Sunday, September 9, 2012

Sleeping Porch & more

We've had a lot of great progress recently! We passed our electrical inspection!!! Started the sleeping porch deck, installed the interior stairs and began the HVAC installation. Everything's moving right along and it feels wonderful!
 
Here's some progress on the sleeping porch. Jesse is laying the sleepers in the opposite direction of TPO slope to make the deck level. Lots of math.
 
 

sleepers tampering to the high side of the TPO water-proofing, polygal wall beyond


High side of the sleepers at the scuppers. The water will flow through the deck toward the  scupppers (openings) and down to the screened porch below


Mom (Deborah) sanding the treads for the screened in porch. Richard working hard in the background. Fuzzy Chia the dog laying in the shade taking it easy.

Sanding!

Jesse shoring up the connection between the folding door header and the PSL column. Our structural engineer came out last week for the framing pre-inspection and gave us a checklist to make the structure even stronger.

Thanks Colby for helping Jesse fabricate this piece!!



Stairs!

The interior stairs were installed last week! And they look fantastic. They're steel stairs with  wood stringers. We're still deciding what to do with the exterior stairs, prefab, steel, wood?
 
Angela, Nick and Jeremy installing the stair landing

Beautiful stair landing. From this landing you'll access the main bedroom to the north and the nursery to the west

First stringer installed


stringer and landing connection


Angela welding stringer and landing connection while Jeremy works on the second stringer

SPARKS!!!!
Angela and Jeremy welding, Nick working on the stringer base.

Deflection Test
 
INTERIOR STAIRS!!!
The treads are temporary, reused from the construction steps, but the look will be very similar. I love them!!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

More Trenches & Electrical


Trenches and electrical work. We currently have 4 huges winding trenches dug in our back and side yards. It looks like there's a goffer war waging in the back and we're losing. One of the trenches needed to be 22" deep so we had to call in some reinforcements.



Maceo's hard working!!



Joe and Jesse working hard digging more trenches


Energized!
Exhausted.




 
The electrical roughout is complete! Here are a couple photos that won't mean much wiithout the context but all the blue boxes and yellow wires are evidence of our electrical progress, yay!
 


 
Until next time......
 

 

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

WOW!

I can't believe it's JULY! We've had a lot on our plate this year and unfortunately the blog has been seriously neglected. I'm going to attempt to cover the last couple months in this update. We're still trying to be completed by the end of November but we won't be having our Thanksgiving house warming party as previously planned, instead we'll be preparing for a new addition to our family!

Ok, let's start with the doors. Jesse installed all the exterior doors. Including the bifold/swing exterior doors on the south facade. This was a bit of an experiment. Companies like NanaWall make these type of doors but they were way out of our budget. So Jesse did so research and found another company in Canada that makes heavy duty bifold and sliding door hardware. He was able to pick and match enough of the hardware from them to create a system for our doors. He's a genius! (I may be a little bias)
door prep station


stained door hardware prep


door locking hardware installed

hinge detail
Jesse's 'How-to-use' door video

Next we'll look at the screened in porch and south steps. These are under construction, the step treads are temporary, they will be replaced with a material similar to the floor decking at the screened and sleeping porch.

Oliver helping to survey the area prior to building

footings poured and framing beginning

there's a footing to catch each stringer



We'll fit a rain catchment barrel under this part of the deck to catch the downspout

It's going to be great to sit on these steps for movie nights next spring!


Next up the Polygal! This is the translucent material we worked hard to be able to incorporate into our project. I'm in love with the material and the application. Bubble wrap will be used in the wall cavities as insulation and another sheet will be applied to the interior. Special thanks to David Webber for the invaluable advice and tour of his home application!!
view from the office
 
The top panel is visible from the master bedroom while the bottom panel will add natural light to the closet
This section is above the dining area and stairs


view from the sleeping porch

Jesse's immaculate detail between the reclaimed cedar fence board, the polygal and the waterproofing membrane of the sleeping porch

detail at sleeping porch
 In Jesse's spare time he managed to renovate our existing house while I was out of town for a week. In exchange for a wall I received a dishwasher and garbage disposal for my birthday. Thank you Jesse!!!
Let the chaos begin! Half wall's down, kitchen is a job site

Remodelling my architect wife's house while she's out of town! What was I thinking???

Temporary support

Fridge relocated, threshold complete

Dishwasher installation

Wrapped and ready!! Surprise!!!
Plumbing begins...
Main bathroom plumbing with metal trough bathtub


W/C plumbing

Trenching! 15" trench from the new house to the street to tie into the sewer

These men banged this trench out in a day!!

Outline of trench

drain laid

Mj. Tom and Oliver think the trenches are their personal subway system

Thanks to the wonderful rain, it's a bit of a jungle out there.
Here's a picture or two the completed back gate. The panel the kids did at the work party looks great!


That's it for now. I'll try to stay more up to date with the posts. Especially since we'll be moving a bit faster in the ext couple months. Stay tuned for electrical, HVAC, drywall and siding completion!! Hope your summer's going well!