Lots of Little Stuff

 Most of what has happened this week is not very visible unless you know where to look. Plumbing and HVAC has been the big thing on the docket. Lots of time, and most of it won't show in the end. 

Upstairs bath. We decided on a 6ft tub so us adults can fit. 

Shower tray in the downstairs bath. The worker had a few choice words re: the builder! 😃 He needed to use a sledgehammer to slightly shift a wall, and said the floor wasn't level enough so he had to take the tray in and out a few times to get some shims to the appropriate thicknesses. 

Doggy bath in the mud room. The space underneath will become a pull-out step and a drawer to hold shampoo and other doggie paraphernalia. 

While looking at this completed work I had a Duh! moment. The small duct just above the floor is the dryer vent for the laundry room next door. In anticipation of how things would go together I had assumed the vent would go up to the ceiling then over to the wall. In EVERY house I have lived in, the vent went up. Hot air rises, right? I was briefly confused when I saw this vent. But this laundry room is NOT in a basement! In 37 yrs, I have only had 2 laundry rooms that were not in basements, and those were both in the middle of the house and still had to go up first.

This picture below may not enlarge enough see it, but just about everywhere you look there is evidence of this week's work. Pipes, hoses, and ductwork everywhere! 

I think a silver alien octopus has made a home in the mudroom ceiling.

And also many bits and pieces of framing stuff:

Drywall added to the garage/house wall to keep the heat in. 

The wrap-around part of the stairs and the base for the railing framed in. 

The under-stairs area progressed. This entire side will eventually be bookcase. One of the jobs Sid will finish up later. 

The wall at the top of the workshop stairs underwent an amputation. The plan is to finish this space down the road, so only the downstairs was going to be insulated and heated at this time. But, this required that the upstairs be totally closed off, and the downstairs ceiling be insulated. There isn't enough room at the base of the stairs to put in a door that meets code, so this wall was built to the ceiling, with a door at the top. Decided to insulate the upstairs now instead. It will need it later anyway. 

The wall between the workshop and its garage got drywall on the garage side. Through the doorway you can see the shower for this bathroom. I think they are going to have to remove a stud or two to get it in. It's bigger than the doorways. 

This window was intended to go at the base of the workshop stairs, but the inspector required a door there as a potential fire escape from the upstairs. It had to go somewhere, and this was the best spot. I had previously wished I had thought sooner of putting one here, and it will be nice to have daylight in the attic. 

And the icing on the cake this week- House Keys! Somehow that feels like a milestone reached. 

Dried in!

 This week has been doors and windows. Got off to a late start for the week when Monday dawned with single degree temps and high wind, which meant no work getting done on site, but the windows and exterior doors got delivered. 

Tuesday wasn't a lot warmer but the crew was at work with installation. Troy said it's not good to leave them sitting around lest they end up in someone's new ice fishing house. :)

When I arrived at Bosky, the front windows were in and they were working on the back ones. That wonderful telescoping forklift was put to work again to reach the upper windows, but also for the lower ones as the platform held all the windows as they worked, and lifted the men up out of the mud. 

Before we left, they had decided to do the upper windows on the back sides of the workshop next. Troy and Dustin (employee) were on the platform, and Brock (Troy's 16yo son) was driving the lift. With this long platform held on the forks, he attempted to maneuver the lift around between the shop and a cluster of 4 small oaks. This had all of us holding our breath as he tried to get the platform past the eaves, and around the corner. Then soft dirt. Spinning tires. Tipping slightly, at least the lower part did, apparently the wheels can get tippy and everything above stays stable, and all 4 wheels are steerable! And he got stuck. Finally Troy had him put the platform down and they called it quits for the day. Troy said they'd bring tire chains the next day to finish the job. 

