As you know, I’m going through our first major home improvement project. When last we left you, I was waiting for the contractor to arrive and begin work on our new sunroom and deck. I didn’t know how it was going to go, but thought it would be great to share it with everyone here on Digital Dads.

In the background as I type this I can hear the smack of hammers and the buzz of saws. Our contractor is hard at work just like he has been every day that the sky hasn’t opened and poured down upon the earth.

He has been making great progress with the entire old deck coming down in a matter of a couple of hours shortly after I wrote the last post.

I took a trip to Cleveland and I returned to discover the foundation for everything in place. I worried that he might encounter some problems digging the holes for the posts since there are so many rocks and other things down there, but thankfully it wasn’t too bad and he made due with what he had.

Due, to the rain he put in some extra time this weekend and all by himself while we were watching the opening weekend of the NFL he put up walls and the frame of the roof for our new sunroom. Watching him do some of the maneuvering all by himself was at times scary, but it was obvious he had done it before and knew what he was doing.

Lesson: Make sure you keep talking to your contractor so that there is a constant line of communications.

We check in every day just to say hi, but also to talk about decisions we’ll have to make in the near future. The latest decision was on shingles. Something we never gave much thought to, until we saw all the choices. I’m very glad we talked about them a week before he needed a decision rather than the last minute.

The progress is coming along better than we ever would have imagined and I’m even learning a thing or two that is going to help me with smaller projects in the future.

Of course now we have to think about things like what the floor is going to be, what lights we want and paint colors for the inside of the sunroom. Really, all I can think about is how long until I can grill on the deck again?

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