Tenemos unas ventanas!!

So on Sunday our good-luck streak of sunny weather came to a sopping wet end. It was pouring rain all day long, not exactly the best working conditions. After church in the morning and a quick visit from Jeff's brother, we headed out to get a few hours of work done on the house. 

We finished installing 3 more windows and started on 1, for a grand total of 4 finished windows out of the total 6 windows, and an almost finished door. We still need to flash and seal the kitchen window, as well as installing and sealing the loft window and sealing the door. 

Around the outside edges of each window, we used hurricane proof waterproof flashing tape, which is the thick tape stuff you see below. We also sealed around the space between the window edge and window framing with spray foam insulation inside.

The house so far....

We have a real roof!

So we got out to the job site just after 8am today, and we really got some productivity flowing with that early start to the day! Jeff and I started out by sheathing the tiny wedges between the two roof pitches with plywood, in preparation for putting on the flashing and roofing today.

Then, Jef cut the edges of the plywood on top of the roof to line up with the framing that comes to a point at either end of the roof. This was an aesthetic choice, which kind of became a pain by the end of the day once we were making diagonal cuts on the metal, but we'll get to that...

Then our friend Mike showed up and helped us felt paper the roof and wrap the house in house wrap. (Thanks so much Mike!) He was a working machine, he's a fast guy!

My college friend Nicole came and helped us for most of the day...Thank you so much Nicole! She helped me with all the tasks that could be done on the ground level, since I am a bit skittish about standing on roofs....

The house got all wrapped up with the moisture barrier...

Jeff spent a lot of time protecting those wedges of wall from any moisture. First they got the layer of felt paper, then he caulked the area with a sealant, then placed aluminum flashing in the crack and screwed it in, and then over the edges of the flashing he placed waterproof flashing tape. No leaks in this house! 

Here is the first piece of roofing going on the roof, cut by yours truly. Thanks Sandy for all your help today!

Cutting the metal roofing was extremely loud, lots of hot metal flying around. To cut the metal roofing, we used a Skillsaw with a regular framing blade, but turned backwards so that the teeth were spinning towards the metal instead of away from it. This worked really well. (until we wore out our first saw blade that is...)

In the picture below Jeff is nailing the very last piece of roofing material into the sheathing. 

Then Jeff had to cut off the edges of the roofing at the same angle as the roof edge, which was a huge pain in the....well, it wasn't easy.

And last but certainly not least, we put one window and our front door in! We still need to finish plumbing the door and adding shims tomorrow, but it fits just great thanks to Jeff's excellent plans, measurements, and cuts!

Overall we had an extremely productive day, and we're SOOOO thankful to our kind friends for their help! Tomorrow we hope to get some more windows in. 

Mothers Day weekend