leah's napping, Rinnah's dozing, Gloria's reading a book, and Ebs just thinks he might as well join the pile!

Rinnah and Mira

 Rinnah's preferred location for practicing her cello is right next to Mira's bed. Yes, Mira's deaf, but those deep, rich tones are produced by a deep, rich vibration, and her hope is that Mira can *feel* the music.

Another big framing week!

It's a new week and big stuff is happening! This is from the back of the house (you can see a bit of the bathroom addition on the far right of the photo), and what you're seeing in the center of the photo is the corner where the ramp will come up and into the mudroom. Matt and Korey are working away...

Three guys lifting up one of the larger glu-lam beams - you're looking back into the NW corner where the ramp will be built. That's a big beam, but not nearly as big as...

...this one. This is the biggest one of all - four layers deep to be lifted up one by one and then lag-bolted together to function as one single beam running front to back across the whole garage to carry the section of the floor and roof load of the attic space. I think in this picture they're strategizing how this is going to work. 

And this was my favorite single moment of the whole project - watching those four men lift those huge beams up one by one and tuck them into place - barn-raising at its finest! No machinery involved - just some brains and a lot of muscle!

I have a video of it, too, which is even better, but I can't remember where I put it!!! If I ever locate it (and can remember how to upload videos) I will share it. Those are BIG beams.

There's Krassimir! Must be about 2:30! With all four layers of the big beam up and bolted together, floor trusses for the attic storage space are getting set into place.

Eben is supervising as Kelley secures the hangers. I used to teach Sunday School for Kelley and his younger sister. And now he's building my garage. So good.

Now Eben is supervising Gavin as he cuts something to length. 

Smaller garage door is framed in to the right of the larger one (the larger one will still get shortened a little bit, but not much, because Thunder is BIG!)

And a view from the back (NE) corner as the rim gets attached to the ends of the attic floor joists. (One other guy on the crew now - *not* someone we know, but someone who grew up with Korey and Kelley.)

And on the weekend, the new space turned out to be a great space for the kids and their friends to play soccer!!!

Here's Evania and Gloria enjoying the window that will be over the ramp in the NW corner.

Overall, a VERY successful week!!

Now comes the fun part!

 Framing is always the best part of any project, because you go from "nothing" to being able to see the whole thing in real three-dimensional space in such a short amount of time!

One of the highlights of this project was having this crew working here with us. The owner has attended our church for as long as Matt can remember, and his two sons do most of the work, along with a few other guys. Not only are they part of our church, but they're also distantly related, so Korey and Kelley both have memories of coming to our house with their mom when they were little to visit Matt's grandpa! (I think I've mentioned before how Matt and I moved in with his grandpa when we were first married, and purchased the house from his estate a few years after he passed away. It's neat living on property that's been in Matt's family since 1908!) Anyway, it just felt so *wholesome* every day to have this particular crew being the ones to build this project - much less like we'd hired someone and more like a good old-fashioned barn raising! Korey's kids also just happen to be our little girls' best friends.

Bright and early Monday morning, Korey showed up to get things started. Matt's planning on working with the crew as much as possible, partly because he enjoys framing, but also because the more hours he puts in the fewer we have to pay someone else to do!

Floor framing done and subfloor installed! Fun routine with Krassi - every day getting off the bus we would wheel over and give him a chance to see what was going on. 

Next is walls!! Here's the wall with our new main entry door.

As the work progresses, more help arrives. Today Gavin (who's also grown up in our church - in between Owen and Leah's age - he's also spent time at our house over the years shooting Nerf guns in the basement at Owen's birthday parties!) arrived to help Korey. Look closely at the picture - Gavin said, "I feel like I'm on Little House on the Prarie!" 

Good call. The girls had been invited to a Laura Ingalls themed birthday party, and took a day to make bonnets for themselves that they then wore out in the yard the rest of the season!

Back to building! We've now got the upper ledger on the house and are putting on the joists for the flat roof over the mud/entry! Another great thing about having the construction crew be guys we know well is that the kids got to be very involved.

And sheathing on the outside - it's like a real room! Gavin's starting to frame up the front wall of the garage here. (Framing happens on the ground, and then the whole wall gets lifted up into place.)

Here's Korey working on the cantilevered roof over the entry. This is a fun one to see structured, because they had to install the joist hanger *upside down* on the garage door wall because those forces acting on the cantilever are stronger than gravity at that end of the rim!

The garage slab is a nice, smooth, open surface for wheeling around on! Krassimir has gotten pretty good with his one-handed-controlled wheelchair.

And here's my oldest and youngest boys twinning. :) Ebs isn't quite as tall as Krassi yet (at 6 years and 20 years) but he's working on it!