Author: Joel (Page 9 of 18)

A quick trip to the site today. The garage foundation was surveyed yesterday as you can see in this picture. This is in preparation for foundation work for the garage. Nobody was working on the house today as the temperature went over 100° F. Yesterday, however, they fixed the upstairs bathroom walls (I checked).

Our new neighborhood, Conantum, holds a fall harvest festival every year and last year Daphne and I attended to have our first chance to meet a lot of people from the neighborhood. One person we met, Carl, had built a new house further down the road a number a years ago and had some advice for us. He told us to visit the site every day so that we could catch any mistakes early, while they were still easy to fix.

Well, this is a challenge for two reasons. First, I do not have access to a car more than two weekdays, so I can not visit every day. And second, Daphne can’t really visit at all except on weekends and I would not be able to spot a mistake, while she would see something wrong right away.

Well, Daphne visited the site this Saturday morning and did a walk through and noticed that the upstairs bathroom walls (which were just put in a few days ago), reflects an out of date design. Remember all those “days since we moved a wall” updates. Well, the upstairs bathroom was where we moved the last wall.

The problem is likely that not all the plans on site that the construction crew are using are up to date. The architect says that she will fix this next week. Meanwhile, the upstairs bathroom walls need to be removed and put in the correct places (they are not load bearing). Below are the old bathroom design (left), which is what they framed, and the new bathroom design (right), which is what we want.

---

Meanwhile, we went to the site this Saturday to pull more invasive plants and to go kayaking on the river before it got too hot. To fit all this in, we arrived at 7am, worked a little and then took a breakfast break on the second floor.

We ended up working for a few hours before we called it quits and brought out the kayaks. Here is the pile of oriental bittersweet and buckthorn that we removed just this outing.

---

Instead of the usual picture of the outside of the house, here is a picture of the foundation from the old garage.

If you look closely, you will not see any foundation because it was removed on Thursday. This weeks construction video is very short since most of the week they were working inside (and I have not moved the camera inside yet). But if you watch to the far right in the video you will see them remove the old garage foundation.

All of my house pictures this week are interior shots. The outside has not changed much at all.

This is the first floor. I am standing in corner in the pantry facing the dining room (left) and living room which is past the opening in the wall and left of the stairs.

This is the first floor from the corner in the master bedroom. You can see the game room on the right (the big window openings). The ladders are all in the walk-in closet (isn’t that where everyone stores their ladders?)

This is the second floor. I am standing at the top of the stairs looking into the family room, or today only, the breakfast nook.

And here I am standing in the middle of the family room looking back towards the stairs and the front bedroom.

Finally, here is the second floor again. I am standing in the corner of the back bedroom looking towards the bathroom (whose walls are wrong).

And finally (really this time), here is the waterfront taken from ground level. We have to walk across that mid flat to find deep enough water to launch the boats.

Here is the weekly view of the river. The water is dropping. The mud is not turning green yet.

Here are two progress pictures. The first is from the Southeast corner showing the game room. This is the part of the house that still need the most work on sheathing.

Here is the Northeast corner showing the dining room and kitchen. You can see that on this side of the house, the sheathing is almost done.

The builder is on vacation this week but the subcontractors are still busy working away at finishing the framing. Lots of activity in the house, which you will probably not see on the construction camera. I will move the construction camera inside in a few weeks, but first we will watch the garage foundation work starting next week.

The architect met with the roofing contractor to work out the final details. Should be no issues. I also got to look at the bathroom and kitchen faucets we selected. While they look good, I am worried that the faucets have too much plastic internally and they will break after a few years. Not sure any other brands are any better. They do not make things the way they used to.

Here is a link to the kitchen faucet. And here is a picture showing the plastic internal parts that I know will break.

Another Sunday, and another morning spent removing invasive plants. We worked for a little over two hours, before heading home to prepare for a friend’s brunch.

Here are two pictures of the current river front. The first is from ground level, and the second is from the second floor window, where we will have our best view. They moved the shovel, which helps this picture but blocked the construction camera on Friday. The river level is down a lot from a month ago, but plants have not colonized the newly exposed mud yet.

