Finalized plans

Back in July, I had posted the rendering of the 'possible' final plans for the house. As with anything in a renovation, things change. Most of the house has remained the same, however the Master Bedroom has undergone a transformation in order to give us a few extra feet in the Great Room. Also, unlike July's plans, I've included measurements. They are not exact measurements, as I don't have those with this capture. However, they are close approximations.

 As you can see, we've flipped the layout of the Master Bedroom. It gives us a slightly smaller than planned bedroom (11x14 instead of 12x16), but it gives us a larger Great Room (22x22 instead of 19x22). That extra three feet in the Great Room will really make the different for a family of 5! We also plan on transforming the COMPLETELY dry basement (18x38) into a rec room for the kids. To give them space to hang out in, especially since we've got one tween and one that'll be a tween here shortly. My laundry space will be down there too. It'll take up about 10x10 of the space, which gives the kids an 18x20 space for a room of their own. That's awesome! (Yes, 8 feet are missing in the addition. We have stairs to consider.)

Also, I'm including the measurements of the kitchen. The open space above the sink will have floating shelves to display some of my Fiestware. All in all, we think it's a nice sized kitchen for the size of our house. We've also managed to stick a 32" wide, 24" deep pantry in there. I'm really excited about that, since it means I get to have THIS door on my pantry.

Housewrap 2

Today DH and HD finished putting the housewrap on the house. For some reason, adding the housewrap made the house look ENORMOUS!

Unfortunately, this will probably be the last update for a while. Winter has hit and money has run out for now. The perils of building a house without a loan. Rest assured, we'll be back in the new year with plenty more updates though. They'll come lightning fast too. Why? We're expecting to be done building and moved in by June 2013! That's 6 months away!

HD and DH putting the wrap on the peak of the house. Those are not short ladders either.

Housewrap 1

Today, DH and HD started putting the housewrap on the house. We decided to go with EasyGard instead of Tyvek. Cost is one issue, and from all our research it's comparable to Tyvek. DH said it went on very easily once they figured out exactly how to do it. The parts you'll see done only took them about 3 hours to do! That's amazing! Tomorrow, they're going to do up in the eaves and the small band underneath the fascia. They are confident they'll be able to get the house fully wrapped by the end of the day tomorrow.

Before/Currently

Pics of the housewrap on the house. 

 The house from the neighbor's yard. This is a side you won't normally see.

 The side of the house facing the garage

 The side of the house you normally see. 

The front of the house.

Garage Roof

Yep, since we had enough leftover shingles and tar paper, we decided to go ahead and reshingle the garage roof as well. So nice to have both matching! When we get to where we're putting siding on the house, we'll pull the current siding off the garage and reside it. The hope is that once we're done, it'll look like we built both. :)

 DH hard at work removing the shingles.

 Yes, this is all the same day. When the sun would come out, it'd get warm. When it would get cloudy, it'd get cold. 

 All off. Now putting down the tar paper.

 Starting the shingling!

All done!. I know it doesn't look much different, but in real life you can definitely tell the difference between the old brown shingles and the new gray ones. Plus, don't you just LOVE my Dad's old dump truck?

Shingles are done!

Woo hoo. Today DH finished putting the shingles on the house's roof. All that's left to do there is put the ridge vent on. Yay! Tomorrow, we start tearing off the garage's roof so that it can be replaced. Yay!

 See. Aren't they beautiful?

 DH hard at work putting the shingles on.

Tada! The shingles are complete! (As you can see, the sides of the house are all sheathed as well.)

So, the next few weeks will be busy. Tearoff/replacement of the garage roof, then housewrap for the house. After that, we'll likely have little done, as we're running out of money right now. Layoffs and hour reductions are hitting us hard. Once the spring gets here though, we'll be going all out to finish this! That's the price of building with no loan though. Sometimes you run out of money. :)

Shingles are going on!

I know I haven't updated in quite a while. DH and MD did put the tar paper on, then Superstorm Sandy came through and ripped it all back off. Then, it rained for nearly 2 weeks straight. The weather has finally cooperated enough to start shingling.

We went with shingles by Tamko. It's the Aged Wood color in their Heritage line. It's this beautiful grayish-brown color. I LOVE it! Once they are all on, I'll post a better update. It's only DH putting them on, so it's going to take a few days to be done.

Roof: Part 2

Once again, the weather is against us. DH and MD were able to get a few hours in. Long enough to get the plywood on the other side of the roof. Next available day to work, they are going to put on ice shield and tar paper the side they just finished sheathing. After that comes shingles! Woo hoo.

