Too Much Snow

It's snowing like mad. Here's a video.

Okay, so maybe not WILD CRAZY snow, but it's pretty impressive for Lacey.

Snow Strikes Again

They haven't done anything at our house this week because it's been too cold & icy. Today it snowed prety heavily and our house had a visitor. Here's a picture.



That's Daire, the girl next door, for those of you who don't know her. She's on the second floor reading a story to a snow man. It looks like she has some hot chocolate, too.

Tour

Here is a brief tour of the house.

The Second Story Grows

The stairway and second story (not including the attic space) have been mostly constructed. Here is a photo.

Second Floor!

They put together the floor system for the psudo-shed dormer. They're also going to have to push the stairway to the west about 1 foot, which means that the hallway arch will need to be pushed back 1 foot, which means the fireplace will be pushed back 1 foot, which means they'll have to widen the 2nd floor bathroom by 1 foot to incorporate the stovepipe. Here are a few images. Sorry for the poor quality.


This is our kitchen. Notice the second floor rafters and the stairway beams under construction.


This is Alexander's room and the family room. Again, notice the rafters.


Our room, inner walls in place.

First Floor Finish Work

The team was working some finish work on the first floor. They plan on putting up the main beams for the second floor tomorrow. We may start seeing the second story coming together soon!

More walls

They've started installing the interior walls and putting the crown on the bottom floor. Here's a quick video.

Walls

They've started on the outer wall system. Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Floor

Jamie and his team finished sheathing our sub floor system! It was fun being able to walk around on it. They had drawn the outlines of where our walls would be, which they will be starting on tomorrow. Jamie called at around 4:10. He was confused about the separations between Alexander's closet, the laundry room, and the family room. We also grabbed Barrett some draw forms and the new engineering bill, which we left in the garage. Here's a video of the house.

Construction at Last

Jamie and Kurt spent last Friday building the floor system. They haven't sheathed it yet, but we're assuming that is because the inspector wasn't able to make it out. Below are some pictures I took today.

The Incredible Disappearing House

Barrett finally came to the conclusion that our subfloor was unsalvagable, which we've been worried about since the demolition was complete. Barrett started cutting into it to make repairs but soon realized that it wasn't even worth attempting. Yet another part to rebuild. And guess who earned the privilege of demolishing the flooring system! We were lucky enough to have Colin join us on Saturday, so it was a three man, six hour effort. I had to do about another three hours of solo work to finish up on Sunday, but all told, it was a great success. We have a large pile of good looking salvagable lumber for Olympia Salvage waiting in back and an even larger pile of rubble in the front yard.

We're excited to see something constructed for a change.

A Maze of Tubes

After digging for many hours, Jerry and I have cleared out the crawls space and layed the foundation catch drain. It's still waiting to be inspected, but Barrett says it looks fine. Here are some pictures.

Secret Messages

Looks like someone has been partaking in some recreational concrete graffiti.

Demolition complete

Oly Salvage is finishing up the last few tasks. They will be done by noon next Monday, they say. We handed off our checks (one from the bank, one from our own money purse) and paid off our balance today. It's an awfully odd feeling standing at the street and looking right through our yard right at our garage and alleyway. Here's a video of our site, taken from the center of our house.

Demolition, Day 2

The amount of progress Olympia Salvage has made in the past two days is amazing. The entire interior has been removed. The hardwood floors are the only task of any substance left. There's some wiring to remove and a few ancient bee nests, but those won't take but a minute to remove. They also started taking off the siding. It's all proceeding much faster than we thought it would. Walking through the house this evening was a weird feeling--Julia couldn't even stay in the house for more than a few seconds. Alexander looked upset when he saw these pictures:

Green Light

We received our permits yesterday, which went without incident, and our loan was approved. This project is finally underway. Since we know it's on for sure now, I will start making regular posts.

Below are a couple PDFs of our final floor plans.

Second Round of Design Prints

We received a call from our architect today. She has the revised first floor and new second floor drawings ready. Here they are... (Click them for a larger view)

Bottom floor. Nothing really new here, just some refinements.


UPSTAIRS! More comments to come.



A slice of our new house. Notice the shed dormers on both sides!



Front. Julia added some details, like the lovely flowers.


We're totally stoked! The upstairs design has a large room with a bathroom, an office space over the kitchen, and a surprise second room! That was completely unexpected. Now all we have to do is figure out what we're going to do with all of this space.