June 19, 2009: Bricks, roof, and drywall

Due to travel, Friday was the first chance I had to visit the house in about a week. During that time, the bricks were finished (except for the front steps which have to wait on the ground to settle as they’re not on the foundation), the shingles were finished, the last of the dry wall was hung with two courses of mudding and taping (one more course to go, then sanding), and the last air handler was installed in the basement.

View of the house from near the Northwest corner. The front porch with its two arches was completed. The arch is kind of a repeated design element as we replicated that launch angle of the arch in the arch that divides the kitchen from the great room. The cinder blocks you see are used because they’re cheaper and will either be below grade or covered with steps.

View from the driveway. The last part of the shingles that needed to be installed were the portions where the brick walls extend above a roofline. If you look closely, you can see the brick step flashing which is one of the various things added to either keep or vent water out from behind the brick.

View of the west gable where you can see the gable vent and where the shingles meet the brick.

Close up view of the brick flashing above the front entrance.

The airhandler in the basement (zone 2).

Some of the duct work in the basement.

Preethi walking up the stairs in the basement. We like the open stairs landing we have in our current townhouse and carried over that element to the new house.

Looking up the stairs into a bedroom.

One of the bedrooms on the second level.

Preethi walking into the master bedroom.

View of a bedroom on the second floor.

View of the great room.
View of the East attic gable vent through the opening to the attic.

Yet more dirt delivered for backfilling in around the foundation (think cinder blocks).

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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.

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