Upgrades to existing house, and more delights

Another whole component of this project is adding insulation to the existing house, and putting the same siding on it that will be on the first floor level of the addition. It may not be very sexy, but it will boost the energy efficiency of the current house quite a bit. The current house is what I affectionately refer to as a "hippie shack". It's got that pink fiberglass insulation, T-111 siding on the outside, and painted-over 70's era fake wood paneling on the inside. Mmmmm, quality.

I believe the contractors refer to it as "crap" but only if pushed, as they are polite folk, generally speaking. So anyway, Mike and Josh were busy with that today.

This is the west side of the house we're looking at. That's our propane tank. Don't get fond of it - it's going away soon. We're getting a bigger one, since the new heating system will be using propane, and since we're not overly fond of our current propane provider. That's a bird nest sitting on the tank. It used to be sitting on the rim of the kitchen window

Squeamish people: don't look at the next picture.

That's a dead baby bird in there. From a close-up look, this little guy died at least a couple of days ago. Maybe longer. No idea why - the nest was well out of reach of Charlie and Maggie, and the guys haven't been on this side of the house at all. Maybe just the overall noisiness stressed out Mom and Dad and they took off. Sigh.

OK, moving on to other house-related things: the guys are also getting prepared to construct the frame around the addition to the current living room.

They've cut away the roof...

...and they've insulated and put in the...oooh, what is this called....the sill? the rim something? The wood bit, at any rate. UPDATE: "mud sills". And they're too thick and have to be re-done. This will have a poured concrete floor.

In off-camera news, we're honing in on the whole bathroom vanity project. We ordered one, in other words. The original plan to have one of those sit-on-top sinks has fallen by the wayside - we're going with an undermount sink. Which we still have to pick out. Along with all the bathroom fixtures.

ALSO, I feel it's important to acknowledge something about Kevin. While I while away the hours goofing off daydreaming and updating this blog, he actually gets work done.

Here's the woodpile. He estimates this at nearly three cords.