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.