Water you mean there's still no roof?

Between the rain delays and the holidays this project seems to have slowed down way too much for our liking. The rain was the biggest concern when we took off the roof and after a few storms we've figured out a 3 tiered plastic system that has been doing a decent job. It was definitely a little dicey the first couple storms and we even ended up with a decent basement flooding that ruined some of our stuff and all of our carpets. The roof trusses are going up Friday with a crane so we are in the home stretch for the first major milestone to getting this house dried in. A roof should be on by the weekend or early next week if all goes well.

One of the biggest projects was completed last night with the lifting of the giant steel beam that opens up the new kitchen and supports the 2nd floor load and roof. They ended up building a hoist system to slowly lift it into place. There's still some work to be done before we can remove the temporary walls, but it shouldn't delay our new roof.

Today the 2nd floor exterior walls should be completed and we should have some sheathing on them to support the new trusses. Friday it should look like a complete shell of a house (at least it better).

Huge beam

Chimney is going to need a little extension to be useful.

Front View

Back view

Building Up

Finally building up here!  More progress as this starts to look like a house again.

First floor framing up

New addition

Two steps forward...or maybe two steps back

Construction continues to move along here, if we define construction as demolition as well as rebuilding.  Demo is about done and now the crew is working on putting the house back together, building the new addition, and eventually, building up.  We also, fortunately, survived the rain last weekend and during the week.  It took a lot of tarps and we've learned more than I wanted to know about controlling water flow and direction but the weather looks pretty good for the next week so we'll keep our fingers crossed that it stays clear and we'll push forward for a second floor - and eventually a roof - soon.

Demo is starting to get a little out of hand

Not much old house left!

But we're starting to make progress with new building!

Will stop for rain

The roof is pretty much completely off. No turning back now! Unfortunately we hit some bad weather today and more planned for tomorrow so we are in pause mode. The plan is to have the second floor framed out by next week and then the new roof a couple more weeks after that. Hopefully by Christmas we will be dried in again. This is the point in the project that we knew would be a pain in the ass. I'm taking hourly trips upstairs to check on the plastic fort I built. So far so good for keep our basement ceiling dry. Most of the basement has a drywall ceiling so I think we'll be protected no matter what, but I wouldn't be surprised to spring a few leaks if the rain gets heavy enough. So far it's just been sprinkling on and off. If I was a betting man I'd bet that around 3am is when the rain will be the heaviest. Least it's the weekend!

I think Tom Hanks said it best in The Money Pit - home crap home. 

Here we go!

The house is starting to be deconstructed:

Walls and windows starting to come out!

This does not look good!  And stay tuned for pictures tomorrow with the roof off!