I know it was stated that this is a dead issue since you're not taking the trees down. But I have one option that could have helped. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but I would have done the riskier tree first, limbed it and lowered the top down on itself. Then, run a lowering line from the tip to the other spruce (to a block) then down the truck to a Port-A-Wrap, and actually lower the spar off of the 2nd (easier) tree. This will put the tree between the houses. When placing the block, you can limb up that tree at the same time. I've used this technique alot over the years, and it works very well. It's a pain to setup sometimes, you need a bunch of rope, blocks, and lowering device, but if it'll make the job easier and safer, I'm fine with going through the extra steps. Also, if you use a removable block (able to retrieve from the ground) you can then replace the block with a tag line and use that to help pull over the remaining tree. Just some thoughts.
