Not Much Going On

It's been awhile since I posted an update, but frankly not much has happened. The roof is fairly finished. They just need to do some trimming on the edges. Hopefully with the roof pretty much done, they can start on the siding sometime soon.

Progress has slowed down because they started to prep the basement, garage, and porch for cement. this is a picture of the garage from outside. It may be hard to tell from the picture, but they brought in a bunch of sand to bring the floor of the garage up to the right level before they pour the cement. There is a plastic covering that goes over the sand. I believe this is basically a vapor barrier so that no moisture gets into the cement from underneath. The same plastic is in the basement.

Anyways, I'm hoping that they get back started on this today or tomorrow. I've got my heating and cooling guy lined up and ready and hope to have my electrician soon. A coworker of mine recommended a friend of his that goes to his church for the heating and cooling. I told the guy what my best price was so far and showed him the estimate. He came back with a lower estimate and I also get better products as well. I can't complain. He's the one who recommended me an electrician. So we'll see if his electrician can beat my best price.

Rain Rain Go Away...

Quite a bit of rain the past few days. Been pretty muddy at the site. As you can see from this pic taken on the second floor, the floor is completely wet. As I stated on Monday, the plumbing work began. Amazingly, they are finished, at least with the rough-in stuff. Basically, all the hoses for water and waste have been ran. All that is left is to put in the fixtures (toilet, bathroom cabinet, sink, etc.). They'll come back once the flooring is done and the drywall is up. Tomorrow is an inspection of their work.

This is a picture of the half bath on the first floor. You got your hot and cold water (red and white tubes) your drain for the sink and then the drain for the toilet (on the floor). You may ask, "What, no copper??" Well, apparently the cost of copper is so high, that they are using this material called Pex which is like a plastic reinforced with metal and is much cheaper. I'm not complaining. :)

Also, the shingling started today, but they stopped early on account of rain. You can see the guys up there workin their tails off.

Here's a picture of the basement. This is the pipes for a bathroom. It's really important to have this in there if you ever plan on adding a bathroom in the basement. Because on top of all these pipes, they put the concrete floor. So if this stuff wasn't there and you wanted to add a bathroom, you'd have to rip up the concrete first which would be VERY expensive.

This is a picture of the sump pump. Not much excitement, but here it is... in all it's glory. :)

All these contractors have been really cool. Especially the guy who framed the house. He's broke things down so that I can understand it. I'll definetly have to keep him in mind next time I do this. :)

Plumbing Started

Plumbers started today. They cut the necessary hole in the roof for venting purposes (gotta let the Radon out) and they put the tubs in both the bathrooms. The thick white pipe you see in the picture is the pipe for the the Radon I believe. I'm impressed. I guess I didn't know what to expect to see done today.

Not the best picture, but a picture of the one piece tub. It was hard to take pictures today, because it was dark by the time I got to the site, so I just tried my best to randomly snap a few pics. It looks like they got all the plumbing for the 2nd floor done though. The tubs are in, as you already saw, as well as the piping for the sinks and toilets. I assume that by tomorrow, they'll have everything done on the 1st floor. We'll see...

Framing Done!

The framing is 99.99999% done. The only thing left for them to do is install the basement steps. They haven't done this yet because the basement floor needs to be poured forst. And before they pour the basement floor, the plumber has to do the rough plumbing for the basement. The rough plumbing is going to include the pipes so that if someone wants to add a basement bathroom in the future, the plumbing is there for that. Having said all that, the tentative schedule is:
Monday - Plumber does rough-in for basement bath
Tuesday - Inspection of plumbing work.
Wednesday - Contractor starts on roof shingles
Thursday or Friday - Concrete to be poured in basement

Still haven't bought windows for the basement, so I need to go about getting that done soon. Also, now that the framing is done and all the doors to the house are up, I need to buy locks for the doors so I can lock the house up.

Bay window from the inside. Lots of sunlight will come in through these windows since they face the west... a good selling point. :)

I took this picture a day before the others in today's post. You can barely see me up in the window.

It's hard to believe that two weeks ago, all that was there was just the basement. These guys work fast! But really and truly most of the work is still left to do... Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, drywall, insulation, carpeting, cabinetry, fixtures... the list goes on. :)

I was wrong...

I thought they would be doing the roof today, but I was wrong. They started putting up the windows and doors. The big bay windows for the front were delivered today also, so I am excited about seeing what those will look like once installed. They also started on the garage. I kinda wish they would have started on the roof only because it rained a little today so all the water was dripping from upstairs down onto the 1st floor. No harm to the wood, but it just made things messy. Matter of fact I need to look about getting a dumpster on site for all the garbage... will have to look into that tomorrow or sumthin.

I guess the garage was pretty easy to frame because it is pretty much all up. Just need to put the windows in and the doors.

Today I picked my roofing and siding contractor and my plumber. If all goes well, they will both start next week. The plumber will hopefully start on Monday and then they will start shingling the roof on Wednesday. We'll see...

A picture of the rear of the house. All the windows are installed except the ones in the basement... will have to look about purchasing those asap.

I think tomorrow will be installation of the rest of the windows and starting on the roof... we'll see if I'm wrong. :)

Next Up... The Roof

The 2nd floor is all done. So all that's left now is the roof and then the garage. Things are moving along so quickly and I still haven't picked a plumber. I met a contractor out at the site today to look at an estimate he was going to give me for the roofing and siding. Yeah... he won't be picked. They seem like some great folks (father and two sons), but they are waaaay above what everyone else is quoting. I was actually hoping to use them too. Oh well, their loss. :)

I took this picture from the 2nd floor standing in the master bedroom. Doesn't look like much other than a bunch of wood. But in the bottom left corner you can see the stairwell going back down. The master bedroom is L shaped and has an additional sitting room, so that's the room that is directly in front of me and then all the way to the back is one of the bedrooms. I know it's hard to tell from the pic what the heck you're looking at, but it'll look better once some drywall is up. :)

Once again a picture from the future kitchen. Now you can see the stairs going up to the 2nd floor.