Reno Week, Day 5

Day 5 dawned with Dave and Chris in-house and raring to go.  They  immediately removed the front picture window which the kids found very exciting and interesting. 
 

 Then they proceeded to some of the bedroom windows.

On the east end of the south side of the house they encountered some potential moisture problems which required another trip to Menards and more unscheduled work to repair.

While they did that, Steve proceeded with the window removal and electrical updating.

Here's the portable workshop set up on the new driveway.  As the work moved around the house, so did the workshop.

And before the windows could be removed, all the siding had to be torn off.  Most of this work was done by Nicholas, the neighbor we hired to help us out.

Back on the east end of the house, the windows and door were removed.

And work was set to begin on the north side of the house.

That was pretty much the system - siding torn off by Nicholas, windows removed by Steve, and new installations by Chris and Dave.  Later in the day, Sarah and her husband and kids arrived and although we were thrilled to see Sarah, we were even more thrilled to see Mike - another very able-bodied helper.  Here Sarah and Beth re-unite and get acquainted with Wade  - the newest member of the clan.
And Mary demonstrated what a big help she would try to be all weekend long. Beth came over Friday morning and provided lunch for the crew and she and Sarah took care of all the dinner duties.  What a break that was for me!  Everything seemed to be going like clockwork except for one little niggling problem that just wouldn't go away - what to do about the picture window.  We had a plan all along.  We would connect three windows with mullion kits and make one big, very functional window.  Unfortunately, no matter how many miles we traveled or how many places we called or how many stores we visited - there were no kits that would work for our windows.  We even tried returning 3 windows and getting three more but that only resulted in yet another trip to Home Depot to return the new ones. 
And where at first the kids enjoyed the open air theater, after awhile they seemed to get uneasy about all that air and openness.  Finally, Dave and Chris decided to frame in the three windows and it's worked very well.

And something else great happened that night.  Dave's wife, Patty and their kids arrived.  Talk about a work crew!!!  Tomorrow, the big push to finish the windows and start the siding.  Whew!  And we didn't finish work until about 11:30 Friday night.  BTW, Harry and I became very proficient at setting up lights for the unstoppable honey badgers.