These are the framers – we are having a (almost) lock up party on Friday afternoon after installing the doors that arrived.  Jeff and his crew did a great job and were great to work with – I highly recommend them if you are looking for a framer.  They will be back to do the back-framing in 2 to 3 weeks.

Three months to the day we started work on the foundation footings, we have all the windows in, the roof shingled, the mechanical work started (ducts) and the rough-in plumbing underway. We are about 3 weeks behind my original guesstimate as we had to wait 2 weeks for roof trusses and had about a week of weather delays (with more snow forecast for tonight.  The snow does slow down the work, e.g., the roofers had to shovel off the roof before putting down ice and water shield over the entire roof, and then shingles. The doors arrive tomorrow morning from Vancouver (weather permitting) although two of them will now not arrive until March! Got this news earlier this week. Not a show stopper, but does slow things down a bit again.

We are now busy deciding on plumbing fixtures, insulation, siding, flooring, etc etc.

The windows are high-performance and we have put blue-skin membranes on the sides and a red membrane on the sill – these membranes close over nail holes and seal tight to the wall (when it warms up).

View of the heating/cooling ducts that will be under the floor in the living/dining/kitchen area. The ducts and joist sit on the slab (which is insulated underneath and isolated from the foundation walls). The sub-floor should go on in a few weeks after we run some electrical and pipes for the central vac.

This is the double wall chimney pipe for the wood stove that will go in the basement. The chimney will run through a closed chase through the guest bedroom and the upper floor – should be a great draft.

Kelowna gets an average of 60cm of snow per year. It usually falls a few centimetres a time, and melts within a few days. The past 2 days we got 40 cm. Dry powder snow. The most they have had here since the 1930s. That was 80 years ago. It is beautiful, but does cause problems when you are building. I spent 5 hours plowing the driveway yesterday, and another 2 today.

This is a snow covered tree outside our window. Looks like a cartoon character.

Thankfully, we had the roof on before it snowed. But there is snow everywhere. The roofer had to shovel off the roof before he could continue working.

Photo of garage and shop framed with trusses on. Might be awhile before I get the floor poured and am able to use the shop.

The Okanagan is Canada’s main source of fruits. Best know for apples, grapes and wine. You can buy apples at the apple cooperative year round – they currently have about 15 varieties for sale.

They also have pears, cherries, nectarines, etc, etc.