Onward and upward!

After being away all week, we were so anxious to see what had been done on the house that we drove home from the airport, DH unloaded the suitcases while I started some pizza dough in the breadmaker, then we hopped in the car and drove out to the house. DS informed us on the way to the house that the weather had been pretty bad all week - ice and rain and snowstorms and lots of wind - so we were actually surprised that the framers had done as much as they had.

Here is where we were...

Here is what the framers accomplished while we were gone. They worked on the decking for the third floor, the roof over the one-story end of the house and did some more work on the second floor. We have very complicated roof lines, so the roofs take a while to complete. For example, on the right side of the photo below, the front room is the guest room and has a 9' ceiling, but the office which is located directly behind the guest room has a vaulted ceiling.

The framers built this "bridge" across the great room, from the family room to the office/guest room closet area so they can walk back and forth.

The porch over the front door has been started...this photo was taken from the entryway where the temporary ramp goes into the house.
While we were away, I had the laptop with me and spent some time planning the layout of the cabinets/desk area in my sewing studio (I had the .pdf files of the cabinet types saved on the laptop and took along some graph paper and a ruler). I also worked on my lessons for EQ6 (I'm taking an EQ6 class from Quilt University) and watched a quilting DVD (Katie PM's DVD "Simple Steps to Dynamic Art Quilts"). My major accomplishment on the computer during our trip, however, was to finally write our Christmas letter - I know, I know, it's a bit late, but better late than never, right? :-D So, if you usually get a Christmas letter from us, my "Ye Olde Midwinter Newsletter" should be on it's way shortly!

I will be making an appointment with someone at Lowe's this week to have them take my graph paper drawing of my sewing studio cabinets/desk area and input it into their computer. I can then get a price estimate and a 3D view of what it will look like.

I also need to get this house ready to sell. I purged one of our closets before we went on vacation and need to continue purging. There is also a lot of painting and wallpaper removal to be done.