October 29, 2010

I continue to be amazed at how quickly the house is going up. These framers are really good at what they do. The foreman on the job told me today that the shingles will go on next week and they will probably be putting the windows in on Tuesday. He also said that his framing crew will be all finished by the end of next week. After that, they will be ready to start working on the stone and stucco on the outside and the plumbing, electric and heating and air stuff on the inside. I'm not sure when they will put the septic system in but it may not be until they are finished with the stone and stucco.

The boys are excited about it and are talking about decorating their rooms. Ben has said several times that he would like to have his own room so I think we are going to shoot for that and see how it goes. I predict we will have some issues with Nick being frightened to stay in his room alone and we may have to sit with him until he falls asleep for a while, but I'm sure we can work through the issues. I think it will be good for them to have their own rooms and Nick may find that he really enjoys it.

Here is the progress made on framing the house this week.





The boys are never bored when we are at the house. They can play happily for hours.
We were getting in the car, preparing to leave, when the builder came over to our car to talk about a couple of things. We ended up talking for a while and the boys were in the back of the van trying to find things to keep themselves busy. They took the camera and took tons of pictures of all kinds of things. I ran across this one below this evening and it had me laughing out loud. This is the inside of Nick's mouth. Kids are so funny.
The pictures below this point are all from today. I could not get over this guy working up so high. He was amazing to watch. He would put the next sheet down, hammer it in on one side, measure the next piece and call it down to the guy on the ground who was cutting the pieces, finish nailing in the sheet and then he would slide down to that little piece of board that stopped him, kind of like riding a skate board only on his shoes. I held my breath every time he did the slide thing but he did fine. I'm sure he has had lots of practice. This is the same guy who was always standing up on the very top when they were framing the roof. He must have really good balance.
This guy in the overalls is the county inspector. He is cutting wood for his wood stove. The builder is waiting to haul off the downed trees until the inspector is finished cutting all of the wood he wants.
These last two pictures were taken today, just before we left for home.

October 22, 2010

It is amazing how much builders can do in just one week. First, here is the final picture that should have been in the last post but we left that day before they finished the foundation. This picture was taken the next day, Oct. 15th. The builders took the weekend off so nothing changed on Sat. and Sun., the 16th and 17th.
We were not sure if the framers were going to start that Monday or Tuesday. So, on Monday, Oct. 18th, the boys and I drove up just to see if anything was going on and we found this:
When we left that day, before the builders were done for the day, it was looking more like this:
For some reason, I did not take any pictures on Tuesday, Oct. 19th. But this is what we saw when we drove up on Wednesday, Oct. 20th:
And, when we left that day, it was looking more like this:
I didn't take any pics on Thursday, Oct. 21st. We ended up arriving later in the day, after the builders had already left. As it turns out, we arrived just as the storm shelter was being unloaded. That was quite a feat to watch. It is extremely heavy and it was a bit tricky getting it into the spot where it needed to be.

Today (Friday, Oct. 22nd) when we arrived, this is what we saw:
Here it is a bit closer in. This is the front of the house. The first two windows are in the garage. The third window (see pic above) is the laundry room. In the picture below, you can see they are building out the bedrooms on the second floor. Just below that, they are started to frame out the front porch.
Below is a view from the back of the house. The large window in the back is the master bedroom. The square window on the side of the house will be above the tub in the master bath. The four little windows will be, one each, in the, master shower, toilet room, master closet and guest bathroom.
Another view from that same corner of the back of the house. First window is that same window in the master bedroom again. Outside of this window there will be a concrete patio. Next to the concrete patio, you can see where they are starting to frame out the screened back porch. Looking through those windows facing the camera is the eat-in dining area of the kitchen.

