The commentors say "No blogs for a week, they must be busy." You got it right. The extended deadline for the exterior of the house is Monday, Oct. 5th and there is still a bunch to do—mainly shingling. However, the driveway is formed out and will be poured the 5th and 6th. The hand-dipped shingles on the master bedroom wall are hung, but I still have to finish high up in the mudroom porch, which means putting the scaffolding up on the porch (a bit tricky). I've started the back, big wall for shingles and laid a fifth of it yesterday in 4 hours, so there is a couple more days work left there. The Giraffe guys put on the gutters and look good (gutters are off white and downspouts are gray, in photo with the Vespa). I connected the downspouts to the perimeter drain system, so now the rain goes directly to the dry wells (the peanut filled holes) instead of along the side of house and on the siding.
To be finished on the exterior, we have to paint all the raw shingles and Hardiboard (a week) with Ken Olsen's HD sprayer, hang 5 exterior light fixtures (1/2 day), finish the mudroom porch shingles and soffit boards and trim out the two skylights (2 days), and move all the construction stuff to the rear of the house, where it can't be seen. Looks like we'll finish all that about the time the drywall is complete, weather permitting. Its starting to get cooler and rainier—Fall is definitely here.
Inside the house its a mess. The drywall hangers have gone and the scrappers (2 young girls) got all the drywall scraps out of the house and off to the dump (5 pickup loads full; not so environmentally friendly, but gypsum is a natural earth product). Then they patched the paper covering all the floors (basement and garage too). The mudders arrived on Wednesday and started in with ernest. These two guys really fly through a house.
First they did all the overhead seams and right-angle corners, then the wall seams. The second day they did the corners (mostly rounded) and base mouldings, and yesterday they did the overhead transistions; seams that are at lesser angles in the ceilings. This takes a special tape product that is 6" wide plastic with a flexible middle. Anyway, they'll hit the nail holes and any other uncovered spots today, so the tape and first coat will be done. Then there is a second coat, several day wait, and a finish coat and sanding. ETF is Tuesday Oct. 12th, if the hunting season doesn't get in the way. BTW, the finishers get $0.20 per square foot from the DW contractor, so they'll net about $3200 for the finishing work, whereas the hangers got $0.18 per square foot ($2880). You can see the pecking order already. Plus finishing DW is a lot less work and more craft than hanging it.
