There has been a lot of progress on the jobsite this past couple of weeks. The weather has cooperated for the most part, and a lot of it has happened on the inside.

The last update was the roof rafters were up. The roof had taken its finished shape but there was no plywood. We got that done a couple days later. On one of the hottest days of the summer, or it seemed like it anyway. We then got the ice water shield on the roof, and left it at that point while waiting for metal roofing.

In the meantime, the owner wanted to get the outside painted before we put the roof on, or installed any of the windows, so he didn’t have to mask anything off. He painted it all in one evening, with a pretty thick coat of paint, and the next day when I got there, it was done and looked great!

We also purchased a bunch of trim and he had one of his employee’s paint it while it was still on the ground to make it easier. However, there were no doors on the building, and after everyone left, with paint still wet, one of the older sled dogs jumped inside and walked all over the wet trim with muddy feet. They were perfect little paw prints though, and because it’s a dog kennel, they decided to keep the paw prints, so we put the trim up like that.

While we were putting on trim and facia’s, the plumbers and electricians came in and got their rough in done. We were then able to put the metal roofing on, on another nice hot day, but we started early and finished before the shade disappeared completely. At that point, the building was dried in and we didn’t have to worry about rain as much

We went and got the windows and doors and installed them just a day or two before the insulators arrived. Finally the whole building was completely enclosed and weather proof. That’s always a nice day, and what a relief.

The last few days we’ve been working on the deck outside. It’s a very large deck, so customers can sit outside and eat their lunch after their tours. On Thursday we got most of the sonotubes in, and came back Friday morning to finish. Friday afternoon, with the help of our son-in-law, we got the concrete poured, rebar installed, and the brackets for the beams that support the deck placed in the sonotubes.

Saturday we cleaned up the area, smoothed out the rough patches of dirt around the posts, pitched large rocks off a nearby bank, and then set the beams in place in their saddles and got them leveled off.

Dirt work is my least favorite job, and we are now officially finished with our dirt work on this job! I am so glad! My other least favorite job is sheetrock, but fortunately, this job has no sheetrock, it’ll all be tongue and groove pine. We got the tongue and groove delivered on Friday morning, and then got it hauled into the building to dry out and stabilize. This helps prevent the boards from drying out and leaving large gaps a few months down the road.

Part way through all of this building’s progress we had to jump off of this job and go back to the big hangar that we had formed up for concrete. The road restrictions had been lifted from off the side roads, and the homeowner had finished running their heat tubing and plumbing pipes so they were ready for concrete.

We didn’t pour the slab ourselves, but we were there throughout the day to make sure they had what they needed. The next day we did go back and had to strip the forms as well as place the styrofoam. Because it was a slab on grade concrete pad, we had to place styrofoam vertically all the way around, as well as a 2 foot sheet at the base of the vertical ones that lays horizontally. This helps prevent the frost from reaching the slab and from frost heaving it through the winter.

We are grateful for the progress on both of these jobs, and grateful for all of the subcontractors who come in and get their portion done in a timely manner.

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