Wednesday. Sid and I stayed home and let them work without an audience. When I arrived today (Thursday) all the windows were in place. But, I was met with the words "We had a little accident...." Not the kind of thing one wants to hear! So, when they went around the corner of the house to do the tall windows, they had all the windows loaded on the platform, Dustin and Brock riding up there, and as Troy made the corner, the wheels unexpectedly slid down into a frozen rut. This caused a sudden jolt, which sent Dustin and 2 windows to the ground! Dustin is fine, but the two bottom side windows got broken frames from landing on their upper corner. New ones have been ordered. ("They'll be here before the siding" Troy said with a grin.) The broken ones were put in place to keep us dried in, but later they will end up in a garden shed or something. 

Here's the inside view of the great room. I am loving all the glass! The patio door has its own story. When we were working with Brandon, the architect, he put in all 8ft doors downstairs because of the 9ft ceiling. At that time I priced out the 8ft patio door vs. a standard 6'8" door and said no way were we going to pay that much for an extra 16". He was supposed to change it on the blueprints. Well, he took forever getting the final set done, and Troy started with using the prelim set to get balls rolling. When we had the session at the lumber yard to do all our choosing, I'm not sure which set he had, but I never looked at the door height for the patio. (I checked- it was never changed, so it didn't matter which set the lumberyard had at that point.) In all the discussion, the other doors and windows got downsized to a normal height, but we kept the big living room windows at 8ft. Last week while standing upstairs, I realized that the patio door opening was framed at 8ft. We spoke to Troy, and he said it was easy enough to fill in with a little more framing if that's what we wanted. We were assuming the smaller door had been ordered. Well, the doors showed up, and it's the big one! Troy checked into getting the smaller one, and it would take 2 months, which would mean NOT being dried in completely, and slowing down everything around it, like dry wall, so we decided to keep it. I'm glad we did! It DOES look better than the smaller door would, and keeps the line of all the windows at an even level. 

Front door and porch. Craftsman style door, with 2 sidelights. One sidelight wider than our current front door and entry. The left end of the porch will get a porch swing. Troy is putting in an extra 2x4 alongside one truss to support the swing. Same thing on the back porch, but on the opposite end. 

My new sewing room- do you like my little round window? 

Other job getting taken care of this week is minor interior framing details. At the far end of this room you can see the small walls that will be the basis of my storage on that end. Deep shelves in the middle to hold my fabric bins, and narrower shelves on both sides for everything else. The pony walls at the top of the stairs have been reinforced, the attic access has been framed in in the guest room ceiling. Troy had me take a pencil and mark where we want blocking put in to secure towel bars, TVs, etc. All those little jobs will be finished up tomorrow. 

Next week: electric and plumbing get installed! 

A couple more photos, just because I like them. 

The view from my swing at the campsite:

From down by the bridge- There's a house up there somewhere! Can you see it?: 

A dumpster got delivered today and Brock got the fun of cleaning up the site. The joys of being low man on the totem pole: 

Size

 We've gotten numerous comments re: how big the house looks. It IS bigger than our current home, but much of the appearance is optical illusion. The gambrel roof is imposing, the small front yard makes the lot feel crowded, and we are used to seeing homes with the garage on the front- putting it on the end makes the house look very long. I'm sure if both these buildings were in the middle of a field, they would not look nearly as large. 

We wanted one-level living as we age, so the first floor contains functions that might otherwise have gone upstairs or into a basement. We wanted the gambrel roof for the appearance of a barn, and that much space under the roof just screams for a second floor. We talked with the architect about just doing dormer windows upstairs instead of a full second story, but he said the full wall was actually cheaper to build, as well as providing more space. I have also learned since that dormers are notorious for leaks, though it's possible that new construction methods have decreased that. 

Another factor in having a larger house is frustration with the size of some rooms in the current house. So far, only one of our offspring is married with children, and we've already outgrown the living and dining rooms; those spaces will be larger. We'll also have a big mud room- currently we have a tiny entryway with a small coat closet. It's not possible for multiple people to enter or leave without being in each other's way, not to mention a lack of space for wet coats and boots. Intentional storage is also a need. Currently, we have nowhere for a vacuum to live other than the basement- which doesn't even have carpet- so it has lived in the corner of the dining room for 20yrs. The bathrooms have minimal storage, and the linen closet is way too small to take up the slack. I'll have a real pantry instead of using the farthest corner of the basement for my canning supplies and canned food, with room for the freezer in the pantry instead of the garage. The current garage is pretty roomy, but still not roomy enough for Sid's Suburban to share nicely, and trying to squeeze a makeshift wood shop into the space along with motorcycles and snow blower hasn't helped.  

