patio doors installed

The day after Thanksgiving 2009, Reid and I went out shopping at Building Reuse in Northside. Our big Black Friday purchase ended up being two Jeld-wen patio doors. We picked them up for $50 each, but they did not come with door frame, weatherstripping or hardware. We thought we would save a lot of money by constructing the door frame ourselves and purchasing the hardware separately. Turns out, we may not have actually saved much at all since it ended up costing approx $500 total (plus a lot of time and some frustration) to install the doors to the roofdeck.
Thanks to a lot of help from my dad, we installed the doors today! Though they still require a little tweaking to make sure they open and close easily, they're in place. And they're keeping the rain out!
Miles had a great time watching us and already enjoys the roofdeck. It will be nice when the day comes that Miles can hang out in the building without coming home filthy. Until then, he loves his baths in the clawfoot tub at home on Main Street.

scrap lumber becomes mulch

...thanks to Irvine Wood Recovery on Glendale Milford Rd.
Reid took an entire truck bed's worth of scrap wood there this week. Now we know where to go for mulch when we need it...

Skylight installation completed!

Although it took us all weekend, we finished installing two skylights in our 20' window well. The window well is original to the structure and designed to daylight the home prior to electricity. The skylight vents to act as a vacuum for hot air inside, serving as a natural cooling aid. The wood frame was rotted from exposure to the elements. We rebuilt the frame, adding a center support, and then nailed down and flashed them in. It's amazing how fancy the skylights are...they open via remote control and have rain sensors on the roof that automatically close the skylights when it starts to rain.

Thanks Kristen and Chris for all of your help and encouragement this weekend! Reid may have thrown himself off the roof in frustration if you two hadn't shown up!