Walls and .... a back porch

My long-awaited back porch is here at last. They poured the top layer without incident last Thursday. I haven't yet hauled a chair down to the site yet to test it out, but I'm definitely ready to do some porch sittin'.

View from the other side. Now they should be able to install the French doors and finish siding this section.

Sheetrock is up and sanded. I think an undercoat is the next step so they can see any spots that need touching up. 

Actual walls make a world of difference. I've been very impressed with the drywall crew.

Garage is pretty much finished now other than some water sealant.

Kicking and Screaming

The title of this post has been my standard response for a while now when friends ask how the house is coming along. We're still making progress, but there has been a lot of correcting and redoing as we go. Note the piles of busted sidewalk in the photo below.

We do have a breezeway now, so the house and garage are at last connected. We weren't sure how it was going to look, as it wasn't specified on the plans. It is awkward because there is both an angle going away from the house and a dramatic height difference between the garage and house. I think I'll be happy with the way the roofline will drop down with the angle of the steps and level off with the sidewalk.

They are mostly done with the walls and ceiling in the garage. Two sheets of pegboard left to go up here in the corner.

More garage. They've installed the door separating the garage and kennel.

They finished insulation this week, and sheetrock was delivered. They are supposed to start putting up sheetrock tomorrow (Monday).

We had spray foam insulation done all below the roof. Everybody we spoke to who had done the foam recommended we at least do this much. Hopefully it will make a big difference both in the temperature of the second floor and on the electric bill.

View of the door from the sun deck. Still have a ways to go on this. It sits above the porch, so they have waterproofing, etc., to deal with.

Another view of the sun deck. They came back and re-roofed this section this weekend after the wall was added.

Sidewalks and Doors

I think the only noticeable change in this photo is the front door had been installed, and they finished the siding and trim around it.

The sidewalk from house along garage to kennels was poured on the 27th.

Front doors arrived along with all our remaining exterior doors.

French doors that will lead to back porch. We have to wait until the porch concrete it poured before they can install these.

Metal decking on the porch. Framing and pouring concrete will be next hopefully.

A Monday morning view after two sections of the concrete had to be torn out. This long section had a curve in it initially, which looked nice, but wouldn't go well with the breezeway, as it will not have a curve. The smaller section was removed so the cleanout could be moved and wouldn't be in the middle of the sidewalk.

Catching Up

It has been a long time since the last entry, and there has been plenty going on. It has just been too crazy to get anything up on the site. Hopefully I'll get back on a more normal schedule now.

The living room fireplace. The fireplaces and chimney called for 8,000 bricks. Fortunately we had a good many that we used and saved some money. Mine are the smaller ones on the top half of the photo. The brick are mixed because they will be covered with stone.

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The top of the matching corner fireplace on the porch. There was no porch floor when they built this, so that meant a lot more scaffolding.

The portion of the chimney outside coming up through the sun deck.

Water heater

HVAC crew has most all the vents installed now.

It was a real surprise the day I found this in the upstairs study. It certainly showed the floor was strong.

Forms finally went up this week for concrete for the kennel.

The far side of the garage with door installed and siding finished.

The septic system was installed last week and they ran the water line to the house.

More of the garage. They installed doors and finished the siding since the last entry.

Testing out some paint colors. They are a little more green than they appear here.

A Hard Week

Though we have seen a ton of progress on the house this week, our electrician lost his 11-year-old son on Thursday evening to a heart attack, which has been attributed to a previously unknown heart disease. I had just talked to the little man probably four or five hours earlier that day, and everything seemed as normal as ever. I can't imagine and hope I never have to face losing a child. It is a grim reminder that we can't take anything for granted. I certainly made a point to spend more quality time with mine this weekend. Time I normally would have spent doing maintenance or clean-up was spent riding bikes and playing superheros with Kaitlyn and Evan. Kaitlyn had her 6th birthday on Saturday, and we had a swim party on Friday evening. It has been hard to do much else with temperatures climbing above 100 degrees most every day this week.

There have been up to five crews working at one time over the past week. We've had framers putting up siding, roofers, brick masons, electricians and plumbers. Hopefully we can keep this pace going for a while.

Plumbing for the washing machine and utility sink.

They finally blocked up from the basement and have started on the first fireplace in the living room.

This is the galvanized pipe for the furnace. I'm a little concerned about them placing it in the center of the form since the porch fireplace flue will vent in the same area, but we will see what happens when they start building that. It took about two days for them to do this and the inside portion. I don't know if they will do any work on this fireplace until they pour the concrete porch.

They finally put in this window in the garage attic. It wasn't on the plans but we had it left over after we removed it from the study. I was concerned it would get damaged before it was installed, but it appears they got it done.

They finished the siding on the back of the kennel on Saturday. I was amazed that just one man was out there cutting and installing this heavy cement board by himself. It looks like he did a good job though. I believe Andy plans on installing the septic system before pouring the kennel runs.

They finished most of the roofing on the house now, and the ridge vents are installed.

First view with all the siding on the front and side of the house, and the windows above the kitchen sink and in the dining room have been moved since the last entry. We had to lower the one in the kitchen five inches so a normal person could see more than the sky and porch ceiling when looking out of it.