June 26,27, 2009: Cornice work and drywall

After some more travel I got out to the house on the 26th and 27th. Since mostly cleaning occured on the 27th, I've grouped together pictures from both days.

While I traveled, the cornices were mostly added with just the gutters to add. In the terminology, I'm used to, the cornice is the part of the roof that extends out beyond the wall and is made of of several parts including the fascia (flat part on end of roof line) and the soffits (on the bottom part of the roof overhang). The best conceptual picture I could find of the fascia and soffits was at this Bob Villa site, but its terminology doesn't jive with what I'm used to. What he calls a cornice, I would call a frieze with the frieze, fascia, soffit all part of the cornice.

Picture of the house from the tree at the northeast corner of the lot. Most of the final grading has been done except for right up against the house.
Closeup of some of the cornice work. The front facing pieces are the fascia and the pieces on the bottom are the soffits.

Different view of the house with the cornice work done.

In preparation for the final grading, the added cinder blocks were sealed to limit water penetration. After that dries for a few days (read as next week) the back fill will be completed and graded.

A few trees got nicked with during the brick laying. The bark was trimmed (to limit insect infestation) and sealed. We had actually noticed this earlier and had trimmed the bark but hadn't sealed the trees as the folks we spoke with suggested that sealing actually retarded healing (sorta like a bandaid).

Trim getting ready.

The beadboard ceiling for the front porch.

Danny mostly finished off the basement steps. There will be a railing on the right, but this is about all we will do on the steps.

View of the house from the back. In addition to the cornice work, you can see where the Hardie plank has been added for the master bedroom bumpout and great room dormer. Those parts couldn't be brick (at least at a reasonable price) because there was no direct support for the weight (actually the weight only matters while the mortar is setting). An interesting note for me is I was spelling Hardie plank as "Hardy plank" for years until a few weeks ago when I saw it spelled out for the first time. Basically, it's concrete fiberboard and is "hardier" in all the ways that matter as compared to vinyl and also looks better (the last part is my opinion). However, it's actually named for its inventor - James Hardie.

Close up of the master bedroom bumpout.

In the not so distant future, there will be a concrete pad underneath the side (rear, really) door entry to the garage. To support the pad, there will be a couple concrete piers which has been prepped in the square holes visible in the picture above.

The drywall was finishing up on Thursday. I just thought it was cool to see someone working on stilts.

If you looked closely at the previous picture you would see that the drywall around the arch appears rounded. That's because we're using bullnose archway beads around the arch. While we've seen it in a few houses in Lynchburg, apparently the pieces needed for it (seen above) were not available in Lynchburg so they had to be brought in.

The first interior door was hung - between the garage and the rest of the house. The kitchen (and most of the rest of the main level) is to the left as you enter. That's Kate in the background in the bathroom and Preethi's head is poking out.

Virtually all of the ducts are now connnected. (This is the same room where the earlier War of the Worlds tripod attack occurred).

Click to read more.

May 14, 2009: Shingles, basement prep, wiring, and plumbing

With the house frame up, a lot of different things can happen in parallel. For instance, on the 14th, more backfilling was done, shingles were started, prep work was done on the basement for pouring the floor, and more wiring and plumbing rough-in work were done.

Shingling started and got through about 1/3 of the roof.

The shingle guys are set up for the backside on the great room (see the brown packets of shingles)

Dan was busy finishing off the backfill while we were there. They were trying to make the house as nice-looking as possible before the bank came out the next day before approving the first draw.

The mound of dirt being used to finish off the backfill.

More backfill / leveling in progress. I just thought it would be cool to have a picture of construction going on outside of the house from inside the house through a window.

Pipe for water spigot by the garage.

Looking into the guest room from the garage. The electricians move fast as none of these rough-ins were there yesterday.

A lighting fixture in the attic positioned on a collar.

The attic fan. There will be a whole house fan approximately right below it.

Some of the intricate wiring runs around the steps.

Rough-in for a toilet in the master bathroom.

Rough-ins for one of the master vanities. Unfortunately, we got an offset vanity and they were assuming a centered vanity, so the pipes and wires had to move a little to the right. (That's also an example of why we're out there every day - to catch things like this early before they become big problems later)

Looking at the rough-in for the jack-and-jill bathroom,

On the top floor, most of the cables in the electrical boxes were stripped so the switches / outlets can be quickly wired after the drywall finishes (1-2 weeks in the future).

We also had to move the pantry door towards the kitchen so we could fit in the main-level's cold air return. Also see the mass of wires running through the pantry wall and down into the basement.

Wiring continuing in the great room. A bit slower there as it's a little harder to reach up high in there.

Rough-ins and wiring looking from the dining room back towards the garage (coat closet and bathrrom to the left, stairs to the right).

Wires for an outlet on the (covered) front landing

View of the basement floor from the entrance to the basement. The plastic sheet is there to cut down on water wicking back through the concrete after it's poured (plus I think it's required to meet code).

View of the basement floor from the main level.

Fritz couldn't wait to see what had gotten done in the house. Silver (in the back) preferred a little more stately approach to the house.

Click to read more.

May 2, 2009

On May 2, the completed portions of the roof had roofing felt installed, work on the two dormers progressed and there was backfilling around the front of the house in anticipation of brickwork.

View of the house from the tree at the northeast corner. You can see where the portions of the roof that are completed have their felt paper on, the dormer work that occured on the bedroom, and the remaining pile of dirt after backfilling most of the front of the house.

View of the house from the road.

View of the house from the Southwest. You can see where the felt on the roof is up and most of the southside dormer, while the gable on the great room is not yet completed. [While it's a gabled roof, the wall between sloping edges of the roof is called a gable.]

View of the great room dormer from the inside. It's not a real big window (there's enough of those in the great room) and won't give a very good view, but it will help bring light into the room.

Detail view of the dormer and the felt paper on the south side of the great room. Those orange circles are pieces of plastic that the nails are sitting. Basically that spreads out the surface area of the head and reduces the chance for ripping when winds come along (like this next week's storms) before the shingles go on.

View of the great room from an upstairs bedroom closet. While this probably gives you the best perspective of both the great room and it's dormer, it will be closed off soon, so it's likely the last time you'll see this view.

Detail view of the bedroom dormer from the inside. At least for the space on the right, we're going to case it in for a little extra storage.

Detail view of the bedroom dormer on the East side. There still the roofing to be completed and the plywood siding, but the shape is clear.

Backfilling along the front of the house near the garage. The ledges are where the bricks will be layed.

Backfilling against the front entrance. A little more dirt is going to be needed along the front still. You can also still make out where the french drain running along the base of the foundation in the vbottome right of the picture (seen as white stones with mesh with the perforated pipe covered.).

Since I don't think I've posted a picture of it in the past, here's the septic line coming out underneath the foundation wall on the West side of the house.

Click to read more.