Framing in the snow.

Saturday was beautiful, but we woke up to quite the snow storm on Sunday, which continue all night and part of Monday morning. Then it sleeted for a couple of hours and coated everything in ice. The guys showed up Monday morning about 8:30 am, but it was still pretty dark. They didn't get much done and finally gave up.

Here the guys are working where the back door will lead out of the kitchen to the side yard. You can see the space on the right where the kitchen windows will go. And you can see the inner wall between the back hallway and guest bedrooms.

Pauls crew is there, and so is Dave Ellington and his crew. So the framing is progressing fairly quickly. Though watching them melt ice of the 2 x 8's with a torch is interesting.

Walls are started

Here are a couple of pics from Friday afternoon and then today. The guys got the walls started mid day on Thursday. I'm hoping they are ready to put up the roof trusses by the end of next week.

This one was taken Saturday about noon.

Sat about noon...

Friday work crew, it was windy and very cold.

Plumbing Fixtures

Today I got the showers, toilets & faucets ordered. Actually, not the kitchen faucet yet, I still haven't found exactly what I want. But I have a few more months before it gets critical :-)

I'm splurging and putting a steam shower in the master bath.

http://www.us.kohler.com/onlinecatalog/detail.jsp?item=7550502&prod_num=704310-D3

Backfilling is done...

I got home late on Sunday. The backfilling around the foundation was done on Thur and Fri, so the wall framing should start this week.

Here is a pic from Friday that Valda took for me.

And here is one I took late Sunday afternoon.

Life Flight

I'm glad these guys are available, but I really hate to see them pull up outside my office. Someone's gotten hurt or ill, and at +$10,000 a flight, it's serious.

This was taken about 8:50 am, still full dark, though I think sunrise should be starting around 9:30 am.

Sunrise at 10:10 am

The sun was trying to show up this morning, but it's being blocked by the clouds. It was very, very red/orange. Too bad I can't capture that color with my little camera.

Foundation Update

Valda sent me a few new pictures. This one is from a few days ago. The floor decking is all on and all the snow has been washed away by the rain.

This one is from today. It's not raining, but the snow is back. You can see here how the living room & master bedroom will overhang the basement by a bit.

Here are the cistern tanks in the basement (just not hooked up to anything).

Ray is supposed to get up there and get the back filling all done this week, then Paul and his crew can start framing in the outside walls.

Black Bear Visitor

We've had a black bear hanging around the yard since spring. Caught a glimpse of him a couple of times, but Patty finally got a couple of good pictures last week....

Floor Joists are in over the Crawl Space

Starting The Floor

This morning the guys got started with the floor joists....

SNOW...

Well, this is not very good. We got 4 to 5 inches of snow on Sat night/Sun morning. Some of it melted off Sunday afternoon, but basically it's here to stay. About 3 weeks early which makes getting my house walls up a bit more of a pain.


Here are a few pics from Sunday afternoon...



















You can see in this one, that the heat from the curing concrete has melted the snow directly above it. I'm pretty sure this isn't good for the curing process.
























Crawlspace side or guest room 'wing'.


















Walk out basement side - under the living room/kitchen/master bedroom.

Picture from 100108

And here is a photo Valda took for me on Thursday. Side 2 has the footers poured so the crawl space should go up shortly. Hopefully it doesn't start raining, but there there is a big storm headed in from Russia.

New Kitchen Layout

I think we've made the final layout changes for the kitchen. Moved the refrigerator to the end wall, just down from the sink. And then moved the cooktop & hood to the right wall next to the double ovens. This should give me a nice cooking area, with plenty of counter space on either side of the cooktop. And I can use the island behind the cook space for prep work.

Here is a scan of the new layout. Any ideas or suggestions?

Snow Squall

We've had a couple of heavy snow squalls this morning. No wind, so it's really quiet and pretty. But the snow is piling up a bit.

And here are 2 more from last Thursday, when we had our first real snow fall where the snow stayed on the ramp instead of melting off right away.

These were all taken from my office window.

Finally some good news!

Well, it finally dried up enough to get my basement slab poured, and even the back fill done around the basement. Looks like the compacting is getting done so the footers for the crawlspace can be poured next....

Thanks Valda, for the pics.

First Snow

Well, I woke up to snow on the ground today. It was fairly light snow at 5:30 am, but we had a couple of heavy snow showers between 8 am and 10 am. Then after lunch a short sun break so the snow melted off the ramp. But not off the tundra. Winter is setting in...YUCK!

This photo was taken about 7:30 this morning from my office window.

Rain, Rain, Rain

It just keeps raining so progress on my house is very slow. The guys have done some more excavating, they're trying to get the footers in so the can start the crawl space. But the whole area is ankle deep in mud. My poor driveways is a mess. I don't know when it will dry out enough to get the basement slab poured.

Valda took a couple of pictures for me last night.

No Progress

Well, after 5 days of torrential rain, it cleared up for few hours mid morning. Penny & Virginia were here visiting, so we went up to the house site to look around. The guys were scheduled to start back filling and getting the basement ready so the slab could be poured, on Monday. Today is Wed and it was just way too wet to get started. And it was raining again by 3 pm. Looks like lots of rain for another week. YUCK, I'm sick of the rain.

This is Valda standing in front of the cistern tanks and Penny is taking a picture.




And Virginia is trying to stay out of the mud!

Basement Drain

It's really raining hard today, but the plumbing guys are up at the house site, digging a small trench and putting in the basement drain line. This rain is supposed to continue all weekend, but dry up a bit on Monday & Tuesday. I hope it dries up enough so they can get the basement area compacted and the slab poured.

Also, the 2 big cistern tanks were delivered.

And they cut away a bit of the Styrofoam to check the cement. This is where the crawl space footers will attach to the basement wall.

Basement Walls Are Poured

This morning the cement was poured inside the insulated foam panels, so the basement is getting done. 3 Trucks of cement, and about 1.5 hours. The guy operating the boom on the cement truck, ran it from a remote control he had strapped around his waist.



















No rain yet today, but it's dark & cloudy. Had some fog this morning too.























And, as you can see, no tie offs for the crew once they were up over 6 feet. They seemed to be pretty sure of themselves up there, but I was a bit nervous.