Posted on by Emily

Day 243

I can barely concentrate on anything else at the moment because I’m so excited about the framing!!!

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But, first things first: Check out our driveway that has been graded up so there’s no longer a pond in the middle of it. They also put in a massive pipe specified by my dear husband who does not mess around when it comes to proper drainage.

I had been parking at the very beginning of the driveway due to it being impassible in my short SUV.  Next time, I will drive on up and park in front of the house…

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… right by the front porch!

They are starting to put in the floor system for the second floor.  The room above the front porch is the guest room.  Kath (my mom) will be so delighted to see this as she is eager to stay in her suite.

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They put in the stairs to the future headquarters of my design firm. The way things are going with COVID-19, it sounds like I will be subletting some of my office space to my husband.

Ok, back to the tour.

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My kitchen!

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Which will eventually look like this!

But probably not for 6 months…sigh.

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This is the living room, which overlooks the front porch and yard.  They had somehow missed one of these windows in the first round of framing, but they quickly got it added in after I brought it to their attention.

I’m sure I’m their favorite already.

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Though I planned for all rooms to have lots of light and pretty views, I am particularly smitten with the view from the dining room.

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I am also a big nerd about sight lines and axes.  This is the view looking the opposite direction of the previous photo.  Once all of these lovely temporary supports are removed, there will be a sight line down through the hall and out the windows of the library on the back of the house from the dining room table.

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The L-shaped screened porch that wraps the back and side of the house will have an uninterrupted view of the tree line.  Though right now, these temporary supports are really killing the mood.

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Here’s another angle showing the screened porch and those library windows I’ll be able to see through from the dining room.  I foresee spending a lot of time on this porch.  So does our cat, Bu.

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And this is the beast from her widest angle.

This house has been in my head and in my heart for so long that is really surreal to see it come to life.

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Still quite a bit left before she looks like my rendering, but well on her way!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Emily

Day 221

We rolled up on Memorial Day to find that the block work was complete!

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One day soon(ish), there will be a lovely front porch here, inviting you in as you come up the driveway.

(sigh)

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We had the full crew on for inspection: Josh (left), Nate (middle), and Eugene (right).

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It was HOT, so while I walked the perimeter, Eugene sat in the shade of the front tree, supervising me.  The guys had moved on to cutting down a tree.

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The dirt piles keep moving and flattening as John continues the grading, so this was as high as I could get.  Looking good!

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Next, it was time to “walk through” the house, which Eugene was kind enough to document for me.

That crawl space access is already coming in handy; however, this is the only time I ever plan to use it personally.

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Walking through the kitchen…

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…envisioning the island.

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…sitting at the island.

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Old habits die hard.

Next up, garage and basement floors will be poured!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Emily

Day 219

We were pleasantly surprised to see that, in just a few days, almost all of the block had been laid!

Here they are finishing up the back of the house and then the only section left is the front porch, where my dad and Josh are standing on the right.

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John has been spreading out the Pride Dirt Pile so it’s harder for me to get up high enough and far enough away to get everything in one shot.  I had to use the panoramic setting to capture this, which is a little bit distorted, but you get the idea.

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Though I can barely contain myself in anticipation of framing, seeing this step has been extremely exciting!

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That L-shaped thing on the left will be our screened in porch.  I’ve never had one of these before.  I predict that we will spend a great deal of time on that porch, safe from all of the mosquitos and critters that will eat you up out here.

Also, please note on the left, Barry (my dad) taking a picture of me standing on a pile of dirt taking a picture.

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Now, when we are not on the screened in porch on the back of the house, we will most likely be on the front porch, which will be right here.

I have the rocking chairs ready to go for the minute the house is complete.

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The horses next door are largely disinterested in the construction.

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So, this is the second time in my life that I’ve gotten to be part of the building process on a personal level.  The first time was when my parents built a house outside of Philadelphia when I was 4.

You might say, that’s where it all began, or at least where it became clear, that I would wind up in a career related to construction and design.

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Last year for my birthday, Josh put together some still shots from a home video circa 1992 of me supervising on the jobsite at my parents’ house.  I was sporting pink sunglasses and an ensemble I can no longer pull off.

Josh did get me a new pair of pink sunglasses so I could recreate the inspection vibe when the time came for us to build our house.

Well, the moment has arrived.

Josh brought the ladder so I could climb down into the basement.

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The view from below.

