Walls, Walls, Walls!

May 22^nd

Yesterday I went out to the lot to check on the progress and there were walls! Lots of walls! It was so surreal walking through the halls we had seen on paper for the last 9 months. My first impression is that I had no idea how big our “small” 3 foot by 6 foot window would be let alone the rest of the windows. The amount of light that will be coming in will be incredible! I am so glad we stuck with big windows!

We are already seeing that we want to make some minor changes. The window placement in the master bath and 2^nd bath and the pocket doors in master bath are not the right width.The windows are too close to each other. The master bath pocket doors were built to accommodate a 30 inch wide door and the plans call for a 36 inch wide door. The header heights for the pocket doors are not high enough either. We are still early in the progress and these changes will be easy to make.

K and I are frantically working to decide what doors to order when, and what windows to order and what tubs to order. I feel like we will be playing catch up for the next couple of weeks. J

 My first look as I walked up on Wednesday.

 Future location of entry porch.

These three windows are in our master bath and second bath.

Future stair well and garage wall.

Looking back at the entry room and laundry room.

 Living room

 Living room again.

  Looking down the hall with the pantry on the left.

The front door wall going up!

 This is the plumbing fail. Those pipes are supposed to be within the cutout in the plate (the plate is the 2x4 on the bottom of wall). Did you catch that?...I used a technical term IN context even!! ;) The concrete will have to be cut more to than it already is to accommodate the necessary changes.

 Second bath. The window is too close to the wall the toilet is on. No one wants to be totally exposed in front of a window while on a toilet. :)

 Master bath and closet.

Master bath curbless shower.

Outside the master bedroom.

Lumber delivered and concrete cut?!

May 20^th

I met with Michael Mark yesterday at the lot to discuss the lay out of the walls and the window and door placement. It was very obvious that the laundry room was not plumbed correctly. The drain and water supply for the clothes washer were not properly placed; they are in the middle of the hallway floor! So Michael will be cutting into the concrete and moving the pipes back to the proper position. They finished placing the wall plates yesterday and measuring out the location of the windows and doors! Which means today there will be walls up! We listed our house yesterday and will be out of town for Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully there will be some interest and a couple of showings while we are gone. Getting the house ready for showings has been more stressful than the house build. We have so much stuff! K has been hard at work putting together some beautiful wall hangings and décor! She is amazing! J

Foundation Finished!!!

May 18th

La Duke Brothers Concrete finished the concrete Thursday and it looks great! Mimi and Papa and the rest of us went up to the lot on Saturday for a morning tour. Mimi and Papa brought the three bigger kids hard hats and construction supplies (they were a birthday gift for N from my whole side of the family) so they were busy hammering rocks and looking official! The concrete is looking good and Michael Mark is going to begin framing on Monday! J

The Birthday Boy is looking good! :)

Thanks E and K and V and J!

 The three pictures that follow are of "knoll" where I pulled out a huge amount of poison oak. it looks sooo much better and wont make you itch! :)

 The above picture is taken standing in the middle of our dinning room looking through what will be one of our sliding glass doors. Wow! Can't believe that we will be eating meals with that as the backdrop (minus the orange tractor)!

Knowing the difference between lumber and wood...

May 13^th

We had our final foundation inspection on Monday and Passed! Tom and his crew poured concrete on the first half of the house on Tuesday and I showed up at the end of the concrete pumping at quarter to ten in the morning! They spent the rest of the day finishing the surface to a beautifully smooth texture. We decided to not cut the surface and let the concrete crack naturally. This will be easier to fill and seal than having 1/8^th inch score marks in 10x10 foot squares through out the floor.
Ana White (ana-white.com) featured a concrete seal/paint that she is using in her Mom's new place. We are probably going to use that same product to finish our floors. It looks relatively easy and as she said it is much better to use a roller on a pole than to be on your hands and knees snapping together planks.

While I was there I was able to finish removing the poison oak bushes from the “knoll” area. This was the 4^th or 5^th day I spent some time on it and have not reacted to it. I was very careful to tape my gloves and sleeves together and to wash with Tecnu Extreme after finishing. So glad I didn't pay someone to do it!

While I was working on the poison oak our designer Jim Irvine stopped by to see how things were progressing. We chatted for a few minute and I mentioned that the framing would start Monday and that I assumed that the wood would be delivered sometime Monday (its kinda hard to build any walls without wood). He paused for a minute and looked at me and said “What did you say?” I repeated that I thought the wood would be delivered Monday. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and said “It's LUMBER. Call it lumber. If you call it wood people will know you don't know what you are talking about.” We both laughed and I said “Right, the LUMBER will be delivered on Monday.” It is sure nice working with people who are friendly and help you look less like a idiot. :)

last night I called Ron Dinicola my sister-in-laws father who is an electrician. He agreed to give me a crash course in electrical work and to help me get going on the project. He is also going to perform the final hook up to the solar panels and the main breaker. It is a real relief knowing someone who does this for a living locally will be walking us through it! Thank you Ron!!

Monday inspections, Tuesday through Thursday concrete!!

May 7^th

Tom and Lee La Duke have been hard at work and have finished back filling the foundation with rock and then DG (decomposed Granite). Mike Mark (our plumber, framer, and who know what else we will hire him to do) made the changes we decided on in our master bath and second bath. The inspector is scheduled to come out on Monday and then we will be pouring concrete Tuesday through Thursday!

This shot is from the living room looking back through the kitchen (the two black pipes on the right are in the kitchen island)

This is looking at the kitchen and dining room areas

This shot is looking at the front door. The door will be on the left side of the wall we can see in the foreground.

This is the stair area and the garage.

This is the garage door and what will eventually be our driveway. looks like we will need a lot of fill to bring up the driveway to the level of the garage. So glad I didn't spend a lot of time moving rock for our driveway! I was planning on doing just that and K convinced me that it would be better to wait and see what would need to be moved after the foundation is poured. So glad she is so smart! :)

This area is just out side the kitchen and dinning room. This will probably be where we spend most of our time outside while our kids are young. We are planning on installing synthetic turf. It is so nice to not have to cut or water a "play area" that looks and feels like grass. :)

This is the view from the kitchen sink looking through the dining area. The rocks will be incorporated into a patio as the base.