Roof and windows, walls & doors

Great! We now have a front and a back door, and windows! A procession of trucks has been lumbering up our well-rutted farmhouse road and the most recent delivery, our Elite brand windows, have now been muscled into place by the Wanless Construction crew. This was a completely smooth operation, except for some cliffhanger moments when hefty double windows were handed up to a single second storey worker weighing considerably less that the windows he was hauling in.

Meanwhile, our dedicated puzzle solvers Randy and Louis of Mac Roofing continue to piece together the jigsaw of our multi-angled steel roof. Underneath the roof is not the usual flimsy tar paper but an underlayment called DELTA-TEK, an ultra tough membrane that repels water but still allows the new wood of the roof to dry and breathe. Randy has found he likes this new product from Cosella-Dorken and says he'll use it again.

By now, Bob and I have smartened up to the fact that if you don't tell tradespeople exactly what you want, good chance you won't get it. So hours have been spent poring over plans and plainly marking/noting each and every outlet, switch and light fixture, appliance and suchlike to be installed, an exercise that left me totally limp and drained from decision-making overload.

In fact, there still are a great many decisions left to make, the biggest one being the furnace, which will impose a major wallop in the wallet if we go geothermal. I will add that this decision should have been finalized long ago (but was not mine to make.) Intense heat has settled on the countryside and desperation has finally driven a few workers to splashdown in our pond. That's where I'd like to be -- if I didn't have to drive to town and choose a toilet and light fixtures. As I occasionally say, next time around I will come back as the family dog... so I have time to stop and smell the flowers.