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Here I am several decades later, sporting my pink sunglasses and assessing the situation.

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On our way home, the same way that we had come just a few hours before, there was suddenly a tree all the way across the road.  Josh maneuvered around it and then he and my dad tied it to Josh’s truck so he could pull it out of the road.

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It’s always an adventure out in the country!

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Speaking of adventures, we have been practically camping in our current house for the past week because our refrigerator decided to stop cooling.  Thankfully, it has since been fixed and we had 7(!) days left on the warranty.  Always the optimist, Bu was making the most of the temporary setup and had found himself a great spot for lounging and watching the squirrels in the front yard.

He is going to love the screened in porch.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by Emily

Day 106

Let’s start with some excellent news: Punxsutawney Phil did NOT see his shadow!

This is a big deal when you’re hoping to break ground in the next few weeks.

Speaking of that, I got really excited earlier this week when I received an email that said “construction permit approved”.  I forwarded it to Joshua with roughly 1,000 exclamation points.  He texted me to gently inform me that that approval was not what I thought it was.  Had I taken the time to read the next two words in the email subject line, I would have seen the words “conventional system”, which refers to the type of septic system we will have.  This was an email confirming our septic permit approval, which we knew had been approved several weeks back.

Oh well.

Another email came through this week that said “Permit decline reasons”.  As excited as I was about the previous email, I was equally deflated upon receiving this one.  It turns out the “decline reasons” weren’t really for anything we could have anticipated.  We had carefully reviewed all checklists and submittal requirements before we sent in our plans, but the county likes to come up with additional items because they can.  We ran into this earlier in the process with our plat so weren’t entirely surprised.

Thankfully, we should be able to satisfy these additional requirements, and hopefully get our building permit any day now.

Patiently waiting….

In the meantime, we drove out to the property Friday evening to review where the house had been staked by the surveyor as we had indicated it on our site plan.  We are really trying to save the tree that is in front of the house.  The driveway will run between the tree and the front porch so we wanted to make sure there will be enough clearance.  We decided that we’ll need to limb up the tree a bit but that we should be able to keep it.  Whew!

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These flags do not photograph well and it’s hard to tell much about the shape of the house, but we verified that edges and corners were in a good spot.  You can see the tips of the tree branches we were discussing on the left.

You can also see Josh photobombing my lovely shot as he was carrying my chair so I could practice sitting on the front porch.

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photo credit: Joshua, from the living room

There’s the tree again, this time on the right side.  We confirmed that the west-facing front porch is in a great spot.  This was an overcast evening, but I can’t wait for many spectacular evenings on the front porch, watching the sunset.   I think our realtor thought I was a little nuts, but when we were searching for a piece of land, one of my requirements was that the front of the property had to face west so we could have this setup.

I cannot wait to be sitting on the actual front porch!

On our drive into the property, we spotted a new structure underway at one of the neighboring properties:

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I have construction progress envy…

 

 

Posted on by Emily

Day 52

We made some big strides this past week!

A few highlights:

  1. We signed with our builder
  2. The builder has begun applying for permits
  3. The appraisal has been ordered for our construction loan

A few things to note:

  1. The County takes septic permitting VERY seriously and has a checklist with no fewer than 8 different documents that must be submitted.  They even require one of the documents to be notarized.  I think applying for college might be easier.
  2. Windows are still expensive, unfortunately.   I got some more quotes this week and the series that offers the brass hardware I really want basically costs the same amount as a Rolls Royce.
  3. Window selection still pending.

While in Virginia visiting family for Thanksgiving, we went to Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home, Poplar Forest.  Since we are going to be building a traditional house with classical elements, I was taking note of all of the details.

One of the first things I noticed was the floor-to-ceiling, triple sash windows in the library that our tour-guide said were custom-made in Germany to match the originals.  Given my recent Ph. D. level education in windows, I approximate that these cost at least five figures each.

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I was also completely obsessed with the beefy trim.  I haven’t seen baseboards built out like this before.  I would guess these are 3″ deep, which means they had to build out all of the door casings as well.  The chair rail was so thick that they notched it over the door casing.  I will be showing this to our builder to emphasize how simple our trim work will be by comparison.

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Lastly, I will be keeping this photo below handy if the codes department decides to give us any issue with our railing-less front porch that is less than 30″ off the ground.  I, like Thomas Jefferson, don’t want a railing obstructing my view.

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Until next time!