Waiting for spring...

Sorry for the long time with no updates!  Not much has really been happening as we are waiting for the weather to warm up so they can stucco the outside of our house.
Over the last few months we have had a few touch-ups (painting, window casings etc.) done on the inside.
In late December we finally got the new hardwood in our family room....which is what kicked off this whole thing....so we are finally starting to feel like we are getting back to normal....

New front door!

The last of the new windows and doors went in yesterday - our new front door!

The big window...

There were two areas of our house that were in particularly bad shape.  One was below the front living room window, and the other (which started this whole reno) was below the huge window in the family room at the back our our house.  The family room window was one giant ~12' x ~15' window.  The engineer and contractor that we spoke to said that large windows like this often cause problems, and recommended breaking it into several smaller windows with bits of wall framed in between them.

Here's the before and after on the inside:

And before and after on the outside:

New envelope and windows!

A lot of work has been going on at our house over the past few weeks.  The new windows are all in, and 3 of the 5 new doors.  We're still waiting for the front door and the small garage door.  The new Typar home wrap is almost complete.  Next will be the installation of the rainscreen and the wire mesh that the stucco will get applied to.  The stucco will have to wait until spring, since the weather is now too cold.  Here are some photos:

Instead of the pink fluff insulation around the window frames, they are using a spray foam insulation, which fills the space more evenly and therefore provides better insulation.  It's the white stuff between the wooden window frame and the drywall:

Windows!

The first of the windows arrived late yesterday, and they are working on installing them.  Here are some photos of the process:

Step 1 - Remove old window

Step 2: add a strip of wood along the bottom to act as a dam, so any water that may get in there will flow outwards, not into the house (this is a back-up as an extra protection against water infiltration)

Step 3: Apply red goop and then membrane on the bottom of the window opening.  The membrane does have an adhesive backing, but they say the red goop helps it stick even better!

How it looks from the outside.  Notice that the grey part is lapping over top of the white part, which will then overlap the rest of the building paper.

The red goop:

Another view of the sill detail, from inside the house:

Step 4: put this stuff along the sides of the window:

Step 5: put a bead of this black caulking type stuff around the window:

Step 6: pop in the new window!

The new window from the inside:



Busy week ahead...

There hasn't been a ton of progress on our house during the past week, as we are waiting for the windows to come in.  They have done a bit of the building envelope, particularly in areas where there are no windows to deal with.  The first of the new windows will arrive tomorrow (Tuesday) and then they have a busy week planned installing the windows!  Hopefully the good weather holds...

Progress!

It has been almost 2 weeks since work started on our house.  Not much has got done in the last 2 days due to the rainy weather, but they were making good progress before that!
All the stucco and building paper is off, so we could clearly see all the problem areas.  The worst areas are the big back family room window, which we already knew about; the front living room window, which we suspected; and the chimney, which was a bit of a surprise.
There is mould and rot starting in several other areas, but the really bad areas are pretty much where we suspected.  However, the building paper was done incorrectly around every single window!  If we hadn't caught this now, it would have just got worse and worse.
They have replaced plywood and some 2 x 6 studs in the worst areas.
They have also done the new window membranes on several windows, although we are still waiting for our new windows to arrive.  I'll post some pictures of this process later once I actually remember to take some :-)
The new shingles are on the roof - thankfully just before this rain started!
Our house is wrapped in plastic now to keep the rain out while they work on it...

Rot on the chimney

Back of the house

Front of the house

Cool photo my dad took of our house from across the ravine.

Fixing the rotten area under the front window (photo also by my dad).