Phase almost complete!

The framing phase is nearly done - at this very moment, in fact, it is possible that it is all done. At the house last night, my untrained eye saw only one wall on the second floor not yet up, but it was mostly built and resting on the floor, ready to be raised into place. This is the wall between the laundry room and the master bathroom. I'm sure there are other small bits to be done (I think we noted the linen closet in the kids' bath, for example, was missing). But the major parts are complete. This is great news.

Also yesterday, they delivered our trusses, so as soon as the framing is complete, they can move on to the roof anytime. We're told we won't be able to appreciate the scale of the project until the roof is on. But as I already noted, the roofers probably won't be done for a couple of weeks: the roof is more than the trusses. I'm not sure how they divide it up, but it my mind it has trusses, then decking, then shingles. I know there are other parts to it (felt paper or whatever they use, drip edges, etc), but I'll stick with the three... They've also delivered one inch strapping for the ceilings, but I don't think they put that up until the rough plumbing and electrical are done.

Tom, Tom, Adam, Karen, and I all met for a birthday party for me at the house site yesterday. OK, it was just a meeting that happened to be on my birthday, but I can call it a party if I want. Anyway, we discussed a few things. First, we've decided to add one window in the master bedroom. It will be the only window on that side of the house, and will offer a nice east-facing view. It will be in the corner of the room by Karen's closet. We also discussed options for the fireplace - the big choice was basically should the hearth be flush or raised? We decided to have it raised. We discussed the shed idea a bit more - Tom needs a decision on it soon because it requires pouring a concrete slab. He wants to pour the driveway soon, before it gets too cold, and the slab should be in place before the pavers come. Doing some rough drawing, I think 10x10 would work best for what I want to store in there: lawn tractor, snow blower, five bikes, optionally the motorscooter. I guessed at the equipment sizes, but even if I'm off by 25%, 8x8 would not work. 8x10 could work, but 10x10 works best. I think I will ask for prices for both, and take it from there.

Tom noted that he likes our layout a lot - it is unusual and it has features you don't find in other houses. He was mostly talking angles and layout - the stairs, for example, being on the interior the way they are, rather than directly off the foyer as one would expect. The half-octagon shape of the family room. The space afforded by the sunroom and breakfast area. Karen likes to hear things like this, so she was happy. That's always a good thing.

Future plans

We heard a little about the future of our project today. The roof trusses are on order and should be on site within a few days. Once the second floor framing is done, the trusses are the next step. Once they are in, the roofers can go on site and start work there. Other interior work, like plumbing, HVAC, and electrical, cannot start until the roof is complete. The estimate is that all the interior roughing will start in about three weeks.

We got the estimate for the wiring for audio and video and it came out to about $1700. This included wiring for central audio in six locations plus wiring for surround sound in the family room and wiring for an HDTV above the fireplace. The central audio is pretty cool - you hook it up to a capable reciever (those don't come cheap, by the way) and each room that is wired has separate volume controls. The HDTV wiring is the part I worry the most about, both from a technology standpoint and a cost standpoint. HDMI was spec'ed to go from the TV site to the receiver site, but some things I've read lead me to believe that component video is just as good and has better signal retension and is cheaper. It is five cables to hook up instead of one, but you only do that once, right?

We also, apparently, have to make some decisions about our fireplace - we thought we'd done all we need to do, but I guess there are a few options. We're meeting with Tom tomorrow at the site to go over the options.

Second floor on its way

We were at the house site a lot this weekend. They finished the second floor decking and chalked out the interior walls, so we went several times to see it all. They had also started the framing for the windows in the front and back of the house, though all the parts were on the floor - as they did on the first floor, they will wait until they also cut the studs and get it all together horizontally before they raise the whole thing vertical.

