Day 84 - Construction Resumes!

For various scheduling/weather related issues, virtually no work has been done on the house since 10/12/13.  It has gotten so bad, that a coworker asked me today if we had run out of money!!!  Ouch.  The good news is the bank & I are still on speaking terms and construction is once again moving forward!

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but Tom Meyer is our general contractor.  Preparing to build over the past 3 years, we heard good things about several local builders.   We essentailly hired Tom based on the very strong recommendation of our neighbors.  They had built 3 houses in their lifetime and said if they ever built again, Tom is the only person they would have as their builder.  Good enough for me! Tom's reputation for quality is excellent & he has been very easy to work with.  He has an excellent eye for detail & definitely doesn't cut corners.

On Tuesday Tom started preparing to frame up the interior.  Today they framed-in the office and started on the stairs to the 2nd floor.

Wait just a minute!  Right about now, you might be asking yourself "Do you have a roof windows & doors yet?"  Nope.  Due to all the rain/snow they have not been able to get the exterior buttoned up yet.  As temporary measures, they have tar paper on the roof and plastic tacked over all of the windows & doors.  Hopefully we will have a dry stretch coming up so they can get the exterior finished.

In other news, Ilgen Excavating brought in a few more loads of dirt on Monday to finish grading the front porch & Ron Leech poured the footings for the porch today.  We are also hoping to get some retaining walls put in this fall before the ground freezes too much.  More to come!

View from the Kitchen looking into the family room/porch

Office

View from the formal living room

Stairs to the 2nd floor

The Waiting Game

Nice View from Across the Street

 Not much in the way of blog updates recently for 1 major reason: The only work done on our house over the past 2 weeks has been me squeegeeing water out of the house!  Yeah, not so fun.  Still no shingles, siding, windows or doors, so every time Mother Nature opens the flood gates I break out my trusty squeegee!

Tom put tar paper on the roof temporarily to help prevent water from getting in.

It didn't help much :-)

Who needs lakeshore property when you can have a pond?

Windows have arrived, but no place for them to go.  Tom & his crew are going to be getting started on Thursday

Window waiting to get put in.

Cabinetry

Cabinets are a pretty big deal when it comes to a building a new house.  They really define the overall style & feel of a house in addition to representing a big portion of the construction budget.  They must be designed to function efficiently and withstand the abuse of every day use.  After weighing several factors we decided to use G&E Cabinetry out of Sheldon, IA.  Sheldon, IA?!?  Yep.  Sheldon, IA.  G&E were recommended by a close family friend who grew up with one of the owners, Gered.  The cool thing about the internet is that we've been able to do all of the design work thru email & just a few phone calls.  We sent Gered a copy of our house plans & told him roughly what we were looking for.  He used that info to create some great designs  for us.  Below are a few of the computer drawings of our cabinets.

Kitchen (Stainless appliances & different counter tops planned)

Main Floor Mail Desk

Kid's Jack & Jill Bathroom

Mudroom Lockers

Kitchen Pantry

Master Bath (will be white)

Day 64 - Another Oops!

Not much to report with building over the past week.  The house spent several days drying out (only to have more rain scheduled for today!).  Yesterday Jamie & his crew came back and finished up some leftover work.  They finished foaming & taping all of the panel seams.  They also framed in the door for the pantry they got forgotten earlier in the project.  They also fixed a major "Oops" that Emily discovered over the weekend.  There was a window in the wrong place!  The CAD drafter for Extreme Panel created the panel drawings from an old set of house plans!   Not sure how that happened because we finalized our house plans way back in March.  As you can see in the photo below, the window has off by ~2 feet.  Fortunately, they were able to move it over by cutting a new hole in the panel & placing the cut out portion of the panel in the previous window opening.

Day 58 - The Panels are Done!

Jamie & his crew placed the last panel on Friday!  The only things they have left to do are finishing the trim for the fascia backer and taping all of the interior seams.  It's going to be several days before the house dries out enough for them to tape the seams.  The next steps for the exterior will be to frame up a gable over the 3rd garage stall and the front porch.  After that, it's finally on to shingles, windows & doors!

Placing the last panel

Lt. Harry Approves!

Overall things are moving right along.  Emily & I went down to the Twin Cities to pick out flooring/countertops ~2 weeks ago.  I think we've got most of the finishing picked.  Plumbing, flooring, cabinets & counters are all set.  Now it's just the lighting to get figured out!

Bye bye!

Day 56 Perhaps We Should Have Built a Boat

Just a little soggy

Some rather ominous clouds

Not a good scene to drive up to when building a house.  With all the rain yesterday, we developed a mini Sauk Lake in our front yard.  Unfortunately, the inside of our house is just as wet with standing water on the subfloor.  With more rain on the way over the next 2 days, I'm not sure when things will get a chance to dry out.  You'll notice in the pics below that they had already taped most of the wall & ceiling panel joints.  These joints are supposed to be airtight.  Well, with all the rain, water began to leak between the roof panels & out the tape on the interior.  On the one hand, I'm concerned that they will have to retape all of the roof panels (if water is leaking through, the seams are definitely not air tight!).  On the other hand, I think I'd rather have the seams leak at this point to allow the water to drain out from between the panels.

This can't be good for resale!

On the bright side, Jamie & his crew managed to set the very last panel today!  All of the dormers, gables & the 3 season porch are finished.  Now they just have to finish with the fascia backer on the eaves & tape/retape the inside of the panels.

Floor for the 3 season porch just before putting up the walls/roof

Soggy, but completed!

 Up next on the docket:  Roof, siding, windows & doors!

Day 55 - Gables & Dormers!

Hello Harry!

Gable for the Master Bedroom
 

The master bedroom gable & garage dormers got put up today.  Unfortunately lots of rain in the forcast for the next few days.  Not looking good!