Siding Complete

Well, here it is. The almost completed exterior of the house! The only things missing are the garage doors, the exterior lighting, and electrical outlets and the cement floors and proper supports for the porches. But the siding is done and this is essentially what the house will look like.

The full frontal view.

In this shot you can see the ceiling of the back porch as well as places for the can lights, carriage lights, a security light and electrical outlets. You can also see...um...snow. Ew.

Siding almost complete!

Got some active worksite photos today. House exterior is nearing completion.

This is the current state of the exterior. Siding should be done today. The big black tarps are protecting the new garage floor from rain.

Insulation is in! This is the cathedral ceiling of the master bedroom.

Insulation for the great room. And looking outside I got an action shot of one of the siding guys at work.

This is the new garage floor. Big improvement over gravel, right?

And this is the front stoop. That's the 'tray' that they pour the cement over. The cement guys should be back to do the porches sometime later this week.

Starting to look like a real house!

Roughing in is finished and we're on to siding!

Ok, one last electrical photo showing the two electrical boxes in the garage. And the thousands of wires. Jeez.

Ok, why do they leave the front for last? Are they trying to torture us?

Here's the back of the house, which is almost finished. We got free upgraded 6" corners for the siding because they screwed up the order. I'm not complaining. The color is actually a muted green, but it just looks grey in these photos. We wanted something with earthy tones so it wouldn't clash with the environment.

These are the master bedroom windows. You can also see on the bottom left the hookup for a hot tub. Because we need to have one, dammit.  The trim on the top isn't finished yet because the back porch siding isn't finished yet.

The one big wall facing down the hill with (almost) no windows. You can see they already have the scaffolding set to do the front of the house, presumably today if it doesn't rain too much.

More wires. Lots of wires. Wires everywhere.

More electrical and plumbing work. These photos aren't all that exciting, but hey, it needs to get done before drywall can be hung, ya know?

Temporary stairs to get into the house and lots of wires coming down where the electrical box will be. This is the back wall of the garage.

Wow. A receptacle. Like a billion in every home across america. Not sure why I took this photo.

This wire will be for a receptacle in the floor. Apparently by code you HAVE to have receptacles on every wall of a room, so our loft has to have on in the floor on the wall that's all railings. We tried to convince them not to put it in, but you know...code. We'll cover it with a couch or something.

Big long wire waaaay up there for a future ceiling fan in the great room. We're hoping it'll help cut heating costs a little bit.

Hey look, the upstairs tub surround is finally screwed in place and has plumbing and...very dirty water in it to test to see if it leaks.

And our shower in the master bath also has water in it to test for leaks.

This is the outlet and some additional blocking for the TV in the great room. Despite all that I just know I'm going to miss it all with all my screws.

This is where the refrigerator is going. Water line, outlet and...another two-gang outlet? WTF for? Our builder doesn't know so we have to ask the electrician what they're smoking.

This is under the kitchen island. That's a redirected heating vent, plumbing and power for a dishwasher and receptacle on the side so we can plug in our KitchenAid Mixer. (We receive a small contribution every time we mention KitchenAid Mixer by name in our blog.)

Hookups and electrical mess for the washer and dryer.

Look! Wires!

Lots of work yesterday, including electrical, plumbing, roofing and the well guy finally came out to replace our well pump. Looks like some roots came up with the old pump but they don't think it's too much of a problem. Our water might taste a little piney. :)

Here's the one and only shot of the roof halfway done. The guys were on lunch break when I shot this. By the time we got back yesterday afternoon the entire thing was done.

These are the can (recessed) lights in the kitchen.

This is the hole cut into the back of our coat closet for access to the space where the water heater will be.

This is the loft upstairs, showing the electrical work in progress.

Close-up of the loft wall, showing receptacles and wiring.

And here's our tub surround! It's just sitting there, not placed property or secured yet. But at least they got it in there. This is in the upstairs bathroom, the master bathroom shower is all tile.

Today it looks like the plumber and electrician are back down there. Tomorrow is the open house!

More Roughing Photos

Just a few shots today. More work by the plumber and the HVAC team and we met with the electrician for a walk-through.

Roofing shingles have arrived. This is only about half of them, the rest were delivered to the other side of the house.

