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!