Window in the Sky

Today Mike tackled the hardest of the second-floor dormers: Ali's bedroom, which is the only one that doesn't have a first-floor dormer underneath it. It's also on the side with the walk-out basement wall exposed. All this adds up to one long ladder. Mike tied it down, and wore a harness tied off (through the window) to a beam on the inside, as well. He also wore a very chic safety helmet borrowed from Hunter's sk8r gear.

After five hours of working atop the ladder, all he can do is complain about the burning in his calves. :-(

Some More Windows

The dormers are coming along nicely, thanks to Ali & Mike who have been working diligently pretty much every day. On the second floor, Mike is reinforcing the window dormers (which were a little under-engineered) by running 2x4's next to the windows, prior to insulating & closing them up with plywood. The temporary braces will come down when the plywood goes up. This is the bedroom above the master bedroom, which Hunter has claimed (for the moment). The view is to the southeast, over our friend Bill's property.

Here's the same window, plus the master bedroom below it, from the outside. The tar paper & expanded metal lathe is up & it's ready for concrete!

A bonus picture of the world's best dad-and-daughter dome builder team.

Scaffold

As always, click for larger pictures.

More pictures of the pre-plaster work on the dormers. Mike built the scaffolding & braces.

Mike applies the mesh over the tar paper.

As a totally unrelated aside, I took the kids to see the new Pixar movie Cars last weekend. I was surprised... no, delighted... to see that Fillmore, the hippie-dippy VW microbus (expertly voiced by George Carlin,) lives in a day-glo-painted geodesic dome! You can see a bit of it on the right side of this promo shot. :-)

Tar paper

The roofing paper is going up! This is the first step of stuccoing.

Note that the saggy front deck has been ripped out & replaced with a temporary set of steps that were borrowed from a neighbor. Mike has promised to rebuild the deck properly, with a railing & nice steps & everything.

Insulation

No pictures to show, mostly because Mike keeps forgetting to take the camera out there, but three of the first floor dormers now have their insulation and/or interior plywood what-do-you-call-it, the inside of the wall. Facing? I have no idea what it is properly called. Anyway, Mike & Ali have been working as a team; Ali goes first, cutting & fitting the insulation, then Mike comes along behind her, closing it up with the plywood. They make a pretty good duo... Ali has inherited her dad's skill with working with his hands, it seems.

We're into the early-summer rains, which means that exterior work is very weather-dependent. Nothing done on the outside for the last few days due to the recent heavy downpours. Mike will need to wait for a clear spell to test out his new scaffolding.