Dried In and Liking it

It has been nearly 3 weeks since my last update. Time really flies. So much progress has taken place and it is starting to truly look like a house. The roof decking was finished. All the radiant barrier siding was installed by the framers and we now have windows! Also the roof was installed in between 8 inches of rain over two days. And we started and are nearly finished with the rough in plumbing, HVAC, and next week we have the electrician scheduled for the high and low voltage wiring. Here are pictures from the last few weeks. We are working toward the major inspection before the insulation and then the dry wall.

This first shot is just as the roofers started work. Notice the heavy clouds in the distance. We had just about 4 hours before the storm hit.

Here is another of the 40 windows for the house just after delivery. The install had to wait a couple days before the rain stopped. This picture was after the rain storm and there was water on all the floors including the up stairs. I had to spend one evening using a leaf blower to blow all the water off the 2nd floor wood flooring. It had at least an inch of standing water. This was important because unlike the OSB decking, regular plywood can warp and buckle when exposed to standing water.
Here the sticker shows the Low "e" energy ratings for the windows.

With the sunny weather, the roofers made a good amount of progress and finished the felt and roofing. These are the main windows in the family room. The arch to the left leads to the dining room.

In the dining room we went a little above budget and chose casement windows which have a crank to open up from the side.

Another small task here....my bride did a great job coordinating with the fireplace company while I was away traveling. You can now see what the fire place is starting to look like. We are thinking we will go with stone all the way to the ceiling.

From the plumbing rough in, this is the main manifold which directs individual water lines to each of the faucets through out the house.

We still have a long ways to go on the kitchen...

Here in the 2nd floor game room, the HVAC vents are now ready to go.
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I will snap more pictures of the plumbing and HVAC work. We are very excited about the electrical sub coming next week. The contractor spent 4 hours with us one day last week to went over every single plug and outlet in the entire house. Talk about great customer service. We were very happy with the help in planning the electrical.

Okay..gotta run for some fresh empanadas. Yummy...

Roof Decking, Windows, and a Surprise in the night

While checking out a fellow builder's site, my wife and I came across this fine specimen of copperhead. Notice the raised head ready to strike. These guys have been more active recently with the rain. The word is also that skunks too have been seen around the hood...

Here we have a barrel ceiling that will be in the dining room. The plan is to dry wall the barrel and use some nice flaked paint for contrast.This is a familiar shot of the garage. Here the cornice is installed and the tech shield siding is now installed on the exterior walls.


Here we have the front elevation with the two dormers. We are working with the framers on adjusting the curved eve for it to achieve the look my wife and I are looking for.

Here the roofers are beginning the 30 pound felt on the backside of the house.

Here is a nice picture of the backside of the house with decking, a good view of the chimney, and more felt going up.
Here is the first shot of our barkwood (read brown!) roofing. It is a shade that is in between darker and lighter brown. We are going to play with the brick mortar and stone to see what combination looks best.
One big part of today was delivery of the windows - 40 in all. Because of delivery late in the day, we had to store them just for this one night before installation in the morning. These windows are lowE 366 with a solar heat gain coefficient of .24 and U factor of .27. This translates into a very efficient window which will significantly reduce the level of heat from the windows. Oh, we have have argon too. The big one in the middle a 4060 fixed picture window. We have three of these to go across the family room.

Tomorrow the HVAC guy arrives to start his rough in while the plumber started today. The roofing is delayed some while we wait out a low pressure system which is predicted to dump more much needed rain tomorrow. This have been a very exciting day as many plans are really starting to come together and take shape. Next: Windows installed!