Below is a picture looking in through what will be the screened back porch, into the living room. The eat-in dining area is through the windows on the right and you can see there is also a door leading from the dining area to the screened porch. On Monday, they will start building the cathedral ceilings above this living room and screened porch.
And moving down further, to the right of the dining area in the picture above, the picture below is of the gameroom/family room/library/class room/whatever room. Hopefully we will know what to call this room someday. You can see the storm shelter being framed in below the staircase landing. Behind this staircase is the garage and there will be another staircase near the garage entrance to the house that will also lead up to this same landing. They were building it today when we were there but it was not done yet when we left. They are also planning to start framing the cathedral ceiling for this room on Monday.
The boys and I got to walk up stairs and take a look around today, very very carefully, always holding hands and we didn't stay long. But we all enjoyed getting to walk through what will be their rooms and bathroom.

Can you believe this? All of this framing work is only one week of work! I can't believe they work so quickly. They will be starting to frame the roof in the upcoming week, which I know is a big job. And the windows will likely go in the week after that. They predicted two to three weeks of work for framing, which included windows and doors and roof (not shingles), basically getting it to the dried-in stage, depending on the weather. They certainly seem to be on schedule, or maybe even a bit ahead of schedule.

This is so much fun to watch! Ben said something to me the other day, indicating he had not really understood when we talked about building a house but now he gets it. It was really cute. They love going up there and watching. They find loose nails on the ground and use scrap wood to pound them into the dirt or other scrap wood.

We sure are having lovely fall weather these days though. I always forget and think we should be having fall weather in September but it seems it is more an October thing here. The trees are now really just starting to turn. We are in the 70's most days but still getting close to 80 degrees a lot of days. We are definitely still in shorts weather, although we sometimes need a long sleeve shirt or sweat shirt in the mornings (really only a couple of days so far though). It is beautiful.

Tiredness is setting in. Must read, relax and get ready to sleep. Goodnight!

October 15, 2010

Wow! The house is really coming along quickly, considering we are only 2 weeks into it, as of tomorrow. But first, a little something from our little somethings.

Nick riding his bike without training wheels. He goes as fast as he possibly can and tends to be a bit reckless but he sure has fun and he has not had any bad wrecks so I guess he is doing OK.

And here is Ben, riding his bike without training wheels. He is more steady and also goes just as fast as his little legs can pedal. Yes, he is riding a girl's bike. They are now old enough to know it is a girl's bike but they don't care. If anything, they think it's funny. When I talked about getting them bigger bikes, I think it was Ben who said he wanted to keep the girl's bike too.And back to our house story. Since I posted last, we have watched them dig and pour the footings.

We had tree trimmers out to cut out damaged tree limbs and we have selected a great tree for the future tree house.
Every time we go to the lot the boys have so much fun. They love playing around and climbing on the huge trees that are still laying around the lot, although today Ben fell and scraped his arm on one and he was pretty upset about it. The dad was cleaning it and putting bandages on it and he said to me under his breath, let's hope he never breaks a bone. Based on how he acted today, I think he might just pass out if he broke a bone.
Here they have put up the forms, roughed in the plumbing and they are putting in the fill dirt.
Below is a view from the front corner. The part without the form is the entry to the garage.
These two little dogs really bark up a storm. Unfortunately, the tree that seems to be the best for the tree house is right next to their fence. Hopefully they will get to know us and quit barking at us all the time. They are really cute though. I think my cats are bigger.
Nick playing. Never a still moment the entire time we are there. He is never ready to leave and always covered with dirt. Such a boy!
Ben has been wearing his sun glasses a lot because he injured an eye the other day. He was jumping across the ditch in front of the house and, when he landed, he was bent over at the waist and a long piece of grass poke him in the eye. Fortunately it was on the side of his eye, in the white part, because he scratched it pretty good. We are doing antibiotic eye drops until it heals a bit.
Here they are hauling in and spreading out the fill gravel.
They leave an empty area along the edge, which they will fill with concrete when they pour the slab. This will make the concrete around the edges of the slab thicker.
This is what it looked like today. They had the boom to pour the concrete for the slab.The contractors are all so nice and friendly. He was showing the boys how to use this device to operate the boom. He even let them use it to move the boom around. They thought that was pretty neat.
This was fun to watch. The concrete comes out of the boom thing really fast.
The rest of the guys were moving the concrete around and spreading and smoothing it out.

