Cathedral Framing

Today the framing crew was out for lunch when we walked up to the house but it was obvious what they had been working on. The family room/kitchen area has a cathedral ceiling that goes the length of the room. In the previous blog update you can see this room has no ceiling at all, with a roof wide open as you look from the kitchen towards the fireplace.

Today was quite different, with support scaffolding in place and most of the initial framing for the ceiling done.

The framers build lots of little structures to help them climb to the roof or stand while the boards are being nailed down. I hopped onto one of these about four feet off the ground and took a shot of the ceiling in progress and down at the great room.



Of course Vivi wanted to get up on the rail so I put her up there and took a pic. She really was careful about not moving even though she was not up too high. Good girl!

Merry Christmas!

No work has been going on the past few days because of the holidays but we also haven't been able to get many pics until Monday. Plus a little snowstorm Saturday before Christmas made things interesting. So here are some pics taken Christmas Eve. Keep in mind all of this was done in one week!

Front corner of house, you can see the garage door and the beginnings of the rafters for the bonus room above the garage:

View out of the master bedroom (braces are still in place to keep the walls stable since the ceilings are not done):

View out of study/office to the West and North:

View of back patio doors and windows from front door:


View of family room from kitchen area (this will have cathedral ceiling so there's a lot more roofing coming here):


Finally a view of the rear SE corner of the house. The window on the corner is Vivi's room and the area with all of the wood support beams is the screen porch!

How It's Made

I had to use How It's Made for the title, because that's Vivi's favorite show. At the moment she's lying here in bed learning about how toothpicks, bathtubs, helicopters and beer are made. These are all things that a five-year-old should know, right?

More framing today! Bryan was at the house when I went up to check it out, and he's happy with the way things are going. We spent way too much time discussing pantry doors and shelves... I can't get past the fact that I've got a HUGE pantry. I get to organize it too?! Cool!

Here's a picture of how the house looks today...



Here's a closer look at our bedroom. They've put in the boards where the ceiling will be. It's going to be pretty hard to put any furniture in there with all those pieces of wood going everywhere! :)



And here's a picture of our dining area... none of this was done yesterday!



And here's a picture of the family room, facing towards where the fireplace will be (the square roughly in the middle of the picture). To the right is my big-ass pantry!



That's it for tonight. The segment about bathtubs zonked Viv out, so it's time to turn off the light and crawl in bed too!

Framed!!

Ian is in Austin this week, so welcome back to the somewhat goofy, definitely non-technical, but really excited posts written by Angel...

Today Viv and I took a nature walk through the woods to our new house and when we got there we had WALLS. Sort-of. Basically some boards pointing in a vertical direction, but still, it's starting to look more like a house. How cool!

Here's a view of the front of the house...



And here's another view from the driveway, looking into the garage...



Viv was really excited to finally get to stand in her own room. A few minutes later she went in her new bathroom and took an invisible bath and brushed her teeth at the invisible sink.

Viv in her room...



Two more... looking from the laundry room (approx.) to Ian's office, and a view out of Ian's office window...





That's it for today... more pictures of framing tomorrow... Ian is bummed that he's missing out, so I've got to post lots-o-pictures!

Pardon the Interruption, it's the Ice Follies

Well, what the news channels are affectionately calling "Ice Storm 2007" has hit Oklahoma. Which means we stayed inside for a week while the world around us froze and of course nothing got done on the house.

Except...brave truck drivers (presumably with guiding reindeer) who delivered framing materials at some point during the early part of the week (ho ho ho!).

No one is building on the house this week but we are ready to go when the weather cooperates! We drove over to check things out...everything coated with ice




Besides pure sleet and ice, a lot of water came down as straight up rain and the ground got really muddy. Which the truck drivers who dropped off the wood probably found out quickly (check out the ruts in the mud)



Bring on the sun, the wood is ready for framing!



Checking out the slab and mud and large puddles



Viv says "Hi!" and can't wait to jump in her next puddle:



More updates later when we thaw out!

Slab Done

Mini-update today. It's too foggy to take any quality pics but the slab is done!
Look in the background and you can see wood already delivered, ready for framing.



That's it for today!
This weekend it's supposed to freeze, sleet, snow, etc! So I guess framing isn't going to start Monday as planned unless the weather people are way wrong. We've stocked up on food, firewood, and drinks so we're ready. More updates when something happens!

Slab day 1

By the time I got up to the site at a little after 10am the crew had already put rebar in the garage by the storm shelter, poured the garage and the south side of the house!



Soon after I arrived the cement truck showed up and backed up to the north side of the house. Johnny Dodge (<--his real name) himself, the owner of the company, guided the cement into the master bedroom/bathroom/closet area.





The crew were all wearing yellow boots, and I would soon see why. At first they used their shovels to direct the cement into the trenches and around the sand. Soon though they hopped right into the cement to spread it more effectively. Then one man used a wooden form with long handles to smooth the cement top. They worked very quickly and as a team. Soon they had the whole area filled up!






One guy was using a flat piece of metal on a long pole to smooth out the surface as it dried. Later the whole crew would use little hand trowels and smooth out the final finish.



That evening when I returned the cement was nicely smoothed out and free of the pesky leaves that seemed to land all over the wet cement earlier that morning (pouring slabs in the Fall is a pain I discovered - windy, cold and lots of leaves).
The storm shelter is now really locked into place and not going anywhere!
They did half of the pour today - all of the higher up, thicker places where tile and carpet will go. Tomorrow they will pour the rest, for the areas with wood floor and the shop building.






Here's a shot showing the trench filled with rebar ready for tomorrow and the edge of the part they poured today. The cement has set up enough already that they were able to remove the wooden forms that separated the areas of the floor. Looks good!

Slab Prep

After a couple of days the plumbing finally got inspected (see the bright green/yellow sticker on the pipe?).

The next day, several piles of sand and gravel appeared on site to begin preparation for pouring the concrete slab/ There were lots and lots of sand piles to play in! Which is why we didn't bring Viv up here at this stage...




The crew spent a couple of days spreading the sand all over the house floor and even had some left over. Then they went to areas of the foundation where they were going to pour different concrete heights and put in dividers so they could control the levels in different areas. This is done so flooring of different thicknesses, such as wood floors versus carpet/tile can be relatively level in the final build by making the sub-floor different levels.





Then they came back the next day and dug some trenches and moved away extra sand in areas that need more concrete reinforcement. These trenches and holes allow concrete to fill in extra thick in needed areas.







For extra reinforcement in the shop/garage they laid out rebar to be filled with 5 inches of concrete! Helllooo two-post car lift!




Tomorrow they pour the slab concrete! More updates soon.
Bonus pic: Here is the front door we're looking at selecting.


Bonus section:
When I went up and checked on the house near dark and to make sure the gate was closed, I noticed an excellent sunset and lots of Canadian geese flying by. Since I had the camera I took a few shots with and without flash. The contrast of the setting sun and dark environment confused the camera, but made for some high contrast photos!