June 10, 2009: Bricks and Drywall (and a lot more)

On Wednesday, the bricks progressed until it started raining, the basement step rough-in was completed, the front entry slab was poured, the whole house fan was installed, more dirt was delivered, and... whew. That's a lot!

View of the house from the northeast corner of the lot. Bricks have gone up on the garage side and a bit on the front.

View of the bricks on the garage side.

Close up of the soldier course and iron angle above the garage. Pretty, but weaker structurally than the staggered pattern.

We had some insulation added around the master bed room to cut down on sound wafting up from the great room.

The master bed room all insulated in.

More drywall in the great room with the dormer filled in.When you hang drywall from the top down (as you're supposed to) and you have a 24 foot ceiling, it takes a little bit to work your way down.

The kitchen drywall was mostly completed (except for the mudding).

Looking out from the kitchen towards the great room.

Looking from the kitchen towards the dining room.

The pantry.

The dining room.

The main level (guest) bedroom.

The main level bath.

Some more dirt was delivered for finishing the filling around the house after the brick work is done.

Our whole house fan. The concept is to expel all of the air in the house out through the roof and replace it with air from outside in about 3 minutes.

View of the basement stairs from the main level.

View of the steps from the basement.

The front slab was poured, but is covered to protect it from the elements.

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June 8, 2009: More bricks and air handling

On Monday, I made it out to the lot late in the evening and quite a few more bricks had been added as well as some additional work on the inside (air handling and some work on the steps).

View of the fron of the house. This was around 8:30 PM, but the brick masons were still working. On the 6th (Saturday), bricks had just started to go around the front and now you can see that they're most of the way up the front.

Closeup of the dining room window.

A row (course) of "soldier" bricks was placed across the top of the garage. Typically, this is for appearance, and that was also a motivation here, but it wasn't part of the original plan. Instead, when the iron angle was placed to support the bricks over the garage, the masons noticed that the bricks were not going to line up well over the garage, so we told them to do a soldier course to clean up the lines. For consistency, this is now going to be reflected over the two windows on this side. Also since the iron angle was inset a little bit, we couldn't bump out the bricks 5/8" like we did for the front windows.

View from the tree in the Northeast corner. The last parts to get bricked will be the center side-facing gable and / or the front entry (not visible).

View from the backyaard. The back and this side were were already done last time I came out, but the yard was too muddy to walk out and take this shot.

The stairs to the basement were roughed in except for the steps.

The steps between the basement and the main level as viewed from the basement.

We also checked up on all the settings for the interior doors with Danny. The door salesman had done the initial markings, but we still had to change about 1/3 of them. Above shows the markings on our pantry door which indicates a 2' 4" door, swinging out, with the knob on the right side (for easier access from the kitchen which is to the right when facing the pantry).

The attic air handler was constructed (had been in pieces before) and connected to the ducts / vents for the second floor.

One of the ducts running in the attic. I'm assuming the duct is slightly elevated to allow the spray-in insulation to avoid direct conduction with the ceiling (below).

The attic air handler venting into the master bedroom.

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June 6, 2009: Bricks, drywall, and insulation

I was out of town for a week-and-a-half (3 trips, 2 *very* brief stays in Lynchburg) but it rained quite a bit so not so much happened on the outside, though several things happened indoors.

View of the front of the house. Bricks have started. The doors are open, presumably for airing out the house.

One of the keystones that will be going in the jack arches over our windows.

Bricks wrapping around from the front to the garage.

The brick ledge underneath the windows.

It was too muddy to walk out into the backyard to take a picture, but this is what the back looks like leaning out from the basement.

Insulation in the garage. Except in a few places, the insulation is done.

We had the ceiling of the shelving wall in the main-level bath lowered.

Stairs out of the basement have started. That's the framing for landing that you're seeing on the left.

View of the landing from the basement.

Preethi is standing in the great room and the insulation is in. More importantly, the opening for the whole-house fan is now in.

We had to cut back on some of the shelf space in the master bedroom to make room for some venting in the attic. This also meant we had to eliminate a recessed light (just hanging for the moment)

Insulation and duct work in the master bathroom looking towards the shower rough-in.

The rough-in for the arch in the opening between the kitchen and the great room. Loosely, this is supposed to mimic the arch at the front of the house.

Drywall for the kitchen ceiling is in. Also a recessed light was moved a little for balance on either side of the window.

Drywall going in on the great room ceiling. As you can see, we're leaving the ridge exposed. It'll eventually be stained to match whatever color we use on the floor.

All of our drywall is being screwed in as opposed to nailed in. This should cut down on nail pops, though screw pops have been known to occur.

The first room finished with hanging the drywall (but not the mudding) was the attached closet (originally just wasted space) over the entrance.

As you can see some water got into the house in the heavy downpours (roofs not quite finished). So here's the front door open wide (both sides open up to give us a 5' wide opening to move through furniture) to help air out the house a little.

Before they packed up, the workers got the gypsum boards off the ground to avoid the water.

A new pile of dirt to for some of the remaining grading (I think we'll need at least another load to do both the back by the garage and the front).

In addition to the rain, the house was attacked by a tripod from War of Worlds. Or maybe this is just duct work waiting to be finished off in the basement.

Two flooring colors we're considering for the hardwood. Currently we're somewhat conflicted as we like the darker color, but it's smudging too easily (as you can see if you look closely). So we'll need a different hardwood solution.

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