April 30, 2009: Roofing continues

While we came out on the 29th, I forgot the camera, but significant roofing and second floor work still went on on the 29th. By the 30th (when these pictures were taken, with some at lunch and some as the sun set so there's a huge variation in lighting) much more of the stick framed roof (mmmm attic space) was taking shape with the ridges and most of the rafters in place.

View of the house from near the road and slightly West of center. You can see the several of the roof sections here (types of roofs are nicely described here, but there's a brief ad first). Basically, the great room is side-gabled (on right), the roof above the dining room is front-gabled, the main area is side-gabled, the roof over the garage is a saltbox, and the roof over the great room is kinda shed / saltbox cross (with a hip roof to come over the bay window / bumpout).

Here, yo ucan see that most of the rafters are in (rising from the walls) and are being supported by the ridges at the center of each gable.

View of the house from the tree at the North East Corner. If you look closely, you can make out that some of the sheathing is up on the front gable.

View of the hosue from the West side, where you can clearly make out the rafters as well as some of the scaffolding needed to help put together the stick frame roof.

View from the SouthWest.

The plumbin rough-in also occured for the basement. You can see pipes running, eventually to flow out the hole cut underneath the foundation which we showed earlier.

Pipes for the rough-in for the basement bathroom. Also if you look closely, you'll see a pressure gauge which is used to check for the . The inspector happened to be there checking the gauge to make certain it held air pressure for long enough (basically as a means to test for leaks).

View of the house from the neighbor's yard (from the East). We're going to be letting them use the scrap wood to build a tree house and were giving them the heads up on where the scraps would be. On the way back, I realized I didn't have a pic from this direction.

From this, you can a) see Preethi, but b) also see the nice example of a saltbox roof (gabled with different slopes) that is over our garage.

Interior view of the Great room - there's a lot of vertical space. The gap shown in the rafters on the eft side is for a dormer that will be going in.

Detail of the ridge (the engineered piece of lumber which is a different color from the yellow pine) and some of the scaffolding. If you look closely, you can see the rope the workers used to help pick up the rafters to place them on the idge.

Looking up into the second level through the stairwell.

Preethi going up to the second level into the master bedroom. You may notice that the master bedroom appears to have no ceiling or rather that the ceiling is the roof. For the master bedroom and another bedroom where the roof was not that far above, we decided to not have the plain flat 8-ft ceilings (or tray or vault) and instead to go with the ceiling against the roofline.

That'll lead to a room that's sorta like a cross between a top-level room in a Cape Cod and a room with a vaulted ceiling as like a Cape Cod, the ceiling is the roof and slopes off in one direction, but like a vaulted, the ceiling is 9+ feet above your head everywhere. This should also allow us to put in a little plant shelf over the closets - an idea suggested by the framers.

Looking out the dormer of the other bedroom with the roof-ceiling. This room will seem more like a Cape Cod second-level room than the others, but you're certainly not going to bump your head in it.

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April 28, 2009: Roofing begins

We came out in the evening on Tuesday and some of the roofing had begun with the initial skeleton beginning to fill in as well as some additional work on the second level.

View of the house from the road. You can see where some of the key support elements of the roof are up as well as the front gable over the bedroom over the dining room.

View of the house from the tree at the northeast corner of the lot. While the roof structure is going up, there's still some framing work to be done on the second floor.

View of the house from the brush pile (from the West). From this, you can see that the great room is going to have a rather high vaulted ceiling.

View of the backside of the house. The bumpout is built up now, though a differently sloped roof will be over this side of the house.

Looking at some of the initial roofing sections in the great room as well as some of the scaffolding used to work on the roof.

Looking at the roof over the great room, looking back into the house. There's actually going to be a roof at one height over the great room and a roof at a different height over (most of) the rest of the house.

Some of the strings used to help guide the positioning of roof members in the great room.

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April 27, 2009: More work on the second floor and a little in the basement

Most of the walls on the second level were completed when we came in the middle of the day on Monday, with basically just the north east bedroom and effectively the entire second level ceiling left to complete the main framing on the second level.

View of the house from the road. Most of the second level walls are up with the second level ceiling to go.

View of the house from the tree at the North east corner. The northeast bedroom on the second level is the one room with walls remaining to go up. At the same time, you can see the longer boards stacking up on the side of the garage that will be used to help build the ceiling.

View of the house from the Northwest corner. There was still some discussion on exactly how the recessed entry would appear so it wasn’t done yet.

View of the framing of the bumpout and the quasi-interior wall of the Master bedroom.

One of the workers stands on top of the corner of a closet and bedroom wall in preparation for working on the second floor ceiling. Don't think I would be comfortable standing like that, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for him.

I discuss ceiling plans in the Master bedroom with Juan. W.D. was a little startled to see me climbing up the ladder, but based on the brackets going in on the bumpout support, I was afraid that the ceiling was about to be built flat instead of as a tray ceiling. Turns out I was right about the intention for a flat ceiling, but wrong about the significance of the brackets. We’re now putting in the tray.

