Yes, we now have a white house due to the fact that the waterproofing "paper" has been stapled to the exterior walls.  We are now well on our way to having a completely water tight house!!!  And this is all brought to you by

Dupont works diligently to bring us the best possible materials to keep our house drier than it has ever been in the past.  Of course, in our case, where our old house had not a scrap of waterproofing paper that had not deteriorated to pulp, keeping our house drier than it was would not take that much effort.  But our contractor is making a great effort to build our house watertight and this includes using Stucco Wrap from Dupont which is actually more like a wax paper than the original felt paper. 

A close up photograph gives a vague idea of this new wrapping material.  It has ridges (just like Ruffles, but take my word for it, it does not taste like Ruffles) and is very difficult to tear by hand (yes, both Peter and I did try...).

Not only do we have the house wrapped, but we also have chicken wire attached to the wrapping in preparation for the first layer of stucco.  I can't remember if this is the brown coat or the scratch.  Either way, the chicken wire will create a small gap between this first layer of stucco and the wrap itself. The chicken wire is visible in the photograph above and will extend around the entire house - a glimpse of which is shown below.

We also have the ever important weep screed installed.  Actually, I think this went in first, before the wrap and obviously, the chicken wire.  We have copper weep screeds which now line the base of every inch of the exterior walls.  The stucco will be as thick as the weep screed is wide so they have a lot of material to put on for the stucco exterior.   The best part is that the copper is bright and shiny - for now anyway.

While the stucco guys were madly wrapping the house, our window installers continue on the inside and have now installed the two side lights for the french doors in the master bedroom.  A view of these from inside the master bedroom, demonstrating the view...

And a view of the windows from the lower deck...

Once the exterior is completely wrapped (yes there are just a few sections I have not shown today that still need wrapping), the contractors will actually move inside to put in the insulation and drywall.  However, before they can put up the drywall, they have to make sure that the walls are completely flat.  They will be in big trouble with Peter if there is any warping in the drywall and will be in even more trouble if there are divets in the drywall from the nail heads.  So the contractor has one guy on the interior of the house whose painful job it is to ensure that all the walls are completely flat.  In order to make it so, he either shaves off some material from the framing or adds a cardboard shim (yes there is that four letter word again...).

In this photograph, you see the shadow of my head....But you can also see where the framing has been shaved (above my shadow and to the left of the window) and where the contractor has added a cardboard shim (on the 2X6 in the left side of the photograph).  Although Peter hates shims, I think he will be glad they were used in this particular case.....