Updates

Our lot is full of wild blackberries that have been so good! Avery loves to pick them.
Here is my Dad setting up a work table so he and Kevin can start doing the electrical work.

Here is Avery's first lot clean-up. Doesn't she look thrilled!

Unfortunately, this is just the first of many!

Here are the pictures of the construction so far. Since these pictures, though, we have had the garage floor poured, the roof tiles installed, the house is partially wrapped, and we have installed half of the windows. There is a lot of work going on inside the house. Kevin and my Dad are working on the electrical, the plumbing is in, and the heating and air conditioning is in. I will get some more pictures this week. Now we are just racing to be ready for the sheetrockers to come next week. Keep your fingers crossed!

Framed house pictures.

This is the house from the east.
This is the house from the west.

Again, from the west.

From the north.

The roof...just in time!

Here is the biggest machine we have had at the house. This is the crane that lifted the roof panels. It was humbling to watch!

The roof went on just in time. A few days later, the rains started. We are so grateful that we have a dry house!

We have a second floor!

Don't jump! We have had many moments at the house where we will just stare into the distance hoping it will all be worth it. We know it will.

Now it is my Dad's turn to wonder out the laundry room window. (That's right, my dream of an upstairs laundry room came true!)


Avery was the first one to sing in the shower at the new house. She is so excited to have her own bathroom. Well, it is really just the upstairs bathroom for all the bedrooms (aside from the master), but since she is the only one who will be living in the upstairs bedrooms (again, aside from the master), we let her call it hers.

Waving from her new room.

Interior framing and second floor.

Here is the downstairs framed. We have a small front living room, half bath, lost of closets (yeah!), and then one great room with kitchen, dining, and family room.

View of first floor from outside.

Avery is first to welcome any visitors.

Here is the stairwell from upstairs. I was so worried that someone would fall down these stairs before the upstairs walls were up.

Here is the upstairs before it was framed.

First floor goes up!

Here is the truck arriving with all our exterior wall and roof panels. You can read more about the process at the SIPs website, but basically it is two boards with foam piped in between. And, in the foam they have cut channels for all the wiring to go through.

We have had a lot of huge machines at the lot. This bif forklift unloaded all the SIPs panels and stacked them throughout the lot.

Here is stack number one.

Stack number two.

Stack number three.

This is Kevin installing the foundation drains. Again, I am amazed at the things he can do. I wouldn 't even have known that foundations needed drains. This is why he is in charge of the house!

The panels for the outside walls are put up on the lip they attach to the top of the foundation, or to the top of the sub floor. This is a garage wall they are installing here.

They hoist it up.

Put it into place.

Then they sledge hammer it to make sure it is on tight. Then they nail it to the surrounding boards, and caulk everything. My mom says that our house is "tight like unto a dish."

Here is Kevin in boy heaven building his house.

Foundation and Sub Floor - please read this post from the bottom up.

This is the sub floor with our insulation. We had originally planned to put the insulation in ourselves, but we ended up being short on time and having a conractor do it. I was so glad we did. It wasn't too expensive, and they were so fast.

Here they are installing the sub floor. Avery loved this part because she got to work in the crawl space with Kevin.

It was exciting to see the foundation walls going up. Here, they are installing the sills that the sub floor will be attached to.

It took six months from purchase of land to the point where we could dig our foundation. This is an interesting step to me. At this point, the foundation looked so small, and I had a hard time believing that we were going to be able to fit a house in there. The same thing happened to me with our other house, too. I had a few brief moments of panic there.