The New View

Here's a preview of our new view out the back of the middle floor to the pond...

- A

Someday We'll Watch Storms From the Porch

But today we'll stay inside and be thankful the the roof is on the house. This is being typed at the end of a long windy, rainy day. But we'll show what happened before that.

Day three of the porch saw the addition of our little triangle that makes a normal shed roof into a little something else. As with all the design ideas that will (or are supposed to) add charm to our house, Jody has laid claim to the triangle concept. Triangles must be harder than rectangles though, because it took a whole day and a lot of measuring to put on that piece of charm yesterday. Apparently the stairs are still my idea...meaning that the jury is still out. If only we could figure out where to put the lightswitches for them...

The outline of the porch roof triangle, and perhaps an afternoon nap?

We had a few days of nice weather, and they alternated between framing the inside, and continuing to finish the exterior. The windows are all in, and with the porch on, only the siding and doors will alter the view from the exterior.

Hopefully the siding will made the house look less like a can of Coors.

However, wind and rain came with vengeance today, actually blowing some of the rigid foam, not yet fully secured, around and off the house. Work continued inside as well as under the roof of the porch. We've picked a bead-board ceiling for the porch, which went in today. Jody has suggested that we go ahead and buy the porch swing now on the off chance that they'll install it for us as well.

Porch Ceiling

Despite the rain, the brain trust met today in the basement to discuss plumbing. With joists running the opposite direction that the drains have to go and few interior walls on the main floor, our plumber went through a number of plans before we settled on one that might work best. Although I've gotten the impression that "better" might just mean "easier for him".

We'll have to see...

The basement bathroom, outlined in dirt.

Weather dependent, the pour might take place this week.

Head Design Chief

Apparently, Zippy had some questions about the wall locations yesterday evening when we were over for a short visit.

- A

Decision-Time for the Wafflers

The inside of "the silver bullet" is taking off as well. The second floor interior is now framed. We did a walk-through today with John, our contractor, and Alison, our architect. It's amazing to see the rooms we envisioned take shape.

Natalie and I on the top floor

From inside the closet, looking through to the bedroom

The decisions are still flying at us fast and furious. This means we spend our weekends sitting in bathtubs (in stores) and our daughter thinks hanging out in shower stalls is a fancy form of peek-a-boo entertainment. And those are the easy decisions. Then there are the ones like how to frame the stairs and how to do the radiant floor heating.

Cucumbers please!

Peek-a-boo!

I'm sometimes flabbergasted that these are still such a challenge to figure out- even with a builder, an architect, and a phd (I know- oceans, not houses) all staring at the same problem. Part of the challenge, obviously, is that the phd spent so much time in school, that the cost-effective angle has to weigh strongly. (That and the fact that he studied oceanography, not plumbing.)

How do you support floating stairs? And where do you put the lightswitches if there's no wall?

John, Alison, and Anthony brainstorming.

So let's see- here's what we have done in the past few days. We picked out a tub, semi-settled on a shower, chose porch materials, selected the basement insulation level, decided on how to build a closet over the stairs (but still maintain headroom), determined where attic access would be, pretty much designed the kitchen, almost committed to cabinets, debated the heating, stairs-framing, and lighting plan, in addition to updating our gotta-figure-out spreadsheet on a regular basis.

-J

Our Shiny Rocket Ship

It's really taking off! The porch is even semi-framed now.

Porch

From basement to the first floor

First floor- looking at stairs

Stairs to top floor

Top floor 

- J

Silver Lining Up the Stairs

With warmer, dryer weather this week, they've been working on finishing up the exterior of the house. Now that the roof is on, they've been putting up the ridge foam insulation (the silver coating) on the bulk of the house. As they finish the foamboard, next come the windows and window trim.

Foam on, windows in

The lifts they use to get up to the top of the walls are pretty cool. There is a 'jack' that connects to the long, vertical beam. To go 'up', a person sits on each jack, and at the same time releases a locking brake and starts cranking a handle; the jacks, with the beams spanning them, as well as the people, start walking up the beams to the new height.

The view from our neighbors backyard at the back 3 levels...

The seams of the foam panels are taped from the outside to provide the 'moisture barrier' for the house. The foam provides an initial an R-5 rating and, most importantly, blocks heat transfer from the wall studs (where there is no insulation) to the outside.

Oddly, they've left the side with the fewest windows to do last.

The big surprise was that insulation and windows is apparently just a 2 person job. The other two were inside building our stairs!

Up the stairwell from the basement. They've roughed in the upper stairs.

- A

Hurricanes Shmurricanes

The extra hardware going into the house is amazing. Someone made a comment to make sure we get hurricane clips on the roof. Well, we've got you beat. We have 1" diameter threaded rods that are anchored in the foundation, that are connected to wood beams via ginormous plates, that are connected all the way up to those hurricane clips with metal strapping.

These brackets (~2' long) screw into the 1" diameter threaded rods in the cement wall and connect to the vertical beams with a 'large' number of nails.

And this is after we removed a window from the back wall so we wouldn't have to put structural steel in.

Speaking of nails, they are going through nails like crazy. The new Mass building codes require nails (a certain kind of funky ring and spiral shank nail) every 3" on all sheathing edges as well as additional nails every 6" (I think) on the interior of the pieces.

A view of the exterior wall at the junction of two pieces of plywood. Got nails...?

Thus, there are corners of the house where multiple lines of silver dot-like 'coins' (the nail heads have a coin-like pattern on the head so the inspectors can see, from the outside, what nail was used) all come together.

...We do. Lines of nails mark the corners of the house where plywood pieces meet. I'm not going to dare a hurricane to show up... but I don't expect the walls to fly apart all 'Florida-style' either.

And our mortgage appraiser didn't think a new house was worth anything more than a 50 year old one...at least we have more metal.

-A

The Roof...

....is on.

As per usual, our friend the boom crane was on the scene this morning, putting the roof supplies right onto the...roof. The whole process took about 10 minutes, including unloading the pallet of shingles.

Waiting for shingles in the cold.

Our builder John keeps telling me that he forgets how much stuff they can do in a day with "a house this small". I'm never sure how to take that, but it's nice to know that things can get done fast if there is a break in the weather. Today was sunny and cold, but dry. They made quick work of the paper and shingles. By the time I stopped back through at 8:45 am, half of one side was done. The attached scaffolding left by the framers certainly helped speed up the prep work.

An hour after the crane left, they were half way up the south roof.

By the time we got home in the evening, we had a full roof over our heads, as well as a skylight installed (not a surprise that it was there, but we didn't know it was coming today as well).

The new neighborhood

Progress continues...

-A

An Excuse

Take the shortest month of the year. Subtract one week of work from it, but then add more to do at work that month. Put in everything dear to your primary school years: paper hearts, president silhouettes, hundreds collections, book fairs. At the same time continue to carry on with everything else as usual. Throw on some ice, or perhaps a winter thunderstorm, mix in a sore throat with a dash of the sniffles, a throbbing left foot, and a dog that must run despite the elements and throbbing left foot... Something has to go - and that's just my February I'm describing here, let's not start on Anthony's.

Unfortunately for our readers (I think we're up to four or five of you now), the blog was the piece we let slide for a bit this past week. I know you were all on the edge of your seats waiting, and when nothing posted you were probably thinking nothing was happening.

Not true. Things are happening- and at a fast pace. We're even to the point where more decisions are being made: which bathtub do you want? (Not the pink one.) Which shingles do you want? (Already had chicken pox- thankyouverymuch.) Okay, perhaps that last one was a little bit in poor taste. Did I mention a six-month old and sleep deprivation yet?

Anyway, here are some pictures from inside that we took this past weekend:

The big hole in these photos is the stairwell.

I think this was some sort of big radiant floor heating discussion...

or maybe they were just talking about how cute Natalie is.

So why am I writing now? That answer is simple. Clearly I'm procrastinating grading or lesson planning something. Like I said, something always has to go.

Anthony & Natalie outside the house as John closes it back up.

That's all for tonight.

- J

Somebody's Working- Just Not Always Me

I started back to work at the beginning of January, however due to a number of factors (snow days, holidays, early dismissals, etc.) I have yet to work a complete five-day week by myself.... and I work inside a building. Meanwhile outside in the cold and the elements, nail guns are sounding and our house is steadily rising.

Here are some recent views:

Our house is visible from across the pond now.

Inside the basement looking up where the stairs will be.

From the backyard

Putting the roof on (he's 3 stories up on this corner)

- J