The view from up there was pretty spectacular. Of course, this is about the only time we'll ever see that view. Once the house is up, the view will be segmented, and some parts will not be viewable at all - there are no windows on the side of the house at all. Karen was concerned about this, especially when she saw the view. She is thinking it might be good to put a window on the east side in the master bedroom. I left that to her, I think we're ok with the lighting we have, and I'm not one to gaze out windows, so the extra window's value would be lost on me. But I won't say no if she wants it.

Gingerly, the kids came up, too, to see where their rooms will be. It was exciting for them for a few moments, but they quickly lost interest and went back down the rickety temporary stairs.

There are only a couple of questions that we still have on the build: Will we add a shed to the east side? Will we keep the island in the kitchen? That's about it, everything else is going pretty well. I am hoping when I go by today, the outer walls, at least, will be complete. It was a great day to work outside, so if they're not done, I'm going to really wonder why!

Stairway to ... nothing

So Wednesday it rained, so not much was done. But something critical was - the steel columns in the basement were installed. So, the real work on the second floor could begin.

And today, they did. All of the joists and all of the decking, with a few small exceptions, were completed today. They also installed a temporary staircase, which leads to the second floor. I was excited to climb those stairs to get a look, but I quickly saw that the decking had been installed right over the opening. I presume they will cut the hole tomorrow, but we'll see. They may need to keep it closed to keep kids out (though there are no stairs to the basement, so that's just as much of an accident waiting to happen). Anyway, we can see more and more what it is going to look like when the walls a covered over and things start getting installed.

The stairs are straight, not how they will be in the finished product. We tried to figure out how they will look when the real stairs are in, but it is hard to tell. The real stairs will have a small section, maybe four or five risers, then make a 135 degree turn, or thereabouts, and continue straight up. One of our concerns has been how much room there will be between the wall on the left and the stairs on the right. I think it will be fine, but it is an open question. Not that there is much we can do either way, it is what it is.

We're still unsure about the island bar in the kitchen. We tried to peek into the house next door, as they have one, to get a better idea, but 1) is it too hard to see from the windows and B) theirs is laid out differently than ours, so I'm not sure it is a good comparison.

My new thing is figuring out how to arrange furniture in the family room. Let's face it, I like TV. I don't want a layout that will suck for watching TV, bottom line. One absolutely perfect plan is to put a plasma screen above the fireplace. But that means buying a plasma screen, and that's no small purchase (plasma, LCD, whatever, I call them all plasma even when they're not). So if we don't do that, how do we lay things out to make sense with what we do have? We have an HDTV - but it is not a small item, so the choices of where to place it are not unlimited. It is a great screen for our family room now - but if you double the distance between the screen and the couch, will it be enough? One plan has the screen at an angle to the couch - yuck! Who wants to watch football, or "Grey's Anatomy" for that matter, at an angle. We have an appointment with a local store to talk about wiring for TV - what we can do now to give us options in the future. We'll see what comes of that. Who knows, we may walk out with a plasma in our arms.

So tomorrow is supposed to be a gorgeous day. I hope they can get a wall up on the second floor. In the best world, they would have our second floor skin by midweek and fully framed by the end of the week, and if so, they could theoretically have the rafters up by the week after. That's when things really start happening inside.

I took a look back at our photos. Two and a half months ago, the outer skin on the house next door was up, and my guess is that they are now a week away from being done. If they can stick to that schedule for us, we will be in by December 15.

A little work today

To my untrained eye, not much got done today. There are some new 2x4's up in the first floor framing, which I figure are temporary supports so that second floor decking can start. Many 2x12's are in place on top of the existing framing, and I figure they cut all of those today and will nail them into place tomorrow. The main beam in the garage was also put in place. In some other houses, with considerable living space above the garage, this beam was steel. Since most of the space above our garage is not living space, I guess wood suffices: three 2x12's nailed together. The steel columns are not yet in place, but if I'm right and those have to be done before they add the weight of the second floor decking, they'll likely get to those tomorrow, too.

Ready for another week

So we visited the site several times this weekend - what, we should be packing or something??

