Playing catch-up with reporting our progress...

As you may remember my block mason was sloppy, lazy and refused to lay to a string... I should have fired the worthless "sumbitch" early on except that the block mason was ME. The result was a bow in the west wall (and to a lesser extent the east wall) that collected water in a blowing downpour which found it's way (like water does) under my top plate and down the inside of my block wall. In an effort to prevent this from happening I went on CraigsList and bought some beautiful (and expensive even at 25% under wholesale) "Nailite" siding to cover the 1 1/2" space between the gable end stick-built-wall and the top of the AAC block wall. Aaron and I finished putting this siding up last Friday and the hope is that this will cover the gap and solve my water problem. Here's a picture of the east end gable with the Nailite siding (the pipe sticking out of the wall is my sewer vent and still needs to have an "L" and a vertical 10' piece added to it to get above the roof line... presently, it STINKS over there when the wind is blowing just right!):I obviously still have to stucco the block and to save money I'm going to do it myself with "surface bonding cement." Here's a shot of my test run of stuccoing on the east front corner... I'll get better as I go:
Here are two pictures of our "almost" completed utility room/1/2 bath... this first picture is looking NE towards the dryer and counter top work area:
This picture is looking NW towards the washing machine (which I call "the magic box" because I don't have a clue how it washes the clothes without an agitator... and when you try to peek in to see what's going on, the thing INSTANTLY stops?):
And one more gratuitous shot of my incredibly beautiful grandson, Ethan: