I think I hear ANGELS singing :)

Above is from Sunday - below is from today! It is amazing what 4 men can do in 1 day!! I hope that the donuts I took out this morning inspired them, but I am sure its only the paycheck :)

Tomorrow they should put in the floor to the main floor so you wont be able to see down into the basement anymore. AMAZING - AMAZING - AMAZING

Framing and Stairs....

Today guys started snapping chalk lines on our concrete to determine where the walls will go. We left, but in my head they started nailing wood after we left :) In my head, when I drive out there walls will be visible to everyone else, because they are great in my head...

I also needed to determine the stair situation in the house. I have 3 areas - the "main" stairs, the keeping room stairs and the stairs that will go to our loft. The loft ones are my favorite - they are in the middle of the main floor and I dont want them in the way, so we chose Lapeyre stairs. They are alternate tread stairs that are an industrial product - if anyone can tell me what this man also invented without Googling it, you get a big kiss :) Anyway, there are a million colors to pick from, so the hardest part is picking ONE COLOR....who can just pick one color? I need about 6 so I can change them out like I do slip covers! The only consolation is that the standard (read blah/boring) spiral stairs in the keeping room get color also, but they arent even in the same league as the alternating tread stairs...

The main stairs are going to be as above - very industrial and depending on the blue - I may just leave it. These will be visible, but not much as they are heading down to the basement. The only thing I may have to check is the treads....I dont want anything poking me as I go up and down in my socks ;)

Enjoy your weekend - whats left...MORE NEXT WEEK!

Waterproofing and FRAMING!

Its amazing the what is done to keep water out of the basement. The entire basement sits basically on a french drain all the way around - its a very cool system. The concrete is encased in styrofoam blocks - the entire exterior wall is wrapped (actually glued in place) in a multi-layered liner. The liner is covered with a rippled "wrap" in order to make sure that when we backfill, the liner is not punctured and THEN the rippled wrap is covered with this thick felt like covering and it is glued and what looks likes tar to seal the edges!

We also had lumber and our floor trusses delivered yesterday evening. I plan on heading back out to the land after picking kids up from school - I hope there is a flurry of activity! The trusses have alligators on them so now I may have to leave a few unpainted to see the pic....maybe in the boys' rooms.

The picture below is just what I almost stepped on walking back to the car. Decided to just snap a pic of it - fun, fun stuff you see on the land! No, I didnt step on it, but let it go on its way - EAT MORE BUGS, SPIDER....GO GO GO!!!

Little Pink Houses For You and Me....

Everyone started bright and early this morning. Today was "Paint the Styrofoam Pink" Day. Its adhesive to afix the basement liner...

I had to keep Vivian from seeing how sticky it was by pushing her littlest brother into it. She wanted to see if she kind of hurled him against it, if he would stick. Think David Letterman's Super Dave's velcro suit but messy ;)

On the way home turkeys crossed the road. It has absolutely nothing to do with the building, but they are just so cute!

Pump It Baby, Pump It!!!!

WE HAVE CONCRETE WALLS!!!! The 47' Pump truck arrived this afternoon after Terry and his boys finished putting up our Styrofoam legos over the past 2 days. It took 4 dump trucks and we are currently setting :) Next week we should start framing the interior walls of the basement, laying the sub floor for the main floor and then back fill around the basement.



It will then be time to have our basement guy (can he still be called a "basement guy" if he is now working on our main floors?) I feel like we have 2 builders - Jason who builds the interior of the structure and Caleb who builds the exterior...Sorry, I digress.....





Anyway....Caleb will then start on the main floor and the loft! As far as the title of this post - I don't know if you can see it, but on the pump truck, underneath the telephone number is "Pump It Baby, Pump It" - those funny cement pump truck guys....

More!!!!

After the sand was delivered, plumbing roughed in, it was time for our slab... The boys could have watched all day and the guys working were nice about being in a fishbowl. The started at 3:00 and were done by 7:00 with the slab as smooth as glass. It was a great job. The foreman was nice about us having the kids put their hands where their rooms are going to be - it almost made me cry.

You can also see the ICF forms that were delivered. It looked like so many, but it was only for the basement. I will tell you that building with ICF has been fascinating as well as FAST. The concrete is poured in the forms for the basement tomorrow and so there will be new post showing the "building" - THINK LEGOS - and the pouring.

I know, I know...Its been a while - but look - PICTURES :)

Hey yall - Its been a while and I am so sorry! Life happens...actually, quickie vacation, 3 kids ready for school, football and family happened. But the house has not been in suspended animation - its been AMAZING. As you can see, we had our footings poured. They were done by a man, Terry, with his sons - great boys - out of his 12 kids! A really amazing family and I wouldn't hesitate to call him again for any concrete / foundation work. After the footings, we got our plumbing rough-in.

Upon checking out the PVC, I was counting hot/cold/in/out and noticed that our daughter's bathroom was only plumbed for a 1/2 bath...NOOOOO.....

I ran to my truck, grabbed my plans and NOOOOOOO....the plans are wrong. When the architect copied the original plans, he omitted her shower. So, check over your plans RELIGIOUSLY! Hand them to your spouse and make them check them out! Give them to your teenager and tell them if they find a difference, they make $20! Our plumber was great and came out and quickly plumbed the shower.

Our next challenge was to get gravel and sand delivered. We have a "road" down the bottom of our hill and when it rains, no travelling.... Well, we had rain - had to wait for it to dry a bit and about the time we would schedule sand, it would rain again....TWO WEEKS LATER (which might have been 2 years) we had our loads delivered and we were back in business.