We have rooms!

Our first floor is pretty much complete. On Saturday we spent the whole day up on the mountain with Danesh. All first floor windows have been cut and most of the first floor interior walls have been framed. It was definitely helpful for us to be up there because we were able to make some minor changes and head off some small potential errors.


Some changes that were made:
1) the windows on either side of the fireplace are now centered on the walls (the plans had them off center to make clearance for the t.v niche cabinet doors)
2) we eliminated the pocket doors in the family work room
Apparently this house is a little more detailed than the framers are used to, so it was beneficial for us to be up there to clarify the many questions that they had.

Perhaps the best part of the day was spent helping Danesh mark the placement of all windows and using the "new toy" he purchased to cut them in the SIPs (think half chainsaw...half circular saw!)

What's in store for this week??
The framers should finish the first floor and hopefully get our second floor system and walls going.

Click here to see all pictures from this weekend: Framing Pics

Big Day

Wow, yesterday was BIG. I don't even know where to start. First off, ALL of the exterior walls are now up. The process of putting up the SIPs started off fairly slow, but ramped up to a feverish pace by the end of the day. Louie S. from Fischer SIPs showed up early to help us get going. He left around 2:00 PM, once he saw that we had it under control. I know all of you want to see pictures, so without any further ado.





And how about some video




It really was an easy process once we got into a rhythm. And yes I do mean WE. I was in the mix getting dirty too. Come on, did you really think I would just stand by and watch all day. At our best, we had two crews putting 2x4's into the panels, one crew installing the panels. I was using the plans to find the next panels, locating them and saying what went where.

And finally the finished product.


Not bad for one days work.

Stay tuned for more.

Finally...

We seem to be making some progress. The floor system was delivered last Wednesday and of course it just sat there for a few days. The good news is that the framers showed up at 8 O'clock on Saturday morning to start work. Of course I was there bright and early too. It was a pretty cool process to watch. The other cool thing was to watch our house start to grow out of the ground.

The SIPs are scheduled for delivery tomorrow, Tuesday, and Louie S. from Fischer SIPs will be here Wednesday to oversee the installation process. The house will take form over the next few weeks, and we hope to have framing done by the end of February.

I will post pictures and video of the floor system being installed as soon as I can.

Pictures

We have just uploaded a bunch of pictures of the Tucker Bayou house that Southern Living did. We ended up uploading them top Flickr, but made it a public folder so everyone could see them. If you haven't pick up on the fact that we are trying to copy everything that they did, well then you just haven't been paying attention. So hopefully this is what our house will look like when it is done.

Some Things Have Changed

Over the course of the last few weeks, quite a few things have changed.

First, the pretty pictures you saw of the foundation, well, one wall of that has been torn down. The good news is that it had to be done in order to fix the mistake that was made when it was laid. Hopefully that will be done by the beginning of next week.

We have also changed what windows we are going to use. After seeing the windows that Danesh is using on his house at Clayton Pond, we decided to price out the exact same windows. We have changed our selection to Integrity Windows by Marvin. The color is exactly what was used on the Tucker Bayou in Watersound North, on the Southern Living Idea house. We also ended up saving somewhere close to $3000 for windows that are more energy efficient and have the grilles on the inside and outside instead of between the glass.

These pictures are from Danesh's house in Clayton Pond. The first is a picture of the exterior, we love this color, it is what we chose for our house. The second picture is one that we photoshopped the grilles to match the grill pattern that we are getting for our house.

Another thing that changed is the interior doors. We started out wanting 5-panel horizontal doors, but could not find them for a reasonable price. In December, Masonite released the exact door we wanted in their molded panel series. This door is so new that is not on their website as being available, but sources close to the situation tell us that we can get it. We are still awaiting the quote, but we don't expect it to be much higher than the 2-panel door quote that we received earlier.

I believe that we have a pretty busy couple of weeks coming up. The floor system is scheduled for delivery on Wednesday. The SIP walls are scheduled to come in at the end of next week or the beginning of the week after, and all framing is set to be done before the end of the month.

What can I say...

Apparently we are just not very good at keeping this thing updated. But to be fair, not a whole lot has happened. The block for the foundation has been laid, but it is not right. The house is 4 inches too skinny. Normally that is not a very big problem, but when using SIPs the foundation must be perfect. We think that the problem is stemming from the surveyor. We think he missed 4 inches that is shown in the plans.



The SIPs have been ordered, but have not been cut yet. This is actually ok with us because we might have changed our minds about what kind of windows we want to use. Now we are leaning toward Marvin Integrity windows. They are made of extruded fiberglass, and are much more energy efficient than vinyl or aluminum.

We now have temporary power and water on our lot, and the termite treatment has been applied to the soil.

Sorry...

that we have not updated the blog in so long. See, the thing is, there has been nothing of note to post about. We went up to the lot last night and saw that the block for the foundation had been delivered. They haven't started on the foundation because of the weather, I am assuming. It has been below freezing for the better part of the week and I am pretty sure it is not a good idea to use mortar when it could freeze.

Anyway, that is all we have going on here. We will keep you apprised of the situation.