It rained through Wednesday, but on Thursday and Friday, the bricklayers were able to work. By Saturday when I got out to the site (travel), almost half of the house had been bricked. Further work had gone on inside making some minor framing additions and the front door was installed.
View of the front of the house. You can see where the front door has been installed. It's 8' Mahogany with 3/4 view, an arched top and needs to be stained.
A closer view of the front door. You can see some of the bricks on the bottom right. We'll have small capstones over the windows in the front, but they haven't been delivered yet, so the brickmasons got started mostly on the back of the house.
A close-up of the front door. We like it a lot, so there's perhaps too many pictures.
Front door from just beyond the foyer.
Front door from the the middle of the great room.
Bricks on the lower front of hte house and some of the scaffolding on the west side.
Closer view of the bricks on the front. The concrete blocks will be below grade.
The west side of the house bricked up to the top of the main level.
The brick fork lift (I'm sure it has a different name, but that's what it is) lifting up a pallet of bricks to the workers on the backside of the house.
View of the bricking process from the rear of the house. The main level is complete and they're working on finishing off the bricks on the master bed / bath beyond the bumpout. If you count closely, you can see 7 workers in the photo, which explains how they managed to get so much done so quickly.
Bricking around an exterior outlet box.
Another outlet box (under the window) and a light box. The plastic is on the windows to reduce the chances of scratching the windows.
A close up of the bricks. The type of brick we used is called
Dan River Hand Craft (it's actually engineered with very straight lines) and the mortar pattern is called
grapevine.
Sand for making mortar and the mortar mixer.
View of the bricks on the garage side of the hosue. In the earlier shot of the back, the bricks were about 5 feet down from the roof. 20 minutes later, they're nearly up to the roof.
Tiles we were considering for the kitchen and foyer (
Marrazzi Stone Collection). The whiteish tile was a given, but the choice was between the greenish-grey tile on the right and the straight-grey on the left. We're going with the greenish-grey.
We're considering these tiles (
Marazzi Jade Sage - slightly green). Here we were checking out if we could set up the tiles on a diagonal and have them line up right with the shower and the "throne room" (they did).
A roughed-in step in the garage was added during the week. Originally, we thought we were going to need two steps, but we were able to make the inspector happy with just one (less space taken up in the garage).
A wall for shelves in the main-level bath.
The framed-in fireplace.
I was curious to see what heating / cooling work had been done in the attic, so I climbed up. This also let me see things like the top of a shelf in an upper bedroom.
Another shelf in one of the upper bedrooms.
The shelf in the master bedroom.
The attic fan with the
dual pole single throw switch (turns on with attic thermostat and when whole house fan is on).
The air handling equipment I originally came up into the attic to see.
This was the inspection sticker on the front door. It's really just posted here for my personal amusement as that's the name of one of my nephews.
View of the front of the house. You can see where the front door has been installed. It's 8' Mahogany with 3/4 view, an arched top and needs to be stained.
A closer view of the front door. You can see some of the bricks on the bottom right. We'll have small capstones over the windows in the front, but they haven't been delivered yet, so the brickmasons got started mostly on the back of the house.
A close-up of the front door. We like it a lot, so there's perhaps too many pictures.
Front door from just beyond the foyer.
Front door from the the middle of the great room.
Bricks on the lower front of hte house and some of the scaffolding on the west side.
Closer view of the bricks on the front. The concrete blocks will be below grade. 
The west side of the house bricked up to the top of the main level.
The brick fork lift (I'm sure it has a different name, but that's what it is) lifting up a pallet of bricks to the workers on the backside of the house.
View of the bricking process from the rear of the house. The main level is complete and they're working on finishing off the bricks on the master bed / bath beyond the bumpout. If you count closely, you can see 7 workers in the photo, which explains how they managed to get so much done so quickly.
Bricking around an exterior outlet box.
Another outlet box (under the window) and a light box. The plastic is on the windows to reduce the chances of scratching the windows.
A close up of the bricks. The type of brick we used is called Dan River Hand Craft (it's actually engineered with very straight lines) and the mortar pattern is called grapevine.
Sand for making mortar and the mortar mixer.
View of the bricks on the garage side of the hosue. In the earlier shot of the back, the bricks were about 5 feet down from the roof. 20 minutes later, they're nearly up to the roof.
Tiles we were considering for the kitchen and foyer (Marrazzi Stone Collection). The whiteish tile was a given, but the choice was between the greenish-grey tile on the right and the straight-grey on the left. We're going with the greenish-grey.
We're considering these tiles (Marazzi Jade Sage - slightly green). Here we were checking out if we could set up the tiles on a diagonal and have them line up right with the shower and the "throne room" (they did).
A roughed-in step in the garage was added during the week. Originally, we thought we were going to need two steps, but we were able to make the inspector happy with just one (less space taken up in the garage).
A wall for shelves in the main-level bath.
The framed-in fireplace.
I was curious to see what heating / cooling work had been done in the attic, so I climbed up. This also let me see things like the top of a shelf in an upper bedroom.
Another shelf in one of the upper bedrooms.
The shelf in the master bedroom.
The attic fan with the dual pole single throw switch (turns on with attic thermostat and when whole house fan is on).
The air handling equipment I originally came up into the attic to see.
This was the inspection sticker on the front door. It's really just posted here for my personal amusement as that's the name of one of my nephews. 
Jody - I've really been enjoying following along. I've also been learning a lot about building a house, especially modern techniques. Of the three I've owned (just bought #3), the mean age is 90 years, so I'm more familiar with the more, um, "traditional", styles.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm learning as I go, but figure it can't hurt to post links to what I've been reading.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the opposite boat on house age. Of the (soon-to-be) 2 I've owned, the median age at the time of purchase is 0, though this is the first custom home.
However, we were once about an hour from making an offer on a 90-year-old home. Was a FSBO, and the owners verbally accepted an offer shortly before we were going to make out last review of the house before making an offer.