There has been a lot going on over at my in-laws place the past few months. For those of you who'd like a refresher on how we got to the point of building, check this post out http://cawagner.blogspot.com/2014/08/we-moved.html. For the rest of you, I thought I'd post some pictures of our process so far. Just to warn you - there's a lot of pictures!
We finally decided on a spot to put the house late last summer. Unfortunately, there were some large pine trees and a few other small trees in the way that needed to be cut down. On September 7th, Calvin and his dad cut down the large trees and piled them to be burned. Of course, he did this without informing me, so I don't have a before picture of the trees, only an after. But you can see the stumps and the pile of wood. This is just west of my in-laws' house in the front pasture.
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| You can make out my in-laws' house just past the trees on the left side of the picture. It's white. |
Before we could start digging, Calvin had to lay out exactly where the house was going to be so they could dig the appropriate size hole. On October 19th, he headed over there and started laying things out. The kids and I went over to help, which meant they played on the small dirt pile while I wandered around trying to be useful. There was a lot of measuring and re-measuring to make sure things were right. It was a long process, but he finally was happy with how things were marked.
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| New electric panel is installed and ready to be hooked up |
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It was getting dark by the time we were done.
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Once all of the batter boards were laid out, digging could begin. The company that was going to dig brought their high hoe out on October 20th.
October 21st brought excitement as they began digging the hole for the basement. It was so exciting to watch the process actually start and it became more of a reality. We stopped by both before and after school so the kids could watch them at work. By that afternoon the hole was dug and gravel was being hauled into it. The hole looked huge!
The next day (October 22nd) they finished putting all of the gravel in and another company came and began prepping the footers for the basement.
Concrete was poured for the footers on October 24th.
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| You can see how big the hole is by how much dirt was dug out! |
Once the concrete had set, the forms for the basement walls were delivered (October 27th). There was a ramp on the side of the basement that was left for them to be able to get the skid steer in and out of the hole.
Basement wall forms began going up on October 28th. Calvin has talked about this process so many times that I felt like I knew what was going on, but I had never actually seen it before. It was very interesting and not exactly what I had pictured.
By the next day (October 29th), all of the forms were up and they were ready to pour concrete.
They poured the walls on October 31st, which ended up being a horribly cold, windy day. It even snowed some that day it was so cold! The girls didn't have school because of parent/teacher conferences so we went over so we could watch the walls being poured. They had to use a pumper truck because the hole was dug a little too big. We had never seen a pumper truck in action before and it was pretty cool. The concrete trucks came and dumped into the pumper truck which then sent concrete through its boom to whichever part of the wall they were working on. It was so cold we didn't stay long, but the kids were glad to see how it worked.
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| Watching the pumper truck in action all bundled up |
The concrete had to cure and set over the weekend, but once it was set, they came back on November 3rd and stripped the forms, leaving tall basement walls. We ended up only putting four windows in the basement, one of which is a larger egress window. We didn't want many steps up to the house, so all of the windows will have window wells and are located on the side and back of the house.
By November 7th, the walls were tarred and the concrete floor was being poured. They weren't able to get a pumper truck again, so the concrete had to be dumped into a buggy which then took the concrete to the place it needed to go and dumped it there. The weather was much nicer and the kids and I went and watched as they did it.
After the floor was set, the porch and garage walls were formed and poured. Once the concrete set, Calvin and his construction company got to work. They worked weekends trying to get as much done as they possibly could. They had to build a few basement walls that would support the floor joists and the plumber came and did a few plumbing things in the basement. Once those walls were built, they were able to start laying floor joists and filled the porches and garage with gravel. The next time I came and took pictures was on November 21st.
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| Garage walls poured |
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| Floor joists on |
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| Basement supporting walls built |
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| Porches filled with rock |
The weather was pretty crappy for a few days, which meant the guys couldn't work outside on anything, so they began building walls in the shop. They were able to build about half of the main floor walls in the shop which meant once it came time to put them up, it went pretty quickly. The kids and I went out on November 29th to see them begin putting up walls. It was very exciting!
They finally finished the shed they were building for someone the beginning of November and could then focus on just getting our house framed and dried in. They worked for a month as weather permitted finishing walls and then began work on the roof. One of the things Calvin liked about this house was its seemingly easy roof line. Little did he know that it would be incredibly difficult and time consuming to put the rafters on. We stopped by on December 29th to check their progress and Coye had to try out his new work belt he got for Christmas.
January 2nd found them still working on the roof but making progress.
The weather did not cooperate and it snowed and was very cold the beginning of January - too cold to be outside working. I began to think they would never get it closed in. January 14th I stopped by to look at it and found snow inside.
We finally had a break in the weather and they worked like crazy to get the roof sheeted and papered. It made Calvin feel so much better to finally be at this point. This is where we were on January 24th.
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| Garage - looking into the house |
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| Standing in the garage looking out |
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| Standing in the kitchen looking at the mudroom/laundry room |
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| Breakfast nook |
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| Front door with the office on the left and the dining room on the right |
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| Looking at the hallway from the living room |
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| Closet off the living room and the stairwell |
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| Looking up to the second floor from the living room |
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| Ladders you had to climb to get up to the second floor |
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| Open balcony on the second floor |
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| Stairwell with no stairs |
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| Stairwell and Coye's room on the second floor |
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| Standing in my bedroom |
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| Looking down into the basement that had about 8" of water in it that then froze |
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| Second floor bathroom |
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| Aubrey's room |
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| Standing in Aubrey's room looking at Chloe's room |
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| The view out Coye's window - pretty sure he has the best view in the house |
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| Standing in Coye's room looking out into the hallway |
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| Upstairs hall looking out over the balcony down into the living room |
God blessed us with good weather the rest of the week, which enabled the guys to finish house wrapping the entire house and get the windows in. They were also able to build the steps to both the basement and the upstairs, which made it much easier and less scary to go upstairs. Calvin's friend Anthony even built us a temporary railing for the hall. January 31st the kids and I went to see the windows. They looked great!
