Major Progress!

On the way to school this morning I received great news via text message from my neighbor - a construction crew was at my house and had started!  This was a wonderful way to start the day and James quickly became excited about going to see what they were up to.  We dropped Carolyn off at school and headed to the library for story time.  We chose books before story time and afterwards headed back to the house.  What we found when we got there was our house without a covering over the living room.

 Yes, those are trees you can see right through our house.  So weird to see this in the room that used to hold so much of our life.  But these guys certainly did work quickly.  After a little while, James became cold so we went to the garage to hang out.  I decided to do our usual fall clean up and move the summer toys into the sheds.  This should make the garage more usable going forward.  James found a rake and played with the leaves for a bit.  When we went back to the front of the house to wait for the guy in charge to meet us and go over floor samples and paint colors, this is what we found:

 Everything was completely torn off and the crew was having lunch.  Weird to think that a tree could do this much damage.  But nice to see everything that was cracked taken down.  The rest of the house was really bright at this stage.  The guy in charge arrived and we went into the kitchen to look over some things.  We chose the flooring, selecting an engineered wood to minimize the lip between our bedroom as well as the rest of the house.  We'll be finalizing the color to match our bedroom in the next couple days.  I showed him the paint cans so we can match colors for the living room and he told me they'll be painting the kitchen ceiling due to cracking and thus the walls as well.  We also looked at the coffee table so that it can be repaired.  That is the only thing really damaged personal property wise and I want to see it fixed.  Looks like some new hinges and sanding/staining will have it back to new.

After the meeting, James and I headed back to the hotel for lunch and nap/work time.  I loved having James snuggled up next to me for a nap.  Took me back to when he was a baby and would only sleep on/with me.  We then picked Carolyn up and took her to gymnastics before returning to the house.  It's amazing how fast these guys work, because this is what we found when we returned:

To the casual observer that knows nothing about this type of construction, they are done.  We have wonderful new framing, including two large spots for skylights.  Everything looks great!  Apparently they aren't quite done and will be returning tomorrow to finish up.  The roofers are scheduled to come on Saturday and we're told the village can come inspect the framing from the inside if needed so there will be no delay there.  I was a little sad to hear the goal is to get us home by Thanksgiving, as I had hoped we would be home next weekend.  But hopeful things continue to progress well and we can be home as soon as possible.  It's awesome to see so much work done.  I am getting even more excited about getting back into our house!