Week-end work on fireplace

Well, you're going to get a crick in your neck, trying to look at some of these pictures! I had them turned right in the computer, but when I posted them, they turned back and I can't get them fixed. I'm tired of trying to figure it out, so I'm just leaving them the way they are in hopes that you can get a good enough idea of the progress on the fireplace. Ken has been working today (Saturday) on the mortar, and these show what it looked like late this afternoon. He plans to finish it tomorrow (Sunday) so that the painters can get to work on Monday. The photo of the garage shows the completed siding.




Garage, Fireplace and Stairs

The first two photos show the work that was done today on the garage siding. Our neighbor, Ken, is working on the stone around the fireplace. I think it's like working a giant jigsaw puzzle, so it's moving more slowly than the work on the garage. The painters will wait until Ken has finished the fireplace before they continue their work, hopefully the beginning of next week. The stairway down to the ground floor (basement) is looking good! Tim & Eli are doing a great job. By the way, this is Cheryl posting now. Larry wanted to make sure that I could handle this before he leaves Friday for eastern Europe. I'll be posting pictures daily over the next 10-12 days so that Larry can track the progress on the house while he's gone.




Progress on Garage

As you can see, the garage is shaping up quickly. They just started the framing yesterday (first picture). The second picture was taken this afternoon (Tuesday). The painters have been doing preliminary work inside - caulking, covering the floors -- and today they primed all the trim. If they continue to have as many guys working as they did today, the painting will go very quickly! Ron & his crew are working on the stairways, and work has begun on the stone around the fireplace. Lots going on. It's raining tonight, so it will be a muddy mess out there tomorrow.

Wet and Cold, but warm inside

We finally got the slab and retainer wall for the garage poured. We had to wait for a day when the ground was frozen for the cement trucks to get up the hill. The ground is frozen this am so we will have the wood and trusses delivered today for the garage. Framing should begin on Monday.
Note there are only three columns up. There will be four, but Lowe's did not have the base and cap for the fourth one, so it is back-ordered.
On the inside the hardwood floors were finished yesterday, so all floors are finished. Today the cabinets will be delivered!! (Cheryl said to put those exclamations in there. She has worked hard on getting this order done).
Pending completing work on the stairs (treads, risers, ballusters, railing, etc.) and some trim work, the painters should start the first of next week.
The stones for the fireplace and outside trim were ordered this week. We will work on the fireplace once the painters are finished. Work on the natural stones on the retaining walls will be going on the first of next week.


Finally concrete on the hill

Two concrete trucks rolled up our hill this morning before daylight. They came early before the ground thawed so they would have better traction after the wrecker had to come and pull one of them off the hill last week. They also poured the front porch and footings for a retainer wall between the garage and the house.

After we have another drying spell, one truck will return to pour the three foot retaining wall on two sides of the garage slab. Later we will pour the drive and a turn-around at the top and the bottom of the drive.


muddy hill wins

We have been waiting for three weeks for the ground to dry out enough to get a concrete truck up the hill to pour the footings for the garage, the front porch, and footings for rock walls. After the freeze the ground has been very muddy, but we thought it was OK to order the concrete on Thursday. WRONG! The truck wound up cross ways in the road and had the contractor had to have a tow truck come and straighten it out so he could drive back down the hill--- with our concrete.

It rained again Thursday night, so we are back in the waiting mode for beginning the garage for a few more days.

In the meantime, the crown molding will be completed today. Tim and his son will be work on installing doors today. We are waiting on a back order for the attic space doors (either side of the loft) so we can heat the house and "warm up" the hardwood for installation. We will be buying door hardware this weekend, so we can secure the house.

Laminate flooring

the laminate on the lower floor has been installed. It is called "Georgia Pecan." We will install the interior doors on the lower floor this week. The guy who is installing the crown molding only works on Saturday, so he did not finish yesterday, but he will complete his work this Saturday. The outside HVAC units have arrived and are being installed this week.

Hopefully, we will be able to form up the garage slab and retainer wall and pour the footings this week. With the hard freeze this past week the ground has not dried up enough to remove the remaining dirt. At the same time we pour the footings for the garage, we hope to pour footings for a couple retaining walls and the front porch.



Tile completed






The tile man completed his work on Monday. We lacked a few pieces of bullnose trim around the tub (notice in the photo), but one of the contractor's workers will be able to complete that work once we order the missing tiles. The black and white tile in the down baths has been grouted, and it looks better than last week's photo. We are very pleased with the way all the tile turned out.
Most of the windows have been cased with the molding. We will have to bring in the scaffolds to install the trim on the vaulted windows in the great room.

Down baths tile

The black and white tile for the downstairs baths is done --except for the grout. They were working on the master bath shower today. I will post a photo of that progress soon.



Rain and more rain coming means a delay in pouring our slab for the garage and the front porch. It is so muddy on our hill (since the heavy equipment work last week) that we are shuffling material to the front door with the Kubota ATV. We are building a temporary front porch with wood just to have a place to clean our feet before going into the house.

We have the electrical approval and electricity will be turned on in the house by this Friday. Then we will go ahead and install the HVAC outside units and have some heat in the house. Interior doors were ordered today. Tomorrow we work on ordering the moulding, window casing and trim.

Yes, work continues

Sorry that it has been a long time since the last posting. We were in Virginia to pick up Allison at orientation this last week. She will be leaving for the Middle East on January 2.

The sheetrock work is finished. Painting will be delayed as we don't have our doors. We ordered them, but the company we used is having financial problems because of the housing industry crunch and they were unable to get them ordered. So, on Wednesday we will start over. We also have to get our moulding bought this next week. The painters want it and the doors installed before they begin painting.

The tile was laid in the basement baths this week-- black and white. I will post a photo of that later.

We have been doing a lot of dirt moving --- AGAIN!! We had to remove three feet of dirt at the garage site to level off the pad for the slab. Plus we are having to move more of the mountain beside it to make room for us to get a vehicle past the garage to get up to the top of our hill, and we are taking out some of the hill to make room for a turn-around. That's a lot of dirt! We also to dig up the main water line and electrical line to the pump and garage since it would have been higher than the excavation for the garage. So, lots of unplanned work has taken place these last two weeks.

All electrical outlets and switches have been installed and we hope to get the electricity to the house turned on this week so we will have some heat. We have constructed a deck (just outside the east side of our bedroom) for the three HVAC units to have a level place to be installed.

This first shot looks from the east side of the loft down into the great room and into the dining room.

These next two pics show some of the dirt work that has been going on. The garage will sit in front of the well pump in the second photo.

Sheetrock

It is truly amazing to watch a team of six people install sheetrock. They work like synchronized swimmers. Then, the taping team comes in and a couple of those guys works on stilts and move around with the grace of a ballerina.

Sheetrock should be completely finished tomorrow. Cellulose is being sprayed in the ceilings today. I will have more photos later, but these are of the sheetrock hanging team when they started work on Friday. By Saturday late morning they were finished and the tapers were in right behind them.

First photo is in the great room. Second photo is in the loft.


Insulation

This is not a very exciting photo, but it is what is going on at the house site. Insulation is being installed. The gutters will also be completed tomorrow. Insulation is running late because the sub-contractor decided not to come on Monday as scheduled -- and they did not bother to call us. When this happens it throws off the scheduling of other subs, so we had to postpone the delivery of sheetrock until Friday. Hopefully the sheetrock subs will come on Friday to start the sheetrock.

Security system wiring is all complete. We are installing a small camera in the play room downstairs so Nana will not have to be running up and down the stairs to look after grandchildren when they are playing down there. The camera can be monitored on a certain channel on any TV in the house.