The basement guys came by and put in the finishing bits. The big rain came soon after, making the area immediately around the basement a sea of mud. We laid down boardwalks to do some cement finishing work, but we couldn't begin to work on closing off the final bits until a week ago. We thought "Ok, we'll get the windows in today and the top board tomorrow." Ha. The first window used to fit before we glued the sill plate down...but not afterwards. This required cutting down the bottom face plate (thank the gods for vinyl) by 1/4" and finding a piece of green treated plywood to substitute for the 1x10 board we used for the other windows. Then the boards we used to frame the sides were a wee bit too wide, so we had to adjust one side on the table saw.

Michael installing the framing for a basement window.

One whole day devoted to one window. We would have gotten the second in as well, but it began to rain again.

The second window went in much more quickly, with no fancy pants adjustments needed.

That black strip above the windows is open air. We had a brown treated 2x6 we were going use (leftover from the sill plates boxing in the floor trusses) but it was too warped to give a good seal. Back to the lumber yard for straight sticks and some type of flashing to cover the top face plate of the window.

Another day gone.

Today we put in the 2x6s. Again, there were a number of interesting obstacles that required precision adjustments.

Tie bolt and the bottom trim of the house required a bit of sawing and chiseling.

It took us two tries to get it right (and yes, we had put down glue the first time!), but we got both boards in. Viola! No ladybugs will be sneaking in that side!

We celebrated by going out and trying to cut down an old dead basswood. The tree didn't fall. We didn't die. It was a good day.