I hope everyone had a good long weekend....
Since the end of last week there's been alot going on at the house, but not much all that readily visible nor able to be easily photographed.
I'm going to combine a few days photos into this one post simply because there aren't alot of photos of things before today's progress. As you see the photos for the last few days you'll understand why.
As you may recall they began putting the shingles on the roof late last week.... well, they finally finished that part of the process yesterday...
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| progress on the shingles as of the end of last week |
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| shingles above the master bedroom | |
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| the shingles as of Tuesday |
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| The shingles are all finished as of Thursday! |
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Some other very notable bits of progress that have happened this week include the "walling off" (via the vapor barrier "wrap") of the bonus room...
..and a couple other areas around various attic spaces.
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| the attic space above the master bedroom |
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Also, on Tuesday we were pleasantly surprised to find that the carpenters had installed the temporary stairway down to the basement. The stud walls you see around the staircase down in the basement will have two doors at the bottom; one at the bottom of the stairs themselves, and another closing off the storage space underneath the stairs themselves.
On Saturday we went out there for a couple of hours. I had to bring out the chainsaw and cut out alot of brush and some very small trees so the excavator could finish the grading on the site.... For a period of time, Rachel was put in charge of the camera and taking the pictures:
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| Lyndsey hanging out at her bedroom window |
..and this is what happens when Rachel is unsupervised while roaming around with the camera....
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| yeah, the little turkey figured out the timer on the camera all by herself! |
On Wednesday we noticed that the pocket door frames had been installed... one in each of the bedroom closets, one in each bathroom. The frame for the pocket doors is the part where you can see all of the horizontal framing in the midst of all the vertical framing. The pocket door then slides in between those horizontal members.
Also on this same day we also found out that they built a temporary stairway down from the garage to the basement. These will eventually be replaced by a permanent concrete stairway (I believe at the same time they pour the garage slab)
Today, however, was a huge day in the progress of our new home. After a literal flurry of phone calls this morning between the
builder, Robin, and I to make various decisions on framing items
(fireplace, tray ceiling, etc) that will be worked on by the end of this
week, the day settled down to more "normal" happenings, with us anxiously awaiting to see what progress was made today. It was a step we've been waiting for for a while now and we weren't disappointed at all!..... windows!
The house has to be all "buttoned up" before Monday's contractor walkthrough meeting and to that end, the windows and doors showed up on site. Most of the windows are now installed. None of the doors are yet, but almost all of them are on-site waiting to be installed tomorrow.
The following are some closer-up photos around the outside of the house. You can see we're using the Marvin "Integrity" line of windows. They're a notch less expensive than the Anderson windows originally in the contract, but are actually rated higher in quality by Consumer Reports for things like insulation value, hardware quality, etc. You can see the grills in the windows. We opted for these to be installed in all the windows facing the front of the house. The grills are set inside the window itself, between the two panes of glass. All the operable windows are casement style, with any operable transom windows (the smaller panes of glass either above larger panes of glass, or smaller rectangles of glass set up high are called "transoms") being an "awning" style (meaning they are hinged on the top of the glass rather than the sides like a regular casement)
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| The den and master bedroom windows are in place |
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| (from left to right) master bedroom reading nook (1), master bathroom (3), transoms in the living room (2) |
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| Robin's "wall of windows", the patio doors, Lyndsey's room, and kitchen |
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| laundry room, bonus room, garage |
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The front entry door showed up on-site today as well.... it will have to be painted in the future (we haven't decided on the color yet), but for now they'll install it unpainted.
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| front door - exterior view (it's inside the house leaning up against a wall now) |
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| front door - interior view |
The carpenters also began framing up the area in the living room where the fireplace will go. If you look closely in the next photos you can see a piece of paper containing a computer drawing of what that wall will look like stuck up on the framing, complete with dimensions, that the carpenters are using to frame up that wall.
The boxed in area in the middle is the fireplace.. you can see the two transom windows flanking it on both sides, and just below each of those transoms will be a built-in cabinet with shelving.
Up next are some photos of some of the windows as seen from the inside of the house.
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| patio doors |
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| a closeup of part of the "Wall of Windows" |
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| Lyndsey's window |
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| bonus room |
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Also today the plumbing fixtures for the upstairs bathroom/vanities arrived from Home Depot... while the most crucial piece of that delivery was the shower valve (the plumber will be installing it Monday morning during rough-ins), the part that we really needed to verify was that the faucets are tall enough to fit over the girls' vessel sinks.
We chose a "brushed nickel" finish for the upstairs bathroom fixtures and selected a series of fixtures and accessories (towel bars, paper holder, etc) called "Bamboo". (we were fortunate enough to, after a ton of searching, find faucets the girls love for an inexpensive price) The faucets are of the type where the water doesn't come out of a hole in the bottom of the spout, but rather flows out over the top edge of the spout into the bowl.
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| Lyndsey's sink and faucet |
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| Rachel's sink and faucet |
Next up for Robin and I...
Tomorrow the rest of the windows and some of the doors should be installed, the fireplace "black box" should be in place, and there may be a bathtub in the upstairs bathroom as well.
This weekend Robin and I have to travel back up to Green Bay where we'll make our final selections on countertops (laminate) and cabinet hardware. Then we'll travel to the opposite side of Green Bay to make our selection for the granite countertops for the kitchen.
All this progress in the construction of the new house isn't meant to overshadow the things going on with the sale of our current house.
Two Sundays ago you may recall we had our first open house since this house went back on the market. Well, in there we've had Memorial Day weekend, so we've been hoping that kind of thing is the reason there's not been much for private showings (the first go-around on the market we had a ton of private showings in addition to the open houses).
Well, we had our first private showing Wednesday morning... the feedback on that was was "somewhat interested", but that they had another house they liked better so far.
We now have another private showing tomorrow afternoon, and yet another private showing Saturday morning (at the same time we'll be in Green Bay).
Also we have our second open house this coming Sunday as well.... we're hopeful an offer comes out of one of these showings! :)
Once we get our meetings done on Saturday, the only supplier meeting we'll have left is lighting. We have some ideas on what we want, and we've looked around somewhat a couple of different times at different places, but haven't met with the supplier yet.
Monday is the big contractor walkthrough on-site. Most every sub-contractor will be there at some point during the day. Robin and I will be there most of the day as well. Discussing details with the various suppliers and our builder.
Tuesday morning we will (finally) actually close on our construction loan. It's kind of weird not closing on it until this far into construction, but the bank pulled alot of strings to allow construction to start prior to closing so that Dennis could get an entry in this summer's Parade of Homes (if we would have had to wait for closing before starting he would never have made the Parade).
Things are certainly keeping us hopping, that's for sure!
Paul
