House Colors

Most of the house is going to be covered in Hardie board siding.  I'm thinking about this color scheme:

Except I think I want the trim to be a little lighter- more creme.  Something like this: (minus the red accents)

I also really like the stone in this one, so hopefully we can find something similar.

Trusses

The framers arrived at 7am, and got to work on the supports over the porch, and I'm not sure what else, but the crane was scheduled to arrive at noon to put up the trusses, so I'm sure they worked all morning getting ready for that.  By the time I got home at 1:30 the crane was just finishing up.  Here's the back view, you can see the porch and the garage.

Another back view- looking from south to north.  Once the crane is gone and the framers leave for the day, I'll go out and see if there's anything else exciting to post about.  :)

More Framing, Part Two

The front wall of the house is about ready to be tipped up, you can see the two windowboxes are framed and on the wall.

A few hours later, they have the north wall up, and the laundry room enclosed.

A wall in the garage getting close.

Close up of the window boxes.  

More Framing

We were happy to be woken up this morning to the sound of the framers working.  Our neighbors were maybe not so happy, but we'll have a party when we move in, and invite everyone as a way to say thank you for putting up with the construction mess and noise.

This picture shows the back porch, and the wall that was built last time but not tipped up yet.

They're building the north side of the house, right now he's working on the window box in our bathroom.  

This is the wall from the first picture (with the door that goes from the back porch into the kitchen) and a new wall that looks into the laundry/mud room.

Hopefully we'll update again tonight- they said they should get all of the exterior walls up today.

Main Floor Framing: Evening Edition

From the south, this shows the smaller kitchen window (over the sink), the dining area/great room, and master bedroom in the corner.

From the north, there's another wall ready to be put up next to Kyle's feet.  Tomorrow ought to be even more exciting.

Main Floor Framing - Morning Edition

The framers finally showed up and before I left for work this morning, they had put up one wall on the southeast corner of the house.

Bedroom and great room wall.

Those windows are HUGE!

So I guess we will see how much they do today - will post again tonight on the progress.

Basement Framing Party

 Kyle and several friends spent the day framing in the basement.  They started around 7 am and didn't stop until it got too dark to see.  The pictures don't do it justice, but it looks so great, that I almost want to just finish the basement and move in, even if they don't have the main floor framed yet.  We were hoping to see the upstairs framers on Thursday, then Friday, then today, but we were happy to see so many friends who came to help with the basement.

The window will be where CP's room is, then his closet, and a utility room, then a bathroom, then part of the family room.

This is the west wall of the family room, and the door to the stairs.

Here's another view of CP's room, and you can see where the missing wall to finish off the hallway.

This is the last wall of the family room- it got too dark to finish it tonight.

This is looking from the family room down the hall to the bathroom and bedrooms.

Cement in the Garage

Framing...Finally

As a happy birthday to me, the framers finally came and stuck around all day on Saturday.  They framed the walls around the stairs and the main load bearing wall down the length of the basement, and set the huge beam that will allow us to have a nice large open family room.  Then they left again (really, all that took most of the day).  They came back today and got all of the floor joists, and plywood down.  It feels really neat to be in the basement now that it is enclosed more.  Kyle is thinking that he'll start framing the rest of the basement tomorrow or tuesday.

They had gotten all the floor joists in place at this point, and were finishing up the plywood around the edges and starting to lay the subfloor.

In the basement, the dark room is under the front porch.  All the framing in there is in preparation for pouring the floating slab that will be the front porch.  I'm really excited about this room, even without the cement poured, stepping into this room was noticeably cooler than the rest of the basement.  This will be the food storage room, and I'm picturing shelves for potatoes and onions and garlic and squash...  Also all the rows of canned foods.  :)

This framed area is where the stairs will be, as well as a closet and a door to the toy storage/kyle's home command center room, which has another door leading to another storage room behind the cement wall that will be for all our non-food storage.  We're debating putting the freezer in that room instead of the garage too- any suggestions on which would be the better location?

This picture shows the big beam and one side of the hallway.  The three doorways framed are (starting from the one closest) the bathroom, a mechanical room, and CP's room (and E's as soon as he's big enough to move downstairs).

We think they're coming back tomorrow so hopefully we'll have another update with the main floor rooms and the stairs all framed- that would be so cool.  Either that or we'll get cement poured for the garage floor.  Stay tuned.

Cooling Chimney

I haven't told everyone yet how much I liked our architect.  I think that she did a great job and this is one feature of the house that I am excited to see.

South Elevation

The cooling chimney, located right on the top middle of the house, sits over our great room and, theoretically, during summer months when the house is hot and the outside air is cool, we will be able to cool the house with an open window and a ceiling fan located in the cooling chimney.

I didn't realize the coolness of the architect until I examined the truss plans.  Here is what the truss manufacturer gave us for the 3 trusses that will entail the cooling chimney.

Cooling Chimney Truss Design

At the top of the house, the cooling chimney will be 4'x4'.  Where it intersects the ceiling of the great room, it will be 4' wide, with an exposed beam in the middle, and go from the apex of the ceiling all the way to the top of the wall - almost 8' long.  After the drywall goes in, I will finish the exposed beam with some oak or other hardwood plywood to make it look nicer.

Like I said, I think our architect did a great job on the house, but I think that this is a superb job.  It is a nice feature that adds so much.  I am looking forward to this part of the house.

Basement Concrete

Bright and early at 7am - it took them 2 hours to pour and get to the next picture.

 This was at 5 the same day.  The middle inset is our mechanical room.  It is inset so if there is a pipe break, it won't flood our entire basement - the water will be contained in that room.

Aug 30 - Gravel and Sewer Back Fill

How they filled the basement with gravel.

They finally back filled the trench of the sewer line.  This is only the new sewer line for our in-laws.  They have to connect our house with the pipe where the 2x4 in the ground is.

August 28 - Plumbing Rough In

The rough in plumbing in the basement.  This picture was actually taken on the 29th, as they did one load of gravel.

 Here is our sump pump in case we have a high water year.  It is set under our footing by about a foot.