So, yes, the new house will be big. We are introverts who like our space, and who enjoy our hobbies. "Downsizing" just wasn't going to work! 

Roof!

 After the trusses were in place, next step was the flooring in the garage attic. It will be a roomy space, and with no basement will probably be utilized well. 

Over the weekend, the forecast called for high winds. Troy added some extra bracing to the house. In his words- It's no fun to have to do things twice. Sunday morning when he woke up to the sound of the wind, he made a special trip over to add even more bracing. Everything was still standing on Monday. 

Now that we finally had trusses over the great room, the end wall finally got framed. Sid and I had speculated on why it was not done with the rest of the walls, guessing that the extra height would not be very stable without a truss to hold the top. After watching how it went together, I think it was also because it was easier to get all the uprights the correct height if they know what height they needed to be. 

It's going to be a big space! 

Sheathing and Tyvec on the end wall. 

Then the roof. Sheathing...

Then Shingle. 

They no longer use tar paper. The lighter colored underlayment is a synthetic (plastic?) sheet, the darker is coated in sticky. It goes along lower edges of the roof and at the angle changes. Troy said the heat from the sun will melt it to the plywood and to the shingles, creating a barrier that water will not penetrate, thus eliminating leaking due to ice dams. 

I assumed the siding had been ordered along with all the other stuff from the lumberyard meeting, but this week Troy had a sample sheet from the siding company. We had two widths to choose from, and more color choices than we had at the lumberyard last spring. We chose a brighter red than the "autumn red" we previously chose. Unfortunately the reds only come in one width, not the one we chose, and will take 2 months to arrive. Thankfully this will not hold up any other work. 

This week: windows and exterior doors!

Nerves of Steel!

 I love to build things, but I would NOT want this job. These guys have zero fear of heights. They climb around like this is just monkey bars, especially Troy's son. The tops of the walls are only 6" wide; the tops of the trusses are only 1.5". I commented to Troy about his son's fearlessness and Troy said "He's too young to know how much it hurts when you fall."

And the House Grows

 Since I didn't post last week, this starts out with the house progress that preceded the workshop completion. 

The temporary stairs went in to access the loft, and the stairs for the garage attic. 

All the extra bracing in random spots makes it interesting to navigate through the space, but if the wind comes up, we'll be glad it's there!

Virginia brought the kids out to check on our progress, and they put some wood scraps to good use. I have since collected a tub full of nice-size pieces that will be sanded and sealed to add to the box of building blocks. One can never have too many building blocks, and our current collection is lacking in the larger sizes. 

This is our pile of roof trusses. This is what held us up for *7* months! 

The upstairs walls framed! 

My sewing room!

The library.

Guest room and bath. 

At this point, work shifted to the workshop trusses and roofing. Today, a week later, they started on the house trusses. First up was the central portion. 

Sid and I were out there early today to pick up the trailer so we could go pick up the new fridge. On clearance, and Menards was running their 11% rebate, so we bought it early. It can sit in the garage for a few months. This is the one appliance that we wanted a specific model, so we grabbed it at the best possible price. All other kitchen appliances will be whatever is in stock at a clearance house. 

When we returned to park the trailer, the house was at this point. All loft rafters in place, and setting the last one over the living room. 

We stuck around and watched them start the trusses over the garage. First they had to move the whole stack to the other end of the yard. 

We watched until they had about 6 trusses in place. It was getting cold, and once you see the process, the excitement was limited. The square space in the middle will be the storage attic.

Sid found a comfy seat out of the wind to watch the work. 

With trusses- the living and dining rooms. This is going to be a tall space! 

Sewing room. 

Looking from the library upstairs to the living room below.

This will be the view out the two-story windows. Minus the truck and the dirt pile.