…the newest member of the Tuttle family, currently known as Baby Dango, due to join us in June of 2010.

Tony Jakacky fits the first wide windowsill for my approval.

All the trim work on the windows is done now, and after living with them for a few weeks, I know these extra wide windowsills were a good choice. The windows have become furniture in the house. I can set down my coffee and lean on the sill to see what’s going on outside,  Gavin has turned his into a racetrack for matchbox cars, and Olga can gallop her ponies around the room.

The windowsills are made from 1×8s, and we used one of my Baba’s pot lids to make the corner radius. If she knew, I’m sure she’d say something like, “See, I told you not to throw that away. Look how useful it turned out to be.”

Jim VanCamp cuts the back hedge as Gavin plays in the windowsill in Olga's room.

We’re really enjoying the new windows. They let in so much light that the whole house seems more cheerful. I’ve noticed a definite reduction in drafts, too. And having windows that lock has certainly helped me to feel more at home.

I haven’t finished painting all of the window trim yet, but I’ve put two coats of semi-gloss on the windows in the master bedroom and in Olga’s bedroom. I’ll try to get most of the painting done this week, but I may not have much time since deadline is creeping up on me again.

All the windowsills will have two coats of semi-gloss paint.

While Tony was trimming the insides of the windows, Mike was working on the outside, carefully trimming and nailing in little wedges to make the trim look like it was original to the house, without damaging any of the aluminum siding. You really can’t tell now that the windows are recent additions. They look like they’ve always been here.

Mike Neil finishes the exterior window trim.

I don’t know if it really counts as part of the renovation, but since cutting down a large tree is a major change to anyone’s yard, I figure this is fair game.

Damaged tree

This poor pine’s fate was sealed when it was planted almost directly under the power line. Over the years the power company has hacked it back, topped it, pruned it, and otherwise mangled it beyond all hope of beauty. The kindest thing to do was put the tree out of its misery.

Alan Metcalf cuts down my tree.

It was pretty cool. My dad has one of those chainsaws on a long boom, so he limbed quite a few branches from the ground before Alan Metcalf finished it off and bucked it into firewood lengths for me. I know pine isn’t the best for heating with, but we’ve got it, and Erik has expressed an interest in splitting it. And really, you just don’t argue with a man who wants to chop wood.

While Mike and Tony were installing the windows, the lumberyard delivered the drywall for the ceiling, so as soon as they were finished, Tony started wiring in some new lights for me, and Mike got his super nifty drywall hoist ready.

Tony Jakacky cuts a hole in the ceiling above the sink for a new light.

I’ve never seen such precariously long sheets of drywall, and it was almost comical to watch Mike and Tony wrangle them into my little house. They did it, somehow. And more impressively, the did it without breaking any drywall.

The first sheet of drywall goes up in the living room.

That drywall hoist was terrifying. It make a falling-apart sort of clanking noise as Mike cranked it up, and I was sure it would fall and the drywall would kill us all. Well, not me, because I wasn’t stupid enough to get under it. I was terrified it would fall and kill Mike and Tony, and then who the heck would finish my ceiling?

Tony muds the screw heads and seams.

But, thankfully, they both lived to finish the ceiling themselves. That pretty much wrapped up the first week of renovations. There was some other stuff going on outside, but I’ll tell you about that later.