September 3, 2009: Last Concrete Poured

On Thursday, we went out to the house during lunch (no pics) while they were pouring concrete and then much later in the evening when the concrete was done.

Preethi looks at the sidewalk. The lines in the concrete are regularly spaced control joints.

Sidewalk viewed from the driveway.

Pads for the propane tank (front) and condensers (back).

Basement stoop. Note that the smaller concrete jobs don't get control joints.

Garage stoop and apron. These have control joints.

Heat exchanger has now been wired up for the basement and main level (the other one is in the attic for the second floor.)

A little oval framing was done on the jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom

The water entry point for the house was sealed.

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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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May 19, 2009: Electrical Rough ins Done, Heating / Cooling Begin

We didn't make it out to the site on Monday, but did on Tuesday. Some more work had been done on the shingles, plumbing, heating / air, and the electrical rough-ins are now "finished".

View of the house from the tree on the north east corner. Most of the shingling is done now.

View of the shingles on the back of the great room.

Electrical rough-ins on the outside were also completed. This one is next to the garage door.

Preethi inspects some of the cans for recessed lighting in the great room. More cans have been hung in the back.

Cans for recessed lights in the kitchen. There's two over the sink, two over the range, and two over the kitchen desk. (You can only see two in this photo).

Stair light rough-ins. Effectively night lights so you don't fall down the steps.

The huge set of wires that will go into the electrical panels in the basement.

Pipes for water for a bath/shower. Hot and cold are mixed and sent up the single pipe.

View in the shower/bath. Still need to add some fixtures (faucet, shower head).

A different view of a shower where you can see the water pipe extending above the the top of the surround for the shower head.

Underneath a shower rough-in.

Tubes that will eventually be filled with freon to connect a compressor with an air handler (we're dual-zone).

Cold-air intake on the main floor situated on the side of the pantry closest to the dining room (for the lower zone).

Cold air-intake at the top of the stairs (for hte upper zone).

3 vents in the master bedroom. On the top floor, the vents will be in the ceiling as the air handler will be in the attic.

WIth the vents, plumbing, and electrical rough-ins in, it's starting to crowded in a few places.

View of the registers in another upstairs bedroom from a closet. You can also see a wire hanging down that will eventually power a fluorescent light.

On the main level, the vents are currently on the floor. However, we wanted them off the floor to cut down on the amount of dog hair that falls into the ducts.

View of the main level vents from the basement,

More of the freon-filled (eventually) tubing that connect air handlers and compressors. One of the air handlers will be in the basement.

Fritz checked out the basement on his own.

Silver verified that the silt fence had been fixed after last week's storms.

Probably close enough to merit cutting down, but it's leaning away and it's a real nice looking tree.

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May 16, 2009: Rain, wiring, and plumbing

We didn't make it out on Friday, but did on Saturday with Bruno and April (current neighbors). Friday it rained in the afternoon and a lot in the evening, so not quite as much happened.

Electrical rough-ins in the garage.

Bruno and Preethi look at the Great Room. Wiring for the recessed lights is above. We're not quite certain if that's in the right place as we want the lights to be further up on the ceiling than where the wire is, but the large loops may indicate that the electrician is planning on it being higher than it is.

Rough ins in the great room with Cable / Phone lines running. The fireplace will be about (slightly to the right) of where you see those two higher boxes.

The wire for the great room fan is hanging down here.

The doorbell wire at the entrance.

A couple more pipes were added for hot and cold water to the washer in the laundry room (on the left).

Preethi, April, and Bruno look out the great room bumpout.

Wires (orange / black) running up for what I assume is the upstairs air handler (sits in the attic).

Coils of wire awaiting the final run out to the air handlers.

One of the master bath vaniy rough-ins. If you're really attentive, you can tell that the rough-in for the electrical and the plumbing moved to the right by about 8 inches.

Looking down from the stairwell into the greatroom. Mostly, this is to show the blue box on the ledge that will be used for track lighting in the great room to illuminate some paintings.

Plumbing vent up through the roof. It may have already been there, but I just noticed it.

Because the gap between supports for the door and windows in the Great Room was so small, the electrician had to get creative attaching the electrical boxes (in this case for a switch). Here, screws had to be sunk into the side of the box rather than nailed as is typical.

Here's what an electrical box is normally attached - simply by nailing the in on the top and/or bottom (with depth set to match the dry wall).

Another example of what had to be done to work around the tight framing around the windows / doors in the great room. Here an angled hole that cuts through some of the supports was made to get access to exterior wall between the french doors and the window.

View of the south side of the great room. If you look closely, you can see the roughed-in wires for the lights that will go over / next to the door on the deck.

Some of the wires for the lights that will go outside of the basement entrance. In theory, this is supposed to mimic the appearance of the French doors opening onto the (eventual) deck above.

We got 3 inches of rain overnight, which was more than our poor little silt fence could bear.

The rain also washed out the driveway some with gravel distributed down the culvert. According to forecasts, this week will be dry.

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