After another lengthy delay, were back. The house is basically done. At least the first floor is nearly done. The second floor has been left unfinished, until we can afford Phase II. Here is how it looks from the street.

If you ask me, this is pretty darn close to the way we pictured it

While all the house work was going on, I promised Andrew that we would work together to build a "mini-ramp" in the back yard. We started in June and finished up around the same time we moved back into the house in August. Here is a shot of Andrew working on his "tail-tap" trick.

Started a list of books I have read in 2002. It's already more interesting than my entire list from 2001.

The house is looking really good these days. The windows are all in, but for two, and we no longer have to use a ladder to get to the second floor; the stairs were installed on Friday. According to our architect, Chris Montgomery, the entrance looks "quite striking". I think he is being modest.

Muchos progress these past weeks. The house is beginning to look like a house, and not a nuclear blast site. The basement is pretty much dried out, but there is much damage to the drywall and ceilings. The carpet is a mess. First we got a roof over the second floor, that went pretty fast once the trusses were in place. The roof over the exposed portions of the first floor went much more slowly as each ceiling joist had to be individually measured and built.

Very disappointing news today though. Our contractor claims that his costs are far in excess of the amounts he planned and he is asking us to compensate him. I thought we had negotiated a fixed price contract, and I don't see how his difficulties should be my problem. But on the other hand I don't want him to become insolvent. We'll have to wait and see how this plays out.

Nothin but stinkin' rain all week. The walls for the second floor went up, as did the trusses, but still no roof. Every times it rains the basement gets swamped. It's a bloody misery.

During a break from the rain we made the annual trek to Canada's Wonderland on the Bank of Montreal day. Here are Heidi and Andew getting ready for "Clockworks".

The deck for the second floor is in place, and next week (if the weather co-operates) should see construction of the second floor walls and roof.

What a mess, though. The roof come off last week, and ever since it has done nothing but rain. I spent the better part of this afternoon configuring buckets and tarps to minimize the flow of water into the shell of our house. The basement felt like a cave, with water streaming from the pot-lights and collecting in large puddles all over the basement floor.

A long long overdue update.

We are thick in the middle of renovating our home in Oakville.

You can see what the place looked like after 4 weeks of construction. These pictures were taken on April 13, and the show the house pretty well gutted, with the beginnings of framing for the new parts.

A week earlier, these April 6 pictures show the interior of the house partially dismantled, and just the footings for the extension out front.

We are currently staying at my mom and dad's place. The construction schedule calls for us to move back to our own place at the end of June. Let's wait and see how that works out.