Almost Ready for the Primer...

Corridor - Looking towards Back Bedroom (facing alley)

Middle Bedroom

Roof Hatch

Back Bedroom (facing alley)

The Drywall is Up!

A Very Level Corridor Sub-Floor

Spring Has Arrived...

Leveling the Floors

The drywallers started today! They are actually doing a little more than just drywall... Our existing subfloor was in bad shape, so they are patching, leveling and replacing areas of the subfloor prior to installing the drywall.

In order to level the floors, the carpenter is 'shimming' at the floor joists. In the middle bedroom, he actually removed the entire existing subfloor, since it was in such bad shape. However, in the corridor, he is just placing shim strips, every 16" on center, on top of the existing subfloor - you can see the strips at the bottom half of the photo above. On top of these strips, he will then secure 1/2" plywood sheets, which will be the new subfloor.

The New Roof Hatch

The roofer came last Thursday and installed (FINALLY) the new roof hatch. At 30" x 36", it's a little larger than the previous hatch PLUS it has a skylight. The upstairs corridor used to be so dark - now, with two skylights, I almost need sunglasses up there! It's amazing. Now we just need to finish framing the ceiling joists...

Hoo

Bryan woke me up one morning, about two weeks ago, to tell me that there was an owl perched in the tree, in our front yard. When I went outside to take its photo, it did its little exorcist rotating head turn to watch. my. every. move. Slowly, I approached the tree, fearing with every step, I would provoke the owl to spread its wings and lunge at me, with claws outstretched. I think the owl must have been exhausted from a night of serious hunting since it didn't move (apart from the rotating head)... it didn't even flinch when Charlevoix emerged from the house. It. just. watched. her. very. intensely. Thank god Charlevoix didn't see it - she would have gone all Kujo. Turns out it was a long-eared owl, which used to be on the Illinois endangered species list, but I guess they are making a come-back.

Bryan got home from work earlier than I did that evening. He said when he got home, the owl was STILL in the tree, however after sunset, it flew off to the neighbor's tree and after a short rest, flew away.

The owl returned to the neighbor's tree today, but not ours. I think it didn't appreciate our paparrazzi photography while it was trying to sleep...

THE Second Floor Plan

After much tweaking and deliberation, we think we've figured out the second floor. To be honest, the drywaller started today, so we had to call it quits on massaging majority of the design...

We still have a few outstanding items not shown in the plan above: Shelving/Desk between the two closets in the Master Bedroom - we're looking at a system from Atlas Industries; the ship's ladder, at the roof hatch, for means of accessing our future Green Roof; the stairs (treads and risers need to be rebuilt), guardrail and handrail; finished flooring (we think we'll go with carpet, it's cheaper, but wood floors would be sooooo nice...); AND the Master Bathroom.