Lots going on!

It's only Tuesday and the week has seen alot of activity already!

Joe told us that by the end of this month the house will be "basically done"... then they'll have a few days' worth of detail touch-ups to pick up before the Parade begins on the 11th

Yesterday, Ken's crew came out and poured the concrete driveway slab. A requirement of the Parade of Homes is to have a concrete driveway poured out at least 24-feet from the front of the garage. (Ken has been doing all the concrete work at Mom and Dad's farm all this time)

After letting it cure overnight, Ken and one of his guys came back and sawcut the driveway slab and poured/sawcut the sidewalk.

The plumber was also on-site today. He's just about finished with everything after spending the day there, he only has a few minor things to come back for.

The faucet in the half-bathroom has been replaced.

Lyndsey's sink and faucet

Rachel's sink and faucet

The girls' tub faucet and showerhead

Down in the basement the water softener has also been hooked up now, so we have water in the house!

The finish carpenter was also on-site today....

Lyndsey's walk-in closet shelving

Rachel's walk-in closet shelving

the trim is done for the wall of windows

Minus the carpeting (area between the dark wood), the stairs are almost done

Tomorrow's schedule has the finish carpenter returning to continue his work. He has most of the doors installed, all the door hardware (handles, etc) arrived and were installed today too.

Also tomorrow, the mason should be starting work on the fireplace. I don't know how long that takes for him to do that.

The painters should also be returning tomorrow to do their final bit of touch up work, etc.

Weather permitting, while those guys are all working indoors, the excavator will be finishing the grading outside and matching the dirt up to the edges of the driveway and sidewalk.

Also weather permitting, the rain gutter guys should be starting their work.

Once those last two are done with their work, the lawn guy can begin his work. The first thing he'll do on Friday is to dig some trenches for me to lay the drain piping underground from the downspouts out to the ditch, then he'll come back on Monday and install the lawn.

That's all for now! Tons more to come soon!

Paul

A little bit of (interior) color...

It's time for interior paint...!

Our early Monday morning meeting with the painter was very informative, both for the painter, and Robin and I.

There were some.... incorrect ideas between us, the builder's on-site guy, and the painter on how exactly the painter goes about his business.

Rather than him just spraying each room one color (ceiling color), he actually sprays the whole room the ceiling color and then comes back and sprays the walls the wall color of choice, with only a small-ish area of overspray of the wall color on to the ceiling.

Due to the covering ability of the paint he's using, touching up the overspray on the (lighter colored) ceiling isn't a big problem at all.

So we've gone from having to paint the entire wall surfaces in three rooms to just having to do touch up/cut in work on the ceilings.

Anyway, the painter was able to do all of this in one day.... and here's the results (you'll notice the overspray areas on the ceilings...):

the garage color.. "sawdust"

the tray ceiling in the master bedroom

the master bedroom

Rachel's room

Lyndsey's room

the living room "nooks" above the fireplace

the office

the kitchen/dining area

the living room

the laundry room

stairway to the basement

master bathroom

entry foyer overlook

 

In those photos above you'll see there's still plastic covering all the windows. That makes the colors look a bit "off" from what they really are. It's pretty cool to see all the color added to the interior now though!

While the painting was going on, the siding guy was outside working on the siding some more.

During the day on Monday I found out that the hvac guy was there measuring up for the ductwork, the plumber was there a bit, and the mason (stone) was there discussing the front of the house with the siding guy.

Tuesday came around and after the meet-up between the siding guy and the stone mason guy, they siding guy started working on the front of the house in anticipation of the stone arriving on site for a probably Thursday start to stone installation!

You can see the siding on the front of the house only comes down to the bottom edge of the windows. That's because the stone we selected will be installed from that line to the bottom of the front wall

While I was out there today, I wound up fielding a call about the excavator. It sounds like he's getting ready to come back to do the finish grading.

I also wound up fielding several questions from the plumbing contractor, and Dion the septic system installer was out there today as well. We spent some time marking off the proposed location of the septic (mound) system, only to find that as preliminarily designed (6 feet wide by 90 feet long) it would wipe out too many mature trees. So we marked off a shorter and wider (roughly 7 feet wide by 70 feet long) mound system design that'll minimize the number of trees (1 mostly dead one) that'll have to get cut down. (that'll be this weekend I'll go out there to do that) He'll submit the redesign to the County and he should be able to install the mound system next week he's hoping.

The plumber was out there today too. He ran/finished up running all the white pvc drain piping throughout the house. He said tomorrow he'll be back and run the bulk of the hot and cold water piping.

There was a large-ish purchase order submitted through Robin's office by the electrical contractor for all the switches, outlets, and faceplates with a delivery of tomorrow. So it would seem he'll also be out there tomorrow working on those.

Tomorrow should see the siding guy finish up in the front of the house. They'll also be building the "step" that'll go underneath the washer/dryer tomorrow too.

Thursday is scheduled to see not only the stone mason begin work on the stone (that same stone is also facing up the front of the fireplace too), but the flooring supplier will begin installing the hard (non-carpeting) floors that day as well. (I'm told the hard flooring install will take through Tuesday of next week to complete)

Paul

Rough-ins abound!

This week has been the week of rough-ins....