View of the trenches (to carry away sewage to the septic tank and drain field) in the basement from the West side of the basement (Den). W.D. (looking up the stairwell) also sneaks into the picture.

View of the trenches in the basement from the East side of the basement (Den). W.D. and Preethi discuss plumbing rough-in plans for the basement.

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April 25, 2009: Second Level Walls Begin

The framers worked on Saturday and we went out midday Sunday to look at the work. Several of the walls were up on the second level and after days of telling everyone that I would be too "scared of heights" to climb up a ladder at the site, Preethi ended up being the one to not go up the ladder. Since a) Preethi didn't get a chance to see the second level, b) we had better light than normal (e.g., for the basement), and c) we didn't feel like we were in the workers' way (since they had gone home for Sunday), there's a few more pictures in this set than normal. To make sense of it all, I grouped the pictures into exterior shots, second level shots, basement pictures, and details.

Exterior Shots

View of the house from the road - you can see where work has begun on the second level where there will be three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

View of the east side of the house. The boxer is a neighbor's and followed us around a little bit. We didn't bring Fritz and Silver with us because it was quite hot (upper 80s / lower 90s). The part on the South Side is the Master bath and on the north side is a bedroom.

Different view from the East where you can see framing beginning on a different bedroom.

Looking at the backside of the house. The bathroom is framed in on the second level, but the master bedroom is not yet.

Second level pictures
The second level floor was all done so I was able to walk around and take a few pictures.

Picture of Preethi standing in the foyer as seen through stairwell hole.

Looking southwest from the second level across the stairwell. You might of noticed that there's no floor over top of the great room. That's by design. There are no rooms above the great room; instead it'll be a large vaulted space.

Looking from the master bedroom across the stairwell towards the north bedroom. We're quite happy about the view.

Looking from the master bedroom into the master bath.

You can see some of the prepatory chalk work (in blue) laying out where bathroom elements will go.

Looking from the bedroom at northeast corner towards the great room.

Looking from the bedroom at northeast corner towards the master bedroom (walls not up yet).

Looking from the bedroom at northeast corner towards the master bathroom.

North side bedrooms from near the stairwell.

Looking out a window in the master bathroom up the driveway.

Looking from the master bathroom north into a neighboring bedroom.

Basement shots

Mostly these are pictures to show the openness of the plan even in the basement. Even when we're underground, we're trying to open up the space.

Basement shot from the north east corner. That nearby framing support will be changed for an open span to allow for easier flow between the stairwell and the basement bathroom.

Looking across the basement towards the South from underneath the dining room. The windows are white because that's Tyvek over the windows (temporary).

Preethi standing in the middle of the den, shot from the southwest corner.

Construction details

I also took some shots highlighting some construction details.

Example of a support built into the foundation wall.

Detail of the joint of the two engineered wood pieces forming the support where the foyer meets the great room.

Detail of some of the patchwork done on the rebar holes in the foundation wall interior. I highlight this primarily because our current house didn't bother to do this. So we had to do it when we finished the basement.

Other

The window in the dining room got cleaned up a bit and now it's Preethi's favorite room in the house.

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April 24, 2009: Onwards and Upwards

We visited the site twice on the 24th. Once around lunchtime with Wilber and once in the evening with James and Kate and Joe and Jen. Again, the midday pictures came out a lot better than the pictures taken at sunset. A lot of the structural framing was completed on the main level and the floor started to go down on the second level.

View of the house from the tree on the north east corner of the lot around lunch time.

Looking into the garage in the evening. You can see both the support for the span over the entrance and the I-beam steel support closer to the centerof the garage. It's not a huge garage, but it's not small either so a little extra support goes a long ways.

Looking at the main-floor bedroom around lunch time. The joists for the second level are going in.

Looking from the great room back into the "dining" room (it'll probably never be a formal dining room and will instead be more of a flowing extension of the great room). You can also see distinctly see the engineered wood used to span and support the largish spaces on the main level.

Preethi in the foyer by the entrance where some of the top level support work has started.

Wilbert in the great room.

Looking at the entry-way at night.

Here you can see where some of the flooring for the second level is beginning with the bump-out for the master bedroom.

A view of the garage from the south side. If you look closely, you can see the I-beam that is helping to support the garage expanse and also see that the garage is a taller-than normal room. This was mostly the result of the need to drop the garage a foot and a half or so to match the roll-off of the lot and the need to have a common level for the second floor. This in turn means means that we're going to have a slightly taller than normal garage door (8' as opposed to 7').

A closer view of the steel beam support in the garage at night (hence the blur).

Joe, standing in the great room looking out the south side. There's actually pictures of everyone who came that night, but only's Joe's photo turned out okay-looking.

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