On to the 2nd Floor!

The first floor looks all done! They have all the plywood up for the exterior walls. The Floor for the second floor is done as well. So it looks like they hoisted the walls up there so they can get started on it tomorrow. If they can finish the second floor as quickly as they did the first, I envision it only taking two days and then they will be moving on to the roof.

This is the same vantage point of the kitchen as yesterday's picture. Looks different now that they got the plywood on.
This is a picture taken from the living room looking across to the dining room. The front door and future coat closets is to the left. The little room directly across from the front door is the half bath.

Remember the 75 year old neighbor that asked me to invite him to my wild and crazy parties? Well he rolled up on me today while I was taking these pictures in a NICE 2 door, Mercedes Benz coupe (CLK 430)! An eight cylinder with a nice amount of grunt to it. Not quite what I expected to see him driving. :) If nothing else, it looks like he is still enjoying the finer things in life. :)

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet!

Man these guys are moving quick! This picture is from yesterday evening. The next picture is from today. As you can see they got the entire first floor done. The walls on the inside are up as well! I think these guys will be done with everything by end of next week. All I can say is wow...
The big holes in the front are where the large bay windows will be installed. Those did not come on the first shipment and the company said that they will arrive on either Monday or Tuesday of next week.
This picture is actually taken from the kitchen looking across the family room to the garage door entrance. On the left is where the sliding door will be.

The Rat...

I snapped this pic because it looks funny. This is a 20 foot inflatable rat posted up in front of the office building I work at. It has a sign that says "Don't Buy Centex Homes". Apparently, the tradespeople are striking because Centex isn't paying them well. the past few says, they have been about 60-100 strong. Centex's headquarters are in the same building as I work. As long as they don't get in my way when I'm trying to park, I have no problems with them. :)

Anywho, progress didn't move as quickly as I had hoped today. It rained yesterday, so the framers did not do any work yesterday. They started to work today, but because the cement folks came to start laying the cement for the porch and the garage, it slowed things up. Not a whole lot of room for two crews to work simultaneously without getting in each other's way. But you can see from the pics, that the framers have begun putting in the flooring and the metal posts in the basement.

You can see the trenches they laid for the garage in the bottom left corner of this pic. Hopefully the cement guys will be back on Monday so they can finish up and the framers can moce at full speed.

Unloaded and Ready to Go!

It is now officially looking like a worksite. Met the trucks and everybody this morning at about 7AM. Took about 3 hours to unload everything. I just stood back and watched for the most part. The only thing I helped with was the windows and doors. Those required some careful handling. I also met one of my neighbors. An older black gentleman that doesn't look a day over 50, but told me he's 75 and widowed. He asked that I make sure to invite him to all my wild and crazy parties. :)

The truck itself had what they call a "boom", so it could do some of the unloading. It could extend about 50 or so feet. The drivers (and the company that made the house) are from Quebec... 15 hour drive to Ann Arbor. One of them spoke english with a heavy french accent (pictured) and the other spoke no english, although he understood english. They were cool.

The framer brought what he called a Sky-Trak and also helped unload the truck and place things around the site.

Tomorrow, they will begin work. They are going to take the extra set of plans and instructions that the driver gave them and go over them today so they can attack full force tomorrow. The framer actually said he could probably have the whole first floor done by end of day tomorrow with the windows in as well. So we'll see what progress is made by end of day tomorrow. On Friday, the foundation folks will be back to put down the concrete for the garage and the porch.

It's Here!

The most important news of the day... the house is here!! I met the drivers around 7:30pm in the Meijer's (grocery store) parking lot near the house. The drivers are going to sleep and I'll meet them in the morning. I actually got a look inside both the semis... it's quite plush. Nice sized bed with satellite TV and microwave in there. The driver and passenger seats are extremely comfortable! Anywayz, it's amazing that what is contained on these two trucks is going to turn into a full two story house. I guess tomorrow the fun begins... 7AM bright and early :)

Yesterday, the inspection went well. Passed without any issues, so the framer came in and braced the walls for backfill which is what you see in the picture here. Nothing too complicated. Had to make sure the foundation did not crack once they started moving the dirt around. Took this picture yesterday.

Here is the finished product today with all the soil moved back into place. Basement just peeks out over the soil. It's about a foot and a half above gound.