Plumbing, electrical, and hvac have been working like crazy all week running piping, wiring, and ducts all throughout the house. In the walls, under the floors, in the ceilings... everywhere.

a main run of electrical wiring in the wall

in-wall ductwork up to the great room

The next photo is looking into the kitchen/dining area.. You can see alot of electrical work has been done and some ducting in the kitchen wall for the microwave's vent fan. The blue boxes scattered all over the place are electrical boxes for outlets, switches, etc. You can also see the can lights in the ceiling above the kitchen area.

Also this week the front door finally was installed. That showed up on Thursday.

from the outside of the house

from the inside of the house

The well driller showed up that same day and began making a massive muddy mess drilling the well...

the well drilling truck

the big muddy mess...

This Monday  they'll be pouring the garage slab and the front porch slab. They're also scheduled to begin putting insulation in the exterior walls.

That will be followed up the next day by them hanging the drywall boards throughout the house.

Paul

Contractor Walkthrough day

Wow! Was that hectic! (and kinda fun!)

Monday was our on-site contractor walk-through. Most of the contractors associated with our house to this stage were there.

Plumbing, electrical, hvac, well-driller, Dennis, etc.  Each of them came to the meeting armed with their bid, alot of questions for Robin and myself, and suggestions/ideas for some of their stuff.

We started off with the plumbing installer. He needed to know things like how high the shower heads needed to be mounted, where the washing machine would be sitting exactly, where we wanted the outdoor hose faucets, etc. As we were walking around the outside of the house making those decisions, the well-driller caught me and wanted to know where the well head should be placed. He had a spot all picked out, but the plumbing installer brought up some good points and we moved it a bit and we were then told the well should be drilled on Thursday of this week.

plumbing drain and vent piping in half-bath

kitchen sink drain and vent piping

master bathroom sinks drain and vent piping

After the plumbing, we talked with the hvac (heating/ventilation/air-conditioning) installer. We talked about two different types of furnaces (we're getting one that's 95% efficient), various options for control panels/thermostats, etc., etc. We also had to decide where we wanted the air conditioner to be placed outside (we picked a nice spot that's completely hidden from most every side of the house.

Once hvac was done with us we hit up the electrical installer. With him we had to figure out exactly where we wanted things like "can" lights...

can light rough in in the kitchen

.. and some things he didn't know about like the master bathroom lights won't be your typical above-mirror fixture, we're having pendants instead. Likewise, we had in the bid 3 pendant lights over the snack counter in the kitchen, but after looking at how it lays out in the actual kitchen we were able to reduce that number to only 2.

We have a few of those little lights in the side walls of the staircases (rather than having a light fixture mounted on a wall, etc). Here's the rough-in of one of those.

..and an exhaust fan in a bathroom....

After we were done with all the sub-contractor walk-throughs we had some things to discuss with the builder as well. In conversations with him some things were mentioned that sparked ideas from us or Dennis and also little details that can only be flushed out during construction.

We got to look around at a bit more leisurely pace after that. The framing of the fireplace enclosure continues...

Monday was a very busy day for Robin and myself... but Tuesday brought a very big task for the two of us of another sort....We had a meeting at the bank to finally close on our construction loan.

After a 30 minute meeting and the handing over of a sum of money to the title company for closing costs, etc., we were on our way.

We stopped out at the new house after that and took some more photos.

Today the girls' bathtub got installed. They've been waiting to see that since it showed up on site last week.

Downstairs, the living room half-walls and fireplace "black box" were installed today.

In the master bedroom, framing was started on our tray ceiling in there, as well as a surprise to Robin that Dennis and I had worked out... a smaller tray ceiling above her reading nook.(yeah, Robin loved it) They're kind of difficult to make out in amongst all the other framing...

The plumbing installer had been doing alot more of his rough-in stuff too... you'll notice the red or blue "PEX" piping;  the red is hot water runs, the blue is cold water runs.

hot and cold water piping in the hallway wall framing

half-bath hot and cold water piping for the sink

master bathroom shower head piping

The framers were busy again today (as they are every day). 

half wall at the stairs from garage to basement

doorway framing at bottom of stairway from foyer

doorway framing at bottom of garage stairway

The electrician was also very busy today, installing more rough-ins for outlets, switches, and light fixtures throughout the house.

The following two photos are of can lights on the exterior soffits of the house (front of the house).

above the master bedroom window

above the reading nook window

The word from Joe (Dennis' on-site construction manager) is that they'll have the rough in stage done this week and they'll begin insulating the walls early next week, followed immediately by hanging the drywall around the interior of the house. That'll certainly change the look of the interior substantially.

This week I'll be helping our neighbor pull wiring through the house for the security system we're going to install (he owns a security installation company that's done very well for itself), and then this weekend I believe I'll have to do a bit of insulation work in one of the walls in the house as well.

Also, I'm getting bids in on the seeding of the lawn, and the pouring of the concrete driveway slab too.

Robin and I also need to get out and finalize our light fixture selections some time in the next week or so.

In today's news of our current home, the buyers had their inspector come through the house. We should be getting his report back in a few days. The previous buyers' inspector gave us mostly high marks on things and only a few "not quite as high" marks on a couple things just attributed to the age of things in the home.

Paul