The first floor framing is complete - or at least it looks so to my untrained eye. I'm sure there are a few things to do, but we'll leave it at that for now. I think the next step is going to have to be replacing the temporary wood posts in the basement with steel ones, to hold up the weight of the second floor and the roof. The posts are on-site. I thought they were hollow steel, or perhaps solid steel... but seeing them on site, uninstalled, I can see that they are indeed hollow but then filled with concrete. I probably never would have guessed that, even though I had my desk in the basement of this house, right up against a similar steel post for five years.

So, all the interior walls are now complete - even the jut-out for the fireplace is framed. The only thing that is not complete surrounds the stairs, but I think it will be a while before we see anything of substance there, as it was in the house next door. The shape of all the rooms is now easy to see. I am concerned about how to lay out the family room, and that will be the biggest challenge to my imagination for the next few days. The way Karen wants it, I just don't see it working ... but maybe it will be alright.

We have an appointment with some A/V specialists to discuss the wiring we should have in place for our current and future needs. Right now we have an HDTV, but it is not flat, so it won't hang from a wall. But we might have one like that soon, even in four or five years out, and if the cost is not too prohibitive, we might want to preplan for that. Maybe hang one above the fireplace (though the viewing angle then concerns me). Maybe hang one on the wall across from the fireplace, or on the wall to the spare bedroom... where would be best for the future?? Where would be best for now??

Anyway... we got some measurements on some new tables and chairs, which we would put in the breakfast area. We're not sure at this point if we will be eating in the dining room more or in the kitchen more ... in fact, we've discussed having no table in the kitchen area at all - or having one in the sunroom. There are pros and cons to them all. Maybe these decisions are premature. I don't know, I've never done this before.

The count-down is now on to our move-out date. We're about six weekends out. I do need to get this office packed up, except for the computer and a few reference books. Once that's done, I'll feel better. I think most of the rest of the house will go fairly quickly. But if there's one thing I learned moving Rob, it is this: lots of same-size boxes pack quicker and tighter.

No site visit today

Today I helped Rob and Bridget move from one house to another, so I didn't get to the site today. Wah. Karen went by, though, and reported that one worker was there finishing up the outer plywood skin of the first floor. We had been told that the second floor decking would be started, maybe even finished, this week, but obviously that didn't happen. That's OK, though, the first floor is more complicated and considering how quickly the first floor decking was done, the second floor could be done by Tuesday.

There was a crew there today working on the front entry walkway. This is much earlier than we expected, but a good use of the crew's time - they were at the house next door, and I suppose when they finished with their walkway, they just came and did ours. Now, we were going to look at some possible things to do to that walkway -Adam, for example, had his done in a faux brick look that we said looks nice and is relatively inexpensive. It would have been nice to contemplate, but I think, honestly, we have gone over our budget enough already and with the possible addition of a shed out building constructed in the project, may be contemplating the outer limits of how far our budget can stretch.

Anyway, I can't wait to see the site tomorrow. For now, my daily pictures are not much changed from day to day, since most of the work is inside the walls and hidden from the lens. Hopefully next week they will show real visible progress.

Photos

Here are some photos from our project:

One month ago, 8/11/2006, the foundation is being poured:


August 18, the foundation is complete and the ground is levelled:


September 9, the first walls are up:


September 11, the first floor exterior is about 75% complete:

Another weekend update

We visited the house site several times this weekend, mostly just to kill some time in between various appointments and meetings. But there was a lot to look at. About 50% of the outer shell is now complete. The back wall is done, except for where the sunroom is; the west wall, which is windowless, is done, the front wall is half-done; and the east wall is done. The west wall encloses the first floor bedroom/den, the bathroom, and the office. The east wall is where the kitchen is. So we are able to look out the window framing to see what our view will be. Very nice, very exciting!

The windows on the first floor are huge - they are six feet tall, and should let in plenty of light. The bedroom has one double window, so there is a huge 6x6 hole in that wall; the office has the same windows, but split, so there are two huge 3x6 holes there.

