May 12, 2009: Plumbing Rough ins and basement leveing begin

With the windows in, work has started putting in plumbing rough-ins. As rough-ins may not be the most interesting thing to see, I've added a few pictures from different perspectives.

Preethi is in a bunch of shots (as is typical), but is wearing a facemask. She had the flu and thought it might be getting exacerbated by sawdust.

View of the house from the tree at the northeast corner. Windows in, house wrapped, paper on the roof, backfilling not quite done yet.

Preethi walking into the house.

A drain line in the garage and a drain from the master bathroom.

A rough-in near the main floor bathroom.

Holes are cut before the lines are put in. This is near the main floor bathroom

Different holes to eventually run water lines.

The shower in the master bathroom (and the topside of that drain from before.) Unlike the other bathrooms, this shower will be tiled in rather than putting in a one-piece unit.

Preethi standing in the master bedroom with the great room in the background. That'll be closed off when we get to drywalling, but it looks pretty cool now.

View of the Great Room looking into the kitchen (below) and master bed room (above). Currently, we're planning on having track lighting spot lighting some nice paintings on that upper wall.

View of the Great Room looking back towards the dining room.

Danny had been spreading rocks to start leveing out the basement so the basement floor can be poured next week.

Preethi next to a steel support in the basement. That's approximately directly underneath where the dining room and the foyer meet.

A rough-in extending into the basement.

Preethi walking out of the basement. Lots of windows even in the basement (at least where it's not below grade).

View of the house from the Southwest. This is the view I call "The house of glass" because of all the windows that open out onto the backyard. While that would be annoying for bedrooms, it should hopefully be great for entertaining areas which is what virtually all of these windows are for - the exceptions is the bumpout in the master bedroom and the winow at the top right corner of the house in the ummm throne room.

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May 9: Windows all in

On Saturday, we made it out a bit earlier and serendipitously met up with Wilbert at the lot (he was out for a ride and happened to be there). All of the windows were in.

View of the house from the road.

Outside of the garage. That's a window to the bathroom and to one of the bedrooms. You can also see some of the flashing (tape, really) around the windows. Helps cut down on water infiltration.

Door and window in the garage.

Preethi next to her favorite dining room windows.

Preethi and Wilbert in the Great room viewed from the kitchen. You can see where the 3rd window (center) is in. Lots of light.

View of the great room from the foyer. The french doors will eventually open out onto a wrap around deck, but not in the immediate future.

Detail of the ridge line and the rafters in the great room.

Looking into the master bedroom and the bump out.

One of the dormer windows in a bedroom.

View of the house from the west. You can see windows in the Great Room above and a basement window below.

Plumbing rough-ins in the basement. More importantly, the trench has been filled.

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May 7: Windows begin

We didn't make it out to the lot until late on the 7th (something about having jobs...) but windows had gone in and the dormer work was effectively done.

View of the entrance to the house. Bottom left is the dining room and the right (installed!) twin window is in the great room. The gaping hole is the entrance. We were still deciding on what we wanted to do for a door after our quest for an openable (hinged) sidelight fell through.

Here you can see where the dormer framing was finished off. The two smaller windows are bathroom windows. The bottom one was not on the original plan, but umm... I'm under no illusions that my sh*t doesn't stink.

Inside the great room looking from near the main entrance. Lots of windows. The plan originally only called for singles on the back wall (which Preethi is facing). We changed that to doubles. Additionally, there was not going to be any windows on the right side, which we thought was a bad idea in general and a travesty given the back yard. So we added the matching French doors flanked by singles. (Only had so much space coming back on that wall as there will be a fireplace sans chimney and needed some place for a TV)

Preethi and the dogs check out the sliding window in the kitchen.

One of the smaller windows for light in the great room. Eventually there will be 3 such windows (originally 2, but there was also originally a chimney).

One of the shower/ bath units dropped into place.

Another change to the plan, originally the space over the entrance was just closed off. But we noticed that there was more than enough overhead clearance to add a door to then use the space as a walk in closet. The original, adjoining walk-in closet may now be used for a kid's desk or maybe just more storage. Options are good and it's easier to build them in now than later.

A detail of the underside of the roofing transition from master bedroom roof to bumpout roof. No windows there yet, however...

Looking down into the greatroom from above (this will be closed off). Sorta like how Mike Tyson would flash before punching you in PunchOut, cyborg dogs' eyes will glow right before they pounce. Or maybe it's just red eye.

View of some of the supports for the roof. One of the many differences between a stick-built roof (do what you want with the shape) and a trellis roof (mostly prefab).

The "dining room" windows are quite large, 6'2, and they're triples (as opposed to singles or twins). Here's Preethi standing next to them and the hole where they'll be put in tomorrow. I say "dining room" because the room may or may not actually be used for dining. Right now we're thinking more along the lines of a formal living room, but we'll see.

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May 6: Stairs! And Raised Ceilings

Travel a little and a lot happens. It was a bit muddy, so all the shots were from inside, but there's a bit to see.

Here's a view of the great room from the dining room. Lots of houses have two story foyers (we don't), we went with the two story great room, which is (I think) starting to look really impressive closed in. There's still another window to add and some minor adjustments to make to the heights to the doors and windows.

Looking through the stairwell from the back from the kitchen (great room to the left) to the foyer and dining room (looking north).

View from the main floor bedroom (guest bedroom). The three doors you see from left to right are: 1) hallway / entrance, 2) direct entrance to the bathroom (not on original plan), 3) closet. In the back you can see the stairs and the great room.

Preethi going up the roughed in staircase. Much easier than the ladders we used the previous week.

Up on the second level in one of the north side bedroooms looking back at (left to right): 1) Master Bedroom, stairwell, great room (won't be open like you see now - should cut down on noise filtering up a little)

One of my favorite things about the framers is they clean up some every day when they're done.

The bedroom in the northeast corner. We also opened up the ceiling to the roof in this room (like in the master) and that's kinda done in this shot with about 16" shelving running over the doors (that's a closet door you're seeing).

Collars (the cross supports) to support the roof in the attic (and some framing too). The roof over the great room has less of a slope, so that the change in roof shape you're seeing on the left.

Since opening up the ceiling to the roof wasn't the original plan, we had to add strips of wood to the rafters so the drywall could sit properly with insulation behind it.

Same addition as the previous shot, but in the masterbedroom where the main roof meets the hipped roof for the bumpout.

View of the master bed room looking towards the master bathroom. When we opened up the master

Window added to the lower bathroom. In the original plan there was no window in that bathroom. Instead there was a false window created by closed shutters.

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