Stairs and Trusses

I thought I'd show off my great skills at putting in stairs.

Ok, not really.  I did help our contractor put the stairs in, and I was so glad all I had to do was hold things, add some glue, and then nail things in.  He did all the calculations and cutting.

Once the stairs were in, Mr. Pickup and I built the half wall to protect the stairs and to protect anyone from falling in.

Here we are...bundled up and working hard.

The next point of business was to put up the rest of the sheeting and prepare everything for the trusses.

Here are the just delivered trusses.  Love our port-a-potty too?

After some delays, our trusses were finally set in place.  Here is our contractor and his sons getting things started.

These photos were taken Sunday January 15:

You can see the vaulted ceiling over the kitchen and dining room.

Down the hallway that ended up narrower than I had wanted.  Oh well.

With our previous homes, we took a picture of our kids at the window.  So we had to take another for history's sake.  Unfortunately, this was the end of our good weather.

Rain is what we've faced for the last week.  Because of those earlier delays, our house still doesn't have a finished roof.  The predicted snow turned into at least 2" of rain.  To help drain the floor, we drilled holes with buckets to catch the water in the basement.  We also used push brooms to get the water off the floor.

Our lot is a soggy, muddy mess.  This is the worst kind of clay mud.  One step you're fine, the next you sink up to your knee, and get sucked down. Very hard to move around!

We've now swept out the house three times, emptying buckets of water from the basement, and using the shop vac on Friday to help remove water from the basement.  We sucked out over 50 gallons.

It snowed over night, and is snowing right now.  Mr. Pickup and I are very discouraged.  The roof should have been finished before all this came.  The windows are supposed to be delivered next week, and we won't be ready for them.

Oh, the joys and frustrations of building your own home.  Unfortunately, we're at a point where we have no control over what happens next.  We did our part, but things haven't worked out the way we hoped.