Getting there!

More photos! These were actually taken last week but I'm just posting them now. Today the windows were delivered so I may have more photos tomorrow.

This and the photo below are the front of the house with the roof lines nearing completion and roofing felt in place. You can see the house wrap getting some attention also.

Here's the view from the kitchen side of the house. The little section to the left is the back side of the third garage. The three windows up high are for the three bedrooms upstairs.

Here's the back of the house. The roof lines are defined now and they've started to finally frame the final wall that they've been leaving open to get in and out of the house.

Inside shots! This is the first floor, from roughly where the front door is. To the immediate right is the dining room, the big double-height great room is dead ahead, and the kitchen it to the right and way far away is the morning room. The great room has big windows that overlook the back porch.

Here's a view of the double height great room and the trusses that make up the roof. Where I'm standing you can also see the framing for the three bedrooms up there and the hallway leading to them. This area seems cavernous right now but once the trusses are hidden by wallboard it'll seem less massive.

Here's a view of the back wall of the great room. It has three giant windows looking out onto the covered back porch and then three windows up high to let in lots of sunlight.

This view is from the kitchen looking at the great room. Beyond the great room back there is the framing for the master suite and also a small guest bathroom.

This is the master bedroom. As you can probably tell, our builder likes big windows.

The view out the back of the master bedroom. Just woods back there but it'll be a dog yard eventually.

A look up at the trusses in the master bedroom, which are a little different since we paid for a cathedral ceiling in there.

And this is the back porch, which has a cover now, but no floor still. This is taken from the doorway that leads from the master bedroom out onto the porch, and across the way you can see the other entrance into the house which leads to the morning room and then the kitchen.

Just a little bit of perspective

Most of the work being done currently is putting on the roof boards, so not a lot of massive changes. So I thought I'd upload some photos that give some perspective, especially to anyone who has actually been to the property.

This is a view from the house up the hill that we're currently living in. It's a gradually rolling hill down to the area where the barn is. You can see where the new house is nestled on the right side in the trees. The back side of the house abuts a bunch of woods.

This is the view from the long driveway down to the property. That's the front of the house we're currently living in. What shocked me when we drove down it today was that the new house is so high that you can see it all the way up the hill, over the roof of the existing house.

That's all for now, seems like the framing team is wrapping up their job here soon. We're not sure what's going to happen next, but whatever it is we'll be sure to post more photos!

Fun With Cranes!

It's a VERY exiting day out here! A crane just showed up to lift the roof trusses into place! You can see it below:

Credit for this photo go to my brother and sister who couldn't help themselves.

Ok, there's the real deal beginning to hoist trusses into the air. Pretty big crane, and if you look closely...

You can see the entire front half of the truck is lifted into the air to level it.  I'll let the rest of the photos speak for themselves.

And the final result, after just one morning of work with a crane...

It's starting to look like a house!

Taking Shape!

I took some quick photos as the guys were working today. I'm not really comfortable wandering around inside while they're working, so they're mostly exterior shots. Since they're working from sunup to sundown every day to try to catch up, it'll probably be like this until the weekend when I can walk around inside the building in the daylight hours.

This is the current view from the back of the house. The big block on the left is the third garage. The wall with the two vertical windows cut out is the kitchen. You can see the second floor taking shape now and the beginning of the covering for the back porch.

The front shot! They've enclosed both garages now so you can see where the doors will go. The initial frame for the covering of the front porch is in place and they've framed where the front door will actually be. We're pretty sure the guts of the house have been framed at this point, now they just have to frame out the roof. You can see the beginning of the gables over the garage side, but they'll be bringing in a crane on Friday or next week to put the majority of the roof trusses up.

Framing Part Three

More framing photos!

This is the front of the house. If you look closely you can see the future owner standing there for reference.

The garages, now with some walls and a bit of the second floor. That will be one of the upstairs bedrooms up there.

Not only is this calculation correct (notwithstanding the use of parens which any accountant is probably having a fit over) but it's actually legible!

View from the back side of the house. The room closest to us there is the 'morning room', but they've avoided framing in the closest wall so they can get in and out of the house. If you look closely, you can see the ramp they're using for that. They can't use the normal entrances since the porches are still big gaping holes waiting for cement.

This is going to be the dining room.

I'm standing in the great room here and looking in towards the kitchen. Since there's no stairs to get to the upper floor yet, that ladder is what they're using.

The front door is on the left here and straight ahead is where the gym will be.

That will eventually be where the stairs end up on the second floor. I think they're using some sort of extra strong LVL up there.

This is our master bedroom! What a mess. You can see the three large windows on the back side though.

Hard to see but that up there is the beginning of the loft.

WTF! They punched a hole in our wall to get their nail gun hoses in! I was really curious about this until I went inside and saw that hole's where a window will eventually be.

Framing Part 2

They already have some kind of house wrap on this side of the building. You can clearly see the height of the first floor is 9 feet here since the 8 foot plywood sheets don't reach low enough.

They are pre-fabricating the overhang for the front of the house I guess?

This is the side of the garage. They're were starting to hang the exterior boards and were almost done with the garage by the time we left.

This is the view from the backside of the house. You can see the sub floor for the first floor is complete from this view.

The front side, featuring the three car garage and the front steps.

Frame Job

Framing has begun! So exciting!

Oh look, the trusses have been moved to the work site and laid out better so they won't warp.

The joists for the first floor have been completed at this point.

They laid out boards so they could walk around. Made it easier for me to get photos too. I'm standing where the kitchen eventually will be, looking towards the great room.

That's the back porch. No framing since it'll be a cement pad on top of an elevated 'tray'. It's going to be a huge porch, roughly 25 feet long and 11 feet deep. Covered, too.

That's it for now. Hopefully this next week they'll start erecting walls.