Basement Walls Exposed!

Yesterday they removed the mold from the concrete to expose the finished product. Here's my basement in all it's naked glory. The black stuff you see on the walls is stuff they spray on it to waterproof the concrete.
Towards the base of the walls, you can see what they call "drainage tile". I think it's just an official sounding term for crushed pebbles, cuz that is what it looks like to me. But anyway, this "drainage tile" helps the water drain away from the basement, since we all know that water in the basement is NOT a good thing.

Just a picture through the future basement window.

I have an inspection on Monday. The inspector will be checking to make sure the "drainage tile" looks good and that it's properly sloped. As well as he will make sure the walls look good. If that goes well, the contractor who will be framing the house will brace the inside of the basement because on Tuesday, they will put the soil back around the basement walls. You want to make sure that the inside is braced because as you put the soil back, it puts pressure on the walls and you don't want any cracking since the concrete may not be totally cured (it should be, but this is a necessary precaution). Then on Wednesday at 7AM the house shows up... I got a tight schedule folks. :)

Basement Walls!

Well today they finally put up the walls for the basement! Progress! The truck pictured here is the truck that they use to pump the concrete into the walls. The actual truck that caries the concrete was not there yet. This truck hooks up to the concrete truck and then the workers can use the apparatus on this truck like a hose and pour/shoot the concrete anywhere they need. The wonders of technology...
What you see in this picture is the workers putting up the mold that will form the walls. The mold is made out of metal and they piece it together. It sits on both sides of the footings that they poured last week. Once everything is up and in place, they pump the concrete in between the metal. I tried not to get in their way as I was takin' the pictures! :)
These last two pictures are pictures of the finished product with the concrete poured in between the metal. In a few days, they will come back and remove the metal and leave the hardened concrete. I guess now I can officially start taking measurements as to where I want the bar, ping pong table, and pool table to be... :)
I think I mentioned this previously, but the house is scheduled to arrive at 7:00 AM on the 23rd (a week from now). I have a contractor lined up to start that day and he said he should have everything framed in about two weeks. The company, Modulex, said that the pieces for the house will arrive on two trucks and the siding and roofing will arrive a few days later. I now need to get a contractor lined up to do the roofing and the siding.

Just Waitin...

Well, not too much to report. The concrete they poured for the footings need to sit for about a week before they pour the walls. So it'll be about next Tuesday or Wednesday before there are any new or interesting pictures to post. I did talk with the factory. They notified me that my house will be delivered on the 23rd. This is pretty good news. That date is good because the walls will have been poured and sitting for a week... enough time to harden/cure. According to all the framers I've spoken with, it should take at most two weeks to put everything together. Now I just got to pick a framer, a roofing contractor, and a siding contractor... soon. :)

Footing and Apples

Well, more progress today. I had the inspection for the footing today. Now you can see where the walls will actually go. Kinda cool to see it taking a little bit of shape. Now that the footing is in place, they will most likely start on the walls soon. I need to get a plumber in there to do all the rough plumbing before they pour the basement floor.

Interestingly enough, I got a DVD from Modulex. It seems like it is an interesting DVD detailing how the house is to be put together. Only problem is that it is in French! Crazy... Had to call my man Simon at Modulex and let him know that I neither speak nor understand French. Actually, I do know a little french... you know, the basics such as, "French Fries" or "French Toast". :)

I guess my apples are starting to grow... these suckers are pretty small. Perhaps they'll get bigger. It's looking like this apple tree is going to be right in front of my front door... I'll have to verify that. I don't want to have to pull it up.

Staking and Walnuts

Not a whole lot of visual progress. You probably can't see from the pictures, but they actually have the basement staked off and spray painted some other markings onsite. There are strings between each stake so you can see the exact shape of the basement/foundation. Inspectors will be through on Monday to inspect the staking and whatever else they feel they need to inspect. Of course you know these inspections aren't free right? Can't breathe without these theives... oops, I mean inspectors wanting to make sure you're doing things to code, etc. But I digress...

This other picture is the picture of the walnut fruits. If you ever wondered what walnuts look like here it is. You can see a few of them in the picture. Probably not what you thought? First of all, I did not know walnuts grew on trees... learn something new everyday.

Well, hope to have more pictures next week...

The View

Took a better picture of the basement today and also a view from the street. In the street view, you can see my makeshift house number sign, 4708. The building inspector said I needed to have that visible. It's actually sitting under the walnut tree I mentioned last post. In the other picture, I tried to give a bird's eye view of the basement. The metal hoop that you see towards the bottom is the water line and if you like towards the other side of the basement, just left of the center, you can see the sewer line just poking up. The picture is kind of small, so you may not be able to see it.

I got a call from Modulex (the company that's building/shipping my house) today. They said they wanted to confirm a delivery date of August 14th. As you can see, my site is not ready for the house. I asked him to push it back by about a week or so. Today, Dependant Foundations will start pouring the cement for my basement and should be done by next week. Need to give the cement at least a week to harden, so I'll most likely be taking delivery the week of the 21st. Gotta make sure to have a contractor lined up to frame the house...

The Wellington

In case you were wondering, here is an artist's rendition of what the house will look like. It's called "The Wellington"... sounds so sophisticated. Like I'll be sipping champagne and eating olives on my back porch while my butler fetches the newspaper and my slippers... *smile*

Anywayz, mine won't have brick like the picture. It will be tan vinyl siding. Another difference is that my garage entrance will be on the side because the house does not face the main street. The contractor who will be doing the basement, will start either tomorrow or Friday, so I'm looking to take some more photographs over the coming days.

The two cool thing about the land is that there is both an apple tree and a walnut tree. Not that I necessarily eat either in large amounts, but it's good info to know.

Basement!

Now that the sewer and water lines have been run, they have excavated for my basement. About time! :) I'd say the depth of the basement is about 5-6 feet. Part of the basement will be partially (about a foot or so) above ground. This basement will house such things as a pool table, bar, card table, big screen TV... you know, the basics. :) So I'll be going back tonight to see what more work they have done. It should be interesting.

Sewer and Water

Well work has really progressed. They have ran both the sewer and water line to my property. To run the sewer line, they had to come across my neighbor's property. My neighbor had granted me an easement (official name for permission) to go across his yard. So that was about 100 yards. Here's a picture of where they were digging the sewer. It's about 7-8 ft. deep. At this point, they hadn't exposed the sewer line, but you can see a gas line (white plastic) and water line (copper... barely exposed at the bottom) in the picture. These lines supply water and gas to the houses that are on the other side of my neighbor's property. They had to be careful not to rupture the gas line because I'm sure you can imagine that a broken gas line is not a good thing at all.

I had taken a picture of the channel they created for the sewer line, but unfortunately, it got deleted. But if you can imagine a channel this deep running about 100 yards.

Evidence

This is a picture of that same spot that the excavator was sitting on. As you can see they ripped up the old cement slab and driveway that was there. This was the first evidence of work at the site.

The Digger

Here's a picture of the excavating machine. Pretty impressive machine. It is the workhorse of the whole operation.

The Beginning...

Well, construction on my house finally began on July 18, 2006. I've been trying to take pictures to document the progress. I bought a .45 acre parcel of land here in Ann Arbor and am building a two story 2000 sq. ft home. The home will have 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths along with a basement. This is a picture of the land before construction started. I took this picture on July 17, the day before construction started.

The process up to this point has been a long one. You realize that everyone has their hand out and wants some money in order for you to do anything with the land. They disguise it as a "permit", but it seems like robbery to me. *smile*. Anyways, I bought the land in January and have had to secure the following before ANY work could commence:
1) Pay a water and sewer tap fee. This would allow me the "privilege" of using city water and sewer. This "fee" was $11,455. Doesn't seem right, does it?
2) Pay a zoning compliance fee. This makes sure that what I'm building complies with the township's ordinances and such and such... $250
3) Driveway Permit. Can't have a house w/o a driveway... $150
4) County Road Commision permit. The main water line that I would be tapping into was about 6 inches into the road. Well, the county has to make sure that the work I'm doing will not obstruct traffic... yada yada yada... $100
5) Building permit. The permit that allows you to commence work on your property... It's based on the cost of construction and other things... ~$700

And all these permits were inputs to each other, so I couldn't get them all at the same time. I had to have one in order to apply for the other. It was crazy. Well anywayz, work has finally begun! :)