Windows, siding, and doors....Oh My!

While all the guys were busy on the inside of the house, there was also work going on outside the house. All the windows and almost all the doors were hung, and the siding was even started. 

Windows on the front porch.

Windows with siding started.

Door from garage to the backyard.

Bonus room window.

 House with windows and siding started. 

We still don't have a back door or the front door but those are supposed to be coming in this week. Siding is also supposed to be finished this week so maybe we'll have another post soon.

If the blog is quiet for a while, don't worry! It probably just means that everything is going too fast to keep up!

House guts...what's in those walls?

So after framing is finished, the roof guys come and put the roof boards and the shingles on the roof. The framers also wrap the house in the white house wrap that you see below. When this step is finished, the house is considered "dried in". This means that the inside of the house is protected from the elements, but not sealed. We still don't have windows or doors, but the roof is covered. 

This is the roof with shingles and the outside of the house covered in house wrap.

Now that the house is dried in, the electrician, plumber, and HVAC guys can come in and get started on their parts. Here are pictures of the various things that are going on during this step.

Heating and air conditioning guys are mostly up in the attic

Electrician is busy running wires and installing electrical outlets.

You can see all the little blue boxes where outlets or switches will be. In our kitchen island you can see a little pipe sticking up that will be for the sink/dishwasher.

This is our pantry in our kitchen. You can see more little blue boxes and to the right you can see our main water supply to the whole house. Of course that will be hidden in the wall but it is pretty neat to see it here.

Switch at the front door. This will control the porch and entryway lights.

Plumber was busy installing showers and bathtubs.

This is the bathtub in the hallway bath.

This is the bathtub for the master bath currently sitting in the middle of the master bedroom. We were waiting on the tub frame to be built before they could put it in place. So for now, this is where it lives.

So that is what all makes up the "guts" of the house. It is crazy to think about all the things that have to go in the walls to make a house run. These things also all happen at the same time so there has been a flurry of activity and lots of people at the house this week.

Next up....windows, doors, and siding!

Framing

I am apparently really bad at posting updates. Not having internet at the house coupled with how fast everything is progressing has made posting one set of updates at a time really difficult. Everyone said that once concrete was down, things would go quickly. I really had no idea how quickly it would come together. There will be several posts over the next few days so that everything stays in the same order as it happened. So now you have posts to look forward to over the next few days :-)

First up...framing!

This is what went up on the very first day that framing started. this is when it started to seem real that we were actually building a house. Pretty crazy!

 This is a wide shot of our house sitting on our lot. Our driveway will be on the right side.

 Standing in the driveway looking at the corner of the house. This was at the end of day 1. Amazing how fast it all went up!

There is the second story(bonus room) starting to take shape

 Standing in the kitchen looking towards the living room.

Really starting to look like a house now!

 Close up of the upstairs window

 Looking at the back of the house. Now the roof boards are on!

 There is lots of floored attic space!

More attic space. It is a little unnerving to be able to see straight down into the room below but that will change once the framers get done.

So that is what our framed house looks like. It was absolutely the craziest and best feeling to see something we had been looking at, analyzing, and discussing at great lengths finally become something tangible and real. It was so neat to be able to walk through and see where all the decisions we had made along the way were finally becoming a reality. 

Even though this part has moved really quickly and has been a bit overwhelming at times, I absolutely would not trade it for the slow going we had at the beginning. 

Next up....electrical, plumbing, and air conditioning!

Concrete...finally!

The long awaited concrete post is finally here. The concrete is finally done. Boy, does that feel good to be able to say! Waiting on the weather and then the guys that were pouring the concrete has been quite a lesson in patience. We finally have a foundation! At some points I never thought this day would get here but here we are.

This is what it looks like in the process. The footings have been poured and the rebar has been put down. Next is pouring the rest of the concrete.

Pouring the concrete

smoothing out the concrete and making sure it is level

It is such a tedious job but such an important one

Up close of the concrete

Regular part of the house is done. Just waiting on the porch to be poured

Polishing the concrete

Finished foundation!

So there it is! The foundation of our house! It's crazy how real it is starting to feel. This week they are starting the framing so there will be another post soon! Thanks for sticking with us even when it looks like there aren't any updates. Things should move quickly now!

Progress?

I realize it has been 2 months since our last post and I'm sure you all are hoping to see a framed house, or at the very least, concrete. Unfortunately, we have neither. Poor weather and obscure city ordinances have made this part of the process quite lengthy. Here is what our footings have looked like for a lot of the past 2 months.

But....the good news is that we do now have plumbing in those footings and we are supposed to have great weather for the next week. Here's hoping the post about having an actual foundation is not far away!

Slowly but Surely

I realize that I'm posting an update on the house the same day I posted that there were no updates. I guess that is what happens when you don't post for a month. I wanted them to be two separate posts, though, since they are really two separate events in the building story.

So here's a little photo timeline of what has been going on. The dirt guys finished clearing the lot, added drainage under our future driveway, and built up the dirt where our foundation will go.

Driveway drainage

Building up the foundation

After the dirt work was done, the rains came and they did not go away. We had so much rain, the side of the yard turned into a small swimming pool. We had to dig a ditch to make the water drain out of the yard.

It's hard to tell, but the ditch runs from the back of the lot all the way to the front. We had to dig it all out by hand with shovels. It was HARD work!

It was finally sunny and dry enough to start on the foundation. I've learned way more about foundations this week than I ever thought I would need to know. It isn't just about pouring concrete. There are several steps that have to happen before concrete can even be poured. The first step is putting up the wooden forms for the concrete and digging the footings. 

First step of the foundation

The footings are those deeper parts around the edges

The footings and the forms.

So that is where we currently are. The next step is for the plumber to come and lay out all the pipes for the house. We've had more rain the past couple of days so it could be next week before that happens. Hopefully it won't be another month before you hear from us again!