We ran some errands and then stopped back by to see it again and they were almost finished with pouring the concrete. They were still smoothing it out. We left the camera in the car though so I will have to get that shot next time.

They believe they will start framing either Monday or Tuesday. Is that fast or what?

October 6, 2010

I intended to post these a couple of nights ago but never got around to it. Better late than never:). Here are some pictures taken over the past month or two. The order is wacky but I'm too tired to mess with it today.

This first picture is of the boys playing in the little sandy beach at the 100 acre lake in the community where we are building our house.
This is the same lake and they allow fishing, although it is catch and release. This community is being built on 3,000 acres and there are many ponds around the place. Residents are allowed to fish in any of them but they are all catch and release.
The people running the bulldozer on our lot over the weekend made sure to stop and let the boys climb up for a picture moment. I think they might have been kind of scared because they look like they are hanging on for dear life.
Here we are back at the lake . This is the running/biking track that goes by the lake. I think it will eventually go all the way around.
This little rockery mound is next to the lake. The boys love climbing all over this. The building in the background is a new elementary school that just opened in 2009.
Our new community has an outdoor concert once a month (I think - we have only been to one and that was for the July 4th firework celebration. The band sets up under this small pavillion thing. The land in front of it slopes upward so people can see the band better. There is a huge empty area to the right where kids can run and play and the rock mound is real close by also.
Here are the boys climbing on the rocks again.
Another shot of the small beachy area.
Boys running on the small beach. I think it is kind of odd that they put in the beach but people are not allowed to swim. I guess it is another thing the kids can do while the parents are watching the band.
This is across the street from our lot. It is one of the small ponds and it is even much smaller right now because of the very hot summer.
Here is the bulldozer, taking down trees on our lot. It is sad to see them come down but exciting to see work begin towards building the house.
Putting in the culvert for the temporary driveway that will be used during construction.
The boys really enjoyed pulling the rope to blast the horn on this huge dump truck.
The poor cats have to find anywhere they can to escape from the boys at times. This is Zoe, the one who fell down through the wall from the attic recently.
The boys were so happy that they both got a play rifle and an umbrella for Ben's birthday. I knew they would love this rifle that has a strap on it to carry on their shoulder. Both gifts were a huge gift for Ben. He has played with them constantly since his birthday and tells everyone about them. He still wants to know how old he has to be before he can have a real gun. It is so odd that such a young child can be so crazy about guns when his parents have none and never talk about guns at all.
Another picture of the bulldozer clearing our lot. They had to remove over 28 trees, although I lost count at some point.

Another picture of the area across the street from our lot. All of the lots are one acre lots, so far. I think they are planning other areas where they will sell smaller lots intended for townhomes or smaller homes.
Nick made this "pirate hat and patch" himself from a paper bag and played with it for the longest time. He is trying to look very serious and mean, like a pirate.
A picture of Ben when we went to the Oklahoma City zoo.
Here is the hole that the husband had to cut into the wall in our master bath to get the cat out, after she had fallen through the wall from the attic.
The husband stuck the camera into the wall and took a picture upwards so we could see the inside of the wall where she fell. It really is a wonder she was not hurt.
This is a sample of the stone we have picked for our new house. It will be used, along with stucco, on the front of the house. It really looks different in person. The lighter colored stones look more peachy and light brownish in places and the gray colored stones look gray in places and almost blue in other places.
They ended up needing extra dirt for the pad so they hauled that in earlier today and the bulldozer is suppose to be back this evening to finish the pad. The concrete guy is suppose to start on the footers tomorrow morning. Moving right along.