Roof: Part 1

Yep. Part 1. DH's work schedule, MD's work schedule, and the weather just refuse to cooperate with each other. Because of this, we're only able to work a few hours 1 day a week. Sometimes, we get lucky and we get TWO days for a few hours.

Anyway, we've been able to get half the roof's plywood and tar paper on. The next sunny day MD is hoping that he and DH will be able to get the other half on.

 DH and MD putting the plywood up on the rafters.

 Almost done with the one half!

 This is the front of the house.

 My Dad up in the rafters. 

See. Sheathed and tar papered.

The trusses are on!

Today, MD, HD, and I raised the trusses for the roof. DH helped after he got off of work. It was definitely an entertaining experience. (This post will be picture intensive. You've been warned.)

 The first truss being attached to the lift.

 There it goes! Up into the air.

 Being lowered into place.

 First truss set and tacked into place. If you look to the far right above the ladder, you can see where we braced it by nailing it to a board that was attached to the garage.

 Several of the trusses up.

 A pic of hubby's Dad up in the trusses attaching crossbeams.

 Setting the last truss on!

 Hubby and his Dad up in the trusses attaching some bracing boards.

All done! It looks like a house now! Because of rain, we'll be taking a few days off. Next step after is to add the plywood sheating to both the roof and the walls.

Walls, walls, and more walls.

Today, MD and I finalized the rest of the walls going up. Then we put the header plate on the tops of all the walls. In doing that, I got to help set up scaffolding. Let me just say this, take the wheels off before you attempt to put scaffolding together. It's much easier that wall. Tomorrow, assuming the weather cooperates, we'll be putting the trusses on the house!

 My Dad (MD) standing on the scaffolding nailing the header plate into place.

See! All the walls are up now! 

We have walls

Well, some anyway. Today has been the biggest one day change so far in the construction process. There were PLENTY of huge one day changes in the demolition process, but very few so far in the construction process.

The first wall section up.

Today we framed in and raised about 3/4 of the exterior walls. We decided to go with 2x6 for the exterior walls, so these were heavy wall sections. (The walls are 2x6 24in on center). You can also see our large window openings too. We've decided to go with 3x5' egress windows for all the windows, save the one over the kitchen sink. (It's not framed in yet). So, these are nicely sized windows.

 One whole exterior wall is up!

See! Lots of exterior walls are up. Tomorrow, we'll finish raising them.

Tomorrow, I'll be helping MD finish up framing the exterior walls and raising them. Then we'll be doing a bunch of stuff with levelling, making plumb, adding blocks to headers, etc. Then Friday is when we're (hopefully) going to be raising the trusses!

Floor joists

Today DH and MD got the floor joists done for everywhere except where the stairwell to the basement is. They even got some of the plywood subflooring down! (I know these posts are sparse in words, but really, the pictures tell the story.)

 Getting the first few joists upright and nailed into place!

 Different view of getting the first few joists nailed into place.

 They are almost all in at this point. That's DH standing in the crawlspace and MD standing on a ladder on the far side of the basement wall. Those boards were HEAVY!

 Starting to work on the subfloor! They are being glued AND nailed down.

See. Got that nailer going!

The center beam is in!

Today was a long day. DH cut the additions floor joists to size. Then DH, MD, MM, and I all worked to create and place the main center beam. That thing was HUGE! It's comprised of three side-by-side 2x2x18 plants of Yellow Pine. I thought we were going to drop it on ourselves several times. Luckily, we didn't. Tomorrow, we'll finish anchoring the beam in and install the floor joists. Who knows, if we do this fast enough, we might even be able to get the plywood down onto the floor joists! Here's hoping!

 My Dad putting on the sill and the sill seal. (Try saying 'sill seal' five times fast.)

 The floor joists! They aren't installed just yet, but they are in place to be attached to the center beam.

 Little Man rocking his ear protection.

The center beam going in. In order: My Mom, Hubby, My Dad, Me

We've got wood!

Today was our first shipment of wood! It's just enough to do the floor deck and build the main frame for the walls. More wood will be delivered soon. The trusses are supposed to be delivered in 2 weeks, so we've got a LOT of work to do between now and then.

Demo is done!

Woo hoo! Demolition is completely done! The rest of the old floor deck was removed little by little by DH over the week. The wall separating the old basement with the new crawlspace has been removed. Even part of the dirt we removed has been pushed back down. Now, we start CONSTRUCTION! The next thing that will happen is the new floor deck going on. Then the walls will go up. So, the next three weeks are going to see a LOT of progress! I can't wait!

I know it's hard to see, but here is the foundation as it sits. The pink parts are the old basement walls, the grey is the new crawlspace. Now you can finally see just how much we added on.