Day 337

Not a whole lot of progress at the house this week, unfortunately. Tradesman are slammed in the Nashville area, which is not good news for our house build, but it is good news for being able to pay for the house build, since both Josh and I work in professions related to construction.

We did get 8″ of rain at the property last Sunday, according to our neighbor. This helped to get the grass going. See it peeking through the straw matting?

They finished the first chimney this morning and are about 1/3 of the way done with the second. I am hoping they finish it this weekend so we can get the roof on next week and the bulk of the exterior trim and siding finished. That will be a HUGE deal to have the house looking fairly complete from the outside.

The siding and trim on the dormers is complete and I am SO PLEASED. It looks a little funny now because some of the material is white and some is beige (it will all be painted the same color), but I love all of the layers of detail. I’m a bit of a trim enthusiast as you can tell by my dormer detail from the plans:

Josh and I spread some more grass seed and erosion control matting this morning.

There was a different crew working on the chimney than had been there before and one of the guys came up to me and asked if I might have some mixed fuel for my weed eater (which he must have assumed we had in the truck) that he could borrow for his saw. I told him I didn’t have any, but if there was any on site, it would be in the garage.

I thought this was kind of odd, but then it occurred to me that he thought Josh and I were the lawn crew.

I did not tell him otherwise.

Day 255

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Looking more and more like a house each time we visit!

We headed out this morning to see the progress and were delighted to see that framing is nearing completion.

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The wrap covering all of my beloved windows is really killing the vibe.

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Also killing the vibe is the master bedroom windows not being centered under the roof ridge.  I noticed these were off when they first started framing the second floor walls. Our builder assures us this will be fixed at the end of framing.

I’m counting the minutes.

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At least the view is still nice from the inside, which will be our view as we wake up.

(The dirt piles are temporary.)

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I’m so excited about all of the dormers and sloped ceilings in the bedrooms.  Super Cozy.

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This is the view from the back bedroom, through my closet, through Josh’s closet, and through the master bathroom in the middle, master bedroom on the left, and bonus room on the right.  I realize this will not be a view once the walls are drywalled, but it helps to get a feel for the layout upstairs.

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I call this to your attention because most views upstairs look like this, which is basically a maze of 2x4s.

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I did get this shot of one of the critical axes upstairs from the guest room, through the main stair hall, master hall, and into the master bedroom.  I’m standing in the master bedroom and my dad is in the guest room.  Hi, Daddy!

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They have really cleaned things up downstairs.  I am standing in the kitchen, looking into the entry and the living room.  Feeling good!

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We headed up to the office next.  Josh approves.

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Barry was studying all of the details of the framing.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…

Day 250

Hey there!

IMG_5583I stopped by for a quick visit between meetings the other day and saw many interesting things as I turned onto our easement drive:

  1. The property adjacent to ours that has been for sale for quite a while now has a gigantic septic fence in place.
  2. The “For Sale” sign had been taken down, so this sale is likely really happening and we are getting some new neighbors.  We were secretly hoping the seller would give up and offer to sell it to us and our existing neighbor for a fraction of the cost.
  3. Due to the odd shape of this lot and the gigantic septic field in the middle of the lot, I have no idea where they will place a house.  I really hope it’s not a big factor in any of our views.

On a more positive note, I spot a chimney!

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A little imagination required, but can’t you see it coming to life?!

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The chimney was really exciting to see.  There is another one on the opposite side of the house that is more for looks and balance.  This one here is a wood burning fireplace in the living room, but the dining room and library will have ventless gas inserts.

I love fireplaces.

It’s hard to imagine wanting to have a fire right now because it’s almost 90 degrees and 80% humidity as I write this.

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No worries, though, because I can just lay down in the puddles on the floor to cool off.

It’s sort of a panicky thing to see water like this on the interior of your house even when you’re still in this rough stage of framing.  The good news is there are no windows and doors on the house at this moment in time so there will be plenty of time for this to air out and evaporate.

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There’s that gigantic septic field fence from the other side.

As soon as I saw this, I told Josh we may need to go ahead and put up a fence along the shared property line…

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Back to the progress! Check out these dormers taking shape.  The bedrooms are going to be so cozy.

Though I know we have to have it for waterproofing, I really detest this paper they are putting on in a somewhat random fashion.  It is very distracting and they are covering up the window openings.

I can’t wait until we can cover it up with siding and put in the windows. I’m hoping at our meeting tomorrow, the builder will tell us this is happening very soon.

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I like this view because you can’t really see the ugly paper.

Also, it cracks me up that it looks like our house is hiding behind the tree, somewhat unsuccessfully. Sort of like when my cat sticks his head under the sofa and thinks you can’t see him.

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I turned around from my vantage point and admired all of our little “volunteer” trees that have sprouted up.  Hopefully some of these will make it to be big trees someday.

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As I was leaving, I spotted a work truck at the edge of the other property adjacent to ours.  It is entirely wooded and we have about 40′ of woods between us, but we haven’t see a soul or any evidence of human life on this property the entire time we have owned our property.  A little strange that literally the same day that the other property looks to have something happening on it, this one does too.  We went from feeling like we were out here by ourselves to all of a sudden having a bunch of activity.

Looking into that fence tomorrow…

 

 

 

 

 

Day 247

Hi, it’s me again!

More framing progress to report over the last 24 hours.

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We had a family site visit yesterday afternoon while my aunt was in town.  It was neat to give the grand tour and walk through each room.

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Our greek revival cottage is taking shape!

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The office is feeling really good and looking like a disco in the afternoon sun.

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As they add the sheathing, it frames the views and I just can’t get enough.  I’m all about the views.

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The second floor is still quite the maze of framed walls and temporary supports.

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Here’s Josh looking out the dormer window in the back bedroom.  I’ve always loved dormers so each room on the second floor has one.  I might have gone a little dormer crazy in the design, but I think they make the rooms cozy and add a lot of dimension to the exterior.

We have some rain in the forecast, but I’m thinking framing might be complete by the end of the week.  Stay tuned!