Whew!

My apologies that I've not updated this since earlier this week.... It's been a very busy week at the site.

Tuesday came and so did the drywaller. The siding also was getting some more attention this week. The well driller came back and finished the hookup to the house from the well too. I had several meetings with both lawn installers and concrete contractors for the driveway along the way.

First, the drywall...

The supplier delivered the drywall on Tuesday. They opened up Lyndsey's bedroom window and used the truck shown below to unload all the upstairs drywall thru that window.

yeah, all the drywall on the truck is for our house!

carefully.. carefully...

While that was going on, the girls found entertainment in playing with the muck that was left after the well drillers capped off the well that had been running onto the ground for 3 days.

At the same time, the siding installer was putting up more of our siding, and the concrete contractor came back and sawcut the joints into the garage slab and porch slab.

Wednesday saw the siding guy make some more progress... 

...and, it saw the interior begin to get alot more "finished" looking as well when the drywall began going up!

the living room - fireplace wall

the Wall of Windows

patio door in the dining area

hallway behind the kitchen

stairway divider wall

piles of drywall up in the loft

looking down over the front entry foyer

the view from the front door

 Down in the basement a third type of insulation went in;  spray foam insulation is used down here at the exterior wall end of the floor joists.

The top arched window is now in place.. the Wall of Windows is complete!

Thursday the drywalling continues...

view from the front entry

hallway behind the kitchen

stairway divider wall

kitchen wall (stove)

the girls wrote on the drywall, leaving notes for the workers :)

Friday was more of the same.... drywalling and siding.

fireplace wall

the Wall of Windows

looking into the kitchen/dining area from the living room

the overlook above the living room

the kitchen/dining area

the master bedroom reading nook

the master bedroom tray ceiling

Rachel's room

Robin and I were scheduled to be insulating and drywalling the garage walls on Saturday. I took Friday afternoon off and bought/delivered all the insulation to the site. The drywall for use in the garage showed up that afternoon as well.

In talking to the drywaller early Saturday morning (he arrives around 4am each day) on-site, he said that his boss had ordered 24 sheets too few of drywall! D'oh! So he had to use the stuff that was supposed to be ours to use in the garage for the house instead.

I called the builder about this... he was a bit ticked. He told us to just get the insulation put up in the walls and he'd make certain the drywaller's boss felt compelled to hang the drywall himself at no charge due to the slip up in order.

So we got out of that part of it anyway.. lol

Robin and I worked our butts off in the heat that day. At least it was overcast most of the day. But we got the insulation put up.

The siding guy got a bit more siding put up.. in the front of the house this time. You can see both the siding and the dark bronze colored trim together now.

Sunday (today) the drywaller was scheduled to come back and finish the drywalling the house. I'm assuming he'll be doing the garage then on Monday.

The plasterer is going to be starting putting the plaster up on the interior walls tomorrow (Monday). Things will begin to appear to move much more slowly from here on out.. but the differences should be very apparent in most cases nonetheless!

This past week I had meetings with 3 concrete contractors to get an estimate on doing our driveway. Also, I met with 2 landscapers to get prices for installing our new lawn. Once I get the last of those numbers in we'll have to make a decision on both of those items.

We met with Debbie the interior designer on Saturday. She's also a Parade "requirement". We'll get to keep the window treatments (blinds, curtains, etc) that she installs. She also is responsible for basic staging of the house during the Parade, and we'll get the opportunity to buy anything she uses in the Parade if we want to afterwards.

Paul

Lots more walls

As of today, all the interior stud walls on the first floor are roughed in!

It's a bit confusing to look at from photos now, as it just looks like a sea of vertical studs.. lol. But here's one big feature;  Robin's "wall of windows" as we've come to call it. In this photo you can see the framed openings for the large windows that will look out of the living room into the woods in the back yard. (as you can see, they have considerable bracing pieces holding it from falling over)

The following are some assorted photos of the interior stud walls now in place...

looking from the living room at the kitchen pantry

the soon to be tile shower in the master bathroom

looking thru the studs into the master bathroom

In this photo you can see the assembled stud walls for the garage laying on the ground inside the garage footprint. I'm assuming those will go up tomorrow then.

..and in this last photo you can see the second floor floor-joists in the foreground. With good weather forecast for the rest of week we find ourselves wondering if we'll see the upstairs floor getting installed this week.

We also had our meeting with the electrical subcontractor tonight. Getting all of his quantities and supplies lined up. Things are going to happen very quickly from here on out!

Paul

Busy! Busy!

Sorry everyone.. it's been a bit longer than I wanted since I wrote last... so I'm going to put a few days into one post ;)

Friday saw the framers get the plywood subfloor installed on top of the floor joists that were in place already. Dennis (the builder) tells me the subfloor plywood is designed to be able to sit submerged underwater for 30 days before the water begins to ruin it. Good thing too, since we've gotten alot of rain around here since it's been installed! lol

The square area in the middle with the wooden "handrail" around it is the opening that will eventually be the stairways to the basement and to the upstairs.

In the garage-to-basement stairway opening (shown in the last photo above) there was a ladder, so I took a few shots down in the basement.

You can see the steel posts that are supporting the pre-lam wood beams that hold up the flooring system. At the bottom of each post is a small concrete footing poured in the gravel bottom. You can also see a basic stud wall system in place below the stair opening from the first floor. Those will eventually be the walls on both sides of the stairway.

Looking up at the stair opening

After a wet and rainy weekend (and now a couple of inches or water on the gravel in the basement) Monday saw new progress:  Walls!

About 3/4's of the first floor exterior walls are now framed up! You can also see the plywood sheathing on the outside of alot of the framed walls already in place. Insulation will eventually go inside the studs of the walls and the siding will be installed on the outside of the sheathing.

The 2"x6" exterior studs are spaced at 24" on-center. The framed openings that don't go all the way down to the floor level are window openings, while any framed openings that do go all the way down are door openings.

Doorway from the garage to the house

Window about kitchen sink, and patio doorway

Unframed corner of the living room. All 1 1/2 story walls here

Master bedroom / bathroom walls

Den wall and the stair opening

Tuesday brought even more progress! Not only are most of the exterior walls now framed up, but about half of the interior walls as well!

 The next photo has me standing near the doorway between the garage and the house (it's just to my right) and Rachel is standing in front of the den window. The photo after that swings around a bit to show the "back hallway" and the kitchen area (window and patio doors).

see the framed up, but not installed, wall segments laying on the floor?

The next two photos show that they've begun to put up the 1 1/2 story walls in the living room...

Here we see the master bedroom/bathroom framing. I'm guessing they'll leave this area for last until after they get the living room tall walls framed up.

...and next up are some people acting goofy for the camera.. ;)

Lyndsey posing in the front entryway

Rachel checking out the half-bathroom

...and... well.....yeah, I got nuthin'....

The rains came to the area mid to late afternoon today, but the next couple of days say clear skies so it should be interesting to see how far they can get by the end of the week.

Also today, we had our first private showing (totally unannounced and thus, a complete surprise to us) of our house since it went back up on the market. It just so happens it's a guy who Robin used to work with. We should get a "showing report" from our realtor tomorrow on what they said about our house after going thru it.

Tomorrow night we have our first meeting with the electrician. We'll be going over stuff like quantities of the recessed "can" lights he'll be installing, etc.

Paul