The framers had finished most of the framing for the front wall, which will join up with the wall for the office already completed; in that wall are the front door and windows into the dining room. I'm not sure if they will do the sunroom at the same time as the rest of the exterior walls or if they save that for some reason. We'll see today, they should be able to easily finish the exterior today.

We met with Tom on Friday, and there were only two issues he needed to address. One was that we had chosen a 4-foot shower for the first floor bath and he's spec'ed out a 5-foot shower: we said that we chose whatever was presented to us, and that that shower should just be chnaged to the 5-foot version. The second issue is that the first floor bedroom can't be a bedroom, per the town. So we are removing the closet and turning that space into a nook, and calling it a den. Whatever. We're still going to put a bed in there.

We met another neighbor, one whose house we can see from our kitchen window. They have a 3-car garage, the only thing we don't have that I really would have liked. The house next door is nearly done - the siding is almost all up and a large shed build into the side is nearly done, too. I like tracking where that house is in the process because we're roughly two months behind them.

Quick update

[This was originally posted on 9/8, but to the wrong blog.]

Just a quick update tonight because I'm tired and I think I'm going to bed.

The carpenters got three outer walls today, so we can see things really coming together. The windows in the family room are HUGE! But that's good - light is good. I didn't get there early enough to take pictures, so I'll do that tomorrow. Then at some point, I'll have to post some of the ones I've taken over the past several weeks.

We also met with Tom today. Everything is on track. The closet in the downstairs bedroom had to go, because the town doesn't want it to be a bedroom. So it is now a den, and the closet will now be a nook. Of course, we plan to bed a bed and dresser in the den, so it will be a bedroom. But it is a den. Whatever. The other thing was that we picked a 4-foot shower for the downstairs bathroom - the one next to the bedroom-that-is-really-a-den. And he made room for a 5-foot shower. So we need to fix that. I don't frankly remember if he said he would call the plumbing guys or if we said we would. Hopefully Karen remembers.

As for me? I'm beat, I'm going to bed.

Progress thus far

Several steps have now been completed. A layer of pressure treated lumber was laid over the top of the foundation - they had placed bolts in the concrete for the express purpose. Underneath this lumber is a layer of ... stuff. The "stuff" reminds me of packing material. It is likely to be a moisture/insect/draft barrier.

Over the pressure treated they have now installed the entire first floor joists and decking. The joists are made from 2x8 lumber and the decking is plywood - MDF, I think. Yesterday they had most of the decking complete, and Karen reports that today it is done. I believe there is a wood glue between the joists and the decking, based on seeing some plops of the glue scattered about. I'm not sure if it is used all over or just in some spots. The glue, I know from some experience, is used to prevent squeaks.c

No walls are up yet, but Karen reports that they have started cutting 2x4 lumber, and presumably that is for walls. She said she spoke with the guys on site and they said they expect the shell, meaning the outer walls of the first floor, to be done by tomorrow afternoon. The weather forecast is good for building - clear tomorrow, some rain on Satuday, clear again by Monday.

Go Go GO!

Work!

I drove by today and there were workers on the site. I did not stop to see what they'd done or to chat, because I was late, but that's good news. It is overcast today, so there is the threat of rain, but I'm hoping it stays away so there's no reason to stop. If I get a chance later, I'll stop in and ask if I can bring them anything in the mornings - coffee, donuts, shrimp cocktail, you know, construction worker type stuff.

The house next door is nearly done - they have their siding nearly all up (cream color) and they have had flooring guys at the site the last week. Adam's house has trusses going up today - they are delivered pre-built and they have a crane lift them up. It ain't like the old days.

A little progress

So today I went by at 8 am and there were some workers at the site chalking lines on the foundation. Karen drove by later and said that there was lumber on the site... but by the end of the day, there wasn't any cut or installed. But that's ok, the fact that it is there is a good thing. Now, we just have to wait for the holiday weekend.