Let's continue to catch up here. We still have the unresolved floor stain issue. I'll try and get some pictures of the particularly troublesome spots to share. In the meantime, I put in a query about how to deal with it on a concrete stain forum. Hopefully some experts there will chime in. The worst spot is right at the front door, which really sucks.
Moving on, then...
The guys finished doing all they could until the trusses arrived. So, there was no work done on the house August 26th - September 4th. The trusses were finished (and in Las Cruces) on August 28th, but the company was being a pain about when they could deliver them to Silver City. So, the project sat until they delivered them on Thursday, September 5th. The guys got right on it - insisting on unloading them one by one rather than allowing the truck to "dump"/slide them off.
Day 25 (September 5th)
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| They got the trusses up for both the east and west sides today. |
Days 26 and 27 (September 6th and September 9th)
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| The north supporting beam of the back porch with corbels. |
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| Sheathing installed on east side roof and beginning to be "papered". |
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| Framework for parapets begun. |
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| Another angle on the parapet framing. |
Days 28 and 29 (September 10 -11)
Update after today’s work. We had our first brief meeting with the electrician. We needed to work with him to decided what kind of lighting and where to put it for the great room as holes would need to be cut into the tongue and groove and wire run before they could shear (put sheathing on) the roof. We decided on 5 lights total - two that serve the living room end (south end). They will be 3-way lights. Then another two the serve the dining end, also a 3-way set up. Then the 5th which will help light the kitchen island. These all ended up being "canned" lights. We aren't particularly fans of canned lights, but this was a cheaper way to go and fairly easy. Our beams are far enough apart, they won't affect the spread of the light much.
The roof is now entirely sheared and
papered, and insulation is above the T&G over the great room as well
as the wiring and cans for the 5 ceiling lights that will be over that
area. The front and back parapets
are framed except for the top portion above the great room windows.
Some of the front west parapet has been sheared as well (see picture).
Most of day involved the back porch. All the roof beams on the porch
were put in place, and about half of the T&G
that forms the roof was put in. When completed, this will blend (and
be papered and roofed) with the main roof of the house.
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| Parapets taking shape. |
It is becoming easier to see what the final form of the parapets will be.
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| Tongue & groove being installed for porch. |
We are really liking the way the porch is shaping up. It will be the nicest one we've ever had. It's going to be beautiful and a really lovely place to hang out, especially in warm weather.
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| The ends of the porch beams. |
Day 30 (September 12th)
Brian is working alone on the house part time now. His assistant for the past
while, Robin, has gone to part-time as he is opening his own business, a
music studio, now. Good for Robin but sad to see him cut back as he is
a really good, hard, dependable
worker.
Brian completed all the remaining ‘horizontal’ surfaces today. The back
porch has been fully covered and papered to match the rest of the
roof. All of the eyebrows have been covered as well. Brian moved to
starting work on the parapets
that run front to back and divide the roof surfaces. The loan agent
came out to approve the next draw from the construction loan as well. (This is the 4th draw, but only the 2nd that is actually part of our construction loan. The rest was directly out of our pockets and counted as our 20% down.)
The metal roof gets ordered next week. We’re pretty close to having all
of the major structural features of the house
completed.
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| Porch tongue & groove is finished! |
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| Tongue & groove added to top of eyebrow supports. |
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| Boards cut to allow for tilted back form of parapet. |
Days 31 (September 13th) - No pictures of the work done today.
Day 32 (September 16th)
After a very rainy weekend (>1.7”) the weather was nice today. Brian
and Robin finished all the shearing on the house, so the roof, all
parapets, and framed exterior that will have wood are done. Anything
not covered on the exterior now
is going to be strawbale. Not sure what is next up other than some
detail work were they put in Douglas fir blocking between the eyebrow and
porch rafters as stucco stop (an aesthetic touch that makes the stucco
look better) and blocking between the beams of
the great room.
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| Looking like a southwestern style house! |
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| On top of the great room roof. |
The holes you can see are for venting the "attic" space (there's not much of an attic space due to it being a low sloped shed style roof).
Day 34 (September 18th)
Today they did a lot of little detail touches on the house. A lot of it
dealt with prepping the ceiling where it isn’t tongue and groove over
beams (basically everywhere but the great room). One of the pictures
below has the work for
the dropped ceiling in the kitchen area. We are currently figuring it
will be covered with corrugated galvanized roofing material. They also
started placing the doug fir blocking in between the beams as a finish
detail element (2
nd picture, block
on far right is not set in place yet), and they completed the soffit on
the east side of the house. Next work is finishing the soffit on the
west side, finishing the blocking, and building the window/door bucks
(for the windows and door that will be in the
bale walls). Roofing comes in next week.
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| Nailers for the dropped ceiling area in the kitchen. |
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| Shows the detail blocks in between each beam in great room. |
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| Finished soffit on east side. |
So, some of the discussion we are having with each other and Brian is how to finish the ceilings in the other rooms. Originally we wanted something besides drywall, but felt we couldn't afford it. So, we thought, OK, drywall and then we will use an earthen plaster over that. Now, we are like - crap, we really don't want to do that over head on a ceiling! (It will probably be cheaper to do something else and not have to pay a massage therapist to fix us!) So, we have asked Brian to see how much extra it would cost to just do tongue & groove in both bedrooms, and corrugated metal in the kitchen. We will still use drywall in the closets and the utility room ceilings, but we will paint them. We aren't sure what to use for the entry way ceiling yet, nor the bathroom.
It is coming along. It is all going more slowly than I had hoped. Who knew we'd have a jury duty issue and then a delivery issue even when the items were ready to go. We have had a lot of delays that have added up. We broke ground on June 17th and yet we are only on Day 34 of actual real work days. That's basically one month's working days out of 3 months time. I hope that gets better as we go. Certainly monsoon is a bit less of an issue now - it's pouring out there right now, but Brian is hard at work inside under shelter. We had several days really shortened due to monsoon rains coming in and running them off.
