Jerry the gentle giant...

Ok so Jerry isn't really a giant, but he is our crackfiller. And he's awesome - and not just because he wears stilts. He's a grizzled looking newfie that used to live next to Erick's parents. Within the first five minutes of showing up the first day to do some crackfilling, he was telling me about the time he heard a knock on the door at 9:30 one halloween night, and opened it (with surprise) to Erick's dad (Mike), dressed like a lady. Apparently Mike sat down and had a serious conversation with Jerry, perfectly straight faced the entire time.

One of the first spots Erick and I drywalled was our hallway. We (will) have a smoke alarm there, and we had to cut a hole in the drywall for the octagon box the smoke alarm connects to. Well, Jerry saw the hole that was cut and said (in his Newfoundland accent)
"A square hole for an octagon box Erick? Really?
[pause]
Really?"

By the way, the bottom of the beam grazing the top of Jerry's head in that photo is at 7'10" off the floor.

The wall of windows

Before I post some pictures of the interesting things that have been happening over the past week, I wanted to post this one. This shows part of our south wall - the wall of windows. As you can see, all the windows are boxed in and trimmed. Notice that the windows on the lower storey have big wide sills. I love them! And I love all the sunshine they let in on a cold day in November.

Emma...

I know you guys are probably hoping for more house pictures, and I do have some new ones, but I took this photo yesterday and I couldn't *not* post it. I mean, look at it!

I also took some pictures of Kirby, but Kirby only stands still for 0.01 seconds at a time, and the camera gods were not on my side yesterday, so all the Kirby pictures were blurry. Emma is a pro now at this, and stands perfectly still, staring right into the camera.

Snow falls on this house

Isn't it pretty? :)

Hello Stairs, Goodbye rickety stepladder!

Last Friday we had our stairs installed by Phil ‘the stair guy’. I love it when people call me and introduce themselves by what their role is in the building of our house. I know it’s kind of self centered to enjoy that so much, but I don’t know how many times I’ve been called and the person says “Hi this is Doug/Bob/Bill/Wayne/John/Jason/Fred”. And I’m supposed to remember who Doug/Bob/Bill/Wayne/John/Jason/Fred is, AND remember why they’re calling me. Trust me; it’s a lot to remember. It’s fine if it’s a person who you talk to all the time, but if you’ve only just started working with them, and you haven’t really met them yet, it sure makes it easier if they say “Hi, this is the stair guy”.
So suffice it to say that I liked Phil the stair guy right off the bat. JMy liking for Phil the stair guy increased when he told us he doesn’t do railings or anything else, he just does stairs. That means he does a lot of stairs, and he’s not going to screw them up. I then wanted to hug him when he told us he could build our stairs for $400, and install them for another $150. They’re construction grade (which means we don’t have to worry about wearing our shoes on them or dropping things on them) and are hardwood ready (which means when it comes time to finish them, we can put on the hardwood ourselves and the whole stair project will come in at $1200, tops). Phil required a couple days’ notice, so Wednesday we called, and on Friday when we came home from work we were just in time to assist Phil in fastening the stairs to the second floor. And when I say “we”, I mean Erick. I assisted mainly by watching, eating pizza, and offering pizza to anyone who didn’t look busy.