You can see the metal trim they're putting on the edge of the roof in this photo.

This is the water feed for the entire house. Capped for now until the guy comes out to install the new well pump. The vent above it is for the dryer. It can't have been fun to drill through bricks.

There's a drain in the master shower now. Always a good thing.

And this is the rough hardware for the master shower. That's all for now. We'll have shots of the new roof tomorrow!

Roughing In!

We are officially at the rough-in stage! I know this because Schumacher asked us to release their second draw of funds which was due after framing was complete. Anyway, onto the photos!

Hello, future commode. You don't look like much yet.

OMG they cut through the roof! That's so gonna leak!

This is our future kitchen sink. That wall behind it is actually the frame for the kitchen island.

This is the master bath. Two sinks are going in there and this is the plumbing taking shape.

Yes, we crawled into the foundation. It's actually nice and clean down there for now. No snakes have moved in yet. You can see the plumber has some work to do down here.

Creepy underside of the house. Hope I don't have to go down here often but if I do it's easily nine feet tall at this end so I won't hit my head.

That's some sort of distribution box in the trusses up there that then goes to heat/AC vents on the ceiling of the second floor. To me it looks like a giant alien creature with tentacles has taken up residence in our attic. Will I ever sleep soundly in this house knowing what lurks in the rafters?

There's two vents way up in the ceiling of the great room.

Hey, they've done more work in the big shower of the master bath! They have a lip on the edge to keep water in, they've added insulation to the outside wall there and some sort of water barrier to the floor. You can also see a heat/AC vent in the floor right outside the shower wall.

This is a big return for the heat/AC system. Eventually it'll be clogged up with dog hair. Bet on it.

And if you look closely you can see one of two air handlers hidden up there in the attic. I could not get closer because the pull-down stairway hasn't yet been installed. Maybe later.

This is the return for the second floor, up in the ceiling of the hallway.

And this is more plumbing details. For a sink. One can assume there will be shutoffs in there somewhere eventually.

That's it for now! The HVAC, Plumber AND the electrician are scheduled to be working today and roofing materials just showed up, so more exciting pictures are on the way.

Framing is complete!

We're pretty sure framing is now complete. Here is the result:

That's the exterior front with all the doors and windows in place.

This is a view of the loft upstairs. The stairs to the first floor are at the end of that little bridge over there. Obviously the hand rails are temporary, they're having an open house next weekend and don't want people to fall.

This is one of the upstairs bedrooms. This will be a home office.

This will be the guest room. If you come to stay with us you'll end up in here. We promise to have a comfy bed.

This is the other home office.

This is the upstairs bathroom. It'll be a full bath with a door separating the toilet and shower from the sink. Apparently that's a thing now. I've only really seen it in hotels, but whatever.

This is a view of the loft from the other side. I'm standing at the top of the stairs.

Standing in the same spot, but looking to the left down over the great room and the kitchen. You can see the giant windows in the great room from here.

They finally put in stairs! I think the 2x4 steps are temporary, again for the open house. We'll be getting nice wood and a carpet runner in the end.

This is at the front door, looking out over the open space of the first floor. Dining room, great room, kitchen and way in back is the morning room.

Another shot of the U-shaped stairway. To the right in this photo is the coat closet.

This is the master bathroom. The cubby on the left is a little commode room with a door (again, weird). The U-shaped space dead ahead is going to be the big shower area. No doors, just tile.

The master bedroom. If you look closely you might be able to make out a big X marked on the top left window pane. It has a crack and needs to be replaced.

Another view of the master bedroom, showing the door that leads out to the back porch.

I'm standing in the morning room looking at the kitchen and the beginning of the big kitchen island. The plans only call to frame the two 'walls' where people will sit. The other 'walls' of the island are formed by cabinets, I guess.

Looking from the mud room down into the garage. They still haven't installed this door or the stairs down into it. Maybe they need to cement the floor first (it's still gravel).

And finally, the morning room, where you can see the double door. It's not a sliding door (we're not big fans of those), one panel is fixed and the other opens like a normal door.

That's it for this phase! We're not sure what they'll be doing next or when it'll start, but we'll keep the photos coming when it does.