Seeing the house yesterday for the first time all week has likely cost me a couple of dollars.

John and I will have to revisit the rules on our swear jar to determine whether it’s in play when the expletives are happy ones, which was the case when I rounded the corner of the garage and first saw the bent for the covered porch.

Then a few tears came, but those were nothing compared to the near sobfest this morning as I looked at the photos from yesterday’s visit. What really did me in was comparing a photo from Day 5 and essentially the same shot at Day 14.

It doesn’t seem possible that a structure so intricate and beautiful can come together in such a short time, and yet, our house is standing. I will never be able to count how many times I’ve said, and will say again, “I can’t believe we get to live here.”

Yesterday was a landmark day for our build. It was Patrick’s last day on our job, which also means the end of this stage of the process. The main structure is complete and, as I’ve already mentioned, the crew even got a start on the exterior timbers.

Next up, John will continue to work with our local crew Alfie, Larry, and Kevin to get the false roof done above the mudroom, then the cold roof so shingles can be put on. And after the shingles: windows!

Now for a little walking tour of the inside of our house as I saw it on Day 14:

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And here are a couple of shots from the neglected side of our house. As you can see, some fill needs to go in. A bit of landscaping later on will make it easier to hang out over there.

A major phase of our build may be over, but I’ll be blogging right through to the end of this project, and I hope, beyond. I have a lot of work to do on this perfectionism problem.

Coming soon: A post about how on earth I’m going to make decisions for finishing this house, when a burning thought as I walked through the space (or shall I say, palette) yesterday was, “Please don’t let us screw this up.”

Because right now, it’s perfect.