Some help reading a panel from Yotsuba

[helephant]

Have been doing a Japanese evening course for two years and am just at the point where I can parse enough of it to be able to try to read manga. I was thrilled today to find the latest Yotsuba (a cute story about a five year old girl who moves to Japan) volume in our Japanese bookstore and have been pretty successful in reading it so far (makes two years of trying to get kanji into my head seem worthwhile!).

I've gotten to a panel I can't seem to figure it out. Would someone mind helping me out? Dad and Yotsuba are cycling to the park, talking about what they see on the way.
Yotsuba: いえできてきた
Dad: ああちょっと前は骨だったのにな

Here's a picture for a bit more context:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/helephant/5919655877

I thought maybe Yotsuba's sentence might be parsed いえ (house) できて (become - like できます) きた (come - like 来ます) but that doesn't make any sense to me?

Dad's I understand ちょっと前 (a little before) and I think the のに means despite. My dictionary translates 骨 into bone, frame, outline, core, spirit, troublesome.. none of which seem to fit.

Dad's sentence structure is one I have seen before in Yotsuba but not learnt about in my lessons. I'm guessing 骨だった is a noun in past tense? I've seen the な ending in heaps of places but haven't been able to figure out what it means.

[Ongakuka]

出来る dekiru << as you said. This isn't the conventional 'able to' meaning, but is referring to the house being built. I think there is a nuance of 'completed' as well, like when you say できた！I'll assume you are familiar with て form plus くる, its in most Japanese grammar guides anyway.

'hone' is referring to the 'skeletal framework' of the house when it was in construction. Sometimes when you don't know for sure in Manga you have to do a bit of guesswork, as I'm sure you're aware. Seems like an interesting Manga, happy reading!

[Ongakuka]

forgot to mention, な is a sentence ender like ね、 only less soft. Maybe someone else can explain better

[helephant]

Thanks very much for the help. I'd seen もってくる before but not realised it was a more general pattern. That's very useful to know.

So it's something like...?
Yotsuba: that house isn't finished
Dad: it will be soon, despite the skeleton

[Shirogao]

Yotsuba: (the house) came made no! [yotsuba is a little girl and that means everything she says is twice the gibberish]
Dad: Oh, a little the front was bone, even though, isn't it? [clearly pointing out that houses still being bone should be finished at an accelerated rate]

This is what I see ^^

[Ongakuka]

the girl says like 'they built up the house!' (I'm not very good at translating) and the Dad says 'even though it was just bones (i.e framework) a little while ago'

Edit: I'll just go over te- kuru a bit. The context and type of verb should help you to guess what kind of meaning it has.

Some verbs like 持ってくる,　持っていく mean 'verb - come' 'verb - go' respectively.

Other verbs like 分かってくる are more of a metaphorical concept, like 'come to understand.' In this case, dekitekita is like 'has come to be built,' but of course this is not what the little girl would say in English; most of the time when translating Japanese to English or vice versa you have to change the words to keep the meaning.

[Shirogao]

the girl says like 'they built up the house!'

Oh, so 'いえ' is some sort of an exclamation... Thanks for pointing that out!
I mistook it for 'no' which has two い's, so i thought she is trying to indicate the unfinishedness of the house.
Now this panel makes sense.
Thank You!

[Ongakuka]

いえ is 'house'

[helephant]

Thanks for the te- kuru explanation.

I think I understand it now. It's past tense so it's already happened. I guess the context is they ride past the house to the park quite often and are commenting on the progress. I never realised できます was a group II verb before.

[Ongakuka]

Yep thats it sorry I'm not very good at explaining

[helephant]

No it really helped me! I really appreciate it. You helped me learn a new sentence pattern.