There is a large shovel blocking my usually place to take progress pictures, so I have two other angles. First is the front of the house. You can see that the wall panels are all in place and the roof sheathing has been added.

This is a view from the Northeast corner. You can see that there is still a lot of work to be done on the second floor walls and roof.

Here is the interior of the first floor. I am standing in the corner that will be the front hall closet. The master bedroom wing is behind me. You can see that there are now stairs going up to the second floor, so we can give tours :-).

Here is a view of the second floor. I am standing in the Southeast corner of the family room next to the windows with the best view, looking back towards where there will be two guest rooms and a full bathroom.

Our builder is on vacation next week, but the workers should still be on site finishing up the framing and sheathing. We have an on site meeting with the roofer on Wednesday. On June 23rd, they will remove the old garage foundation (I will reposition the construction camera for that).

Here is this week’s construction video. I did not include Wednesday since that day, all the work was on the other side of the house, so there was nothing to see. This weekend, I moved the construction camera back to the original tree on the river side since that’s where I expect to see work being done next week.

This week’s Wednesday meeting will be on Thursday. But I made a quick trip out to snap some progress pictures.

They still have not cut out the window openings for the bedroom and closet. I am not sure why. But the roof is starting to come together and they have started to put in the roof sheathing (the panels that are under the shingles).

The builder says that in a few weeks they will start work on the garage. First moving the trailer (and rewiring its power). Then tearing up the old foundation and then putting in a new foundation. Probably pouring the new foundation near the beginning of July.

Air quality is bad this weekend so no invasive pulling and no kayaking. I did, however, visit the site to take some pictures and fetch the construction camera video.

Here is the current state of the house from the usual locations. (Sorry about the glare from the early morning sun.) All of the first floor exterior walls are up (but not all covered with green panels), and most of the exterior walls from the second floor are now in place.

And here is an interior picture of the second floor. I was standing in what will be the closet of the front bedroom. The large window opening is at the river side of the family room. The smaller openings in the far corner are from the back (and nicer) guest bedroom.

And here is a view of the house from the river side.

---

The water level in the river has fallen by quite a bit, exposing swaths of mud that will soon be overgrown with greenery.

Finally, I have two and a half days of construction video showing the work on the second floor, but also the installation of the water pipe, which goes from the road into the basement.

Another Wednesday meeting. Nothing significant to report other than the fact that I had another SD Card failure so no video for Monday – Wednesday.

Here is the current house framing from the front corner.

Here is the current house framing from the back corner. You can see the outline of the porch staked out on the ground and the base of the pilings that will hold up the porch. Architect and builder for scale.

In the following picture, I am standing in what will eventually be the front hall closet, facing Northeast. The post is the center of the west wall of the living room. The break in the beams is where the stairs up to the second floor will go. The interior wall you see is the North side of hallway from the front hall into the living area – the opening is for a pocket door into the pantry.

And in the following picture, I am standing in the Southeast corner of the game room. You can see the master bedroom (far end, on the left side) and the walls of the foyer in the master bedroom suite. The living room is through the door opening on the right.

And here is the first floor floor plan again, showing which walls are in place (the red dot is that post in the center of the floor).

The builder is estimating 6 weeks until the house is water tight. Once the house is framed, we get the structural engineer to inspect things and issue a certificate that basically says he, in his professional opinion, does not think the house will fall down.

They are getting ready to run the water from the roads into the utility room in the basement. This will mean a trench through the driveway and the front yard. And we are still waiting for the town to run internet into the construction trailer (which will not be buried until later).

Its 10 weeks until the siding shows up so it will be a while before the house is sided. Soon they will put in the base for the outside deck although the final deck surface will not be in place until next year to avoid having it get damaged. Also soon, they will pour the foundation for the new garage (exactly where the old garage is). The construction trailer will be moved into the driveway. I do not know the exact dates for those activities, but watch this space.

Our next design deadline is 8 weeks at which point we need to know everywhere we will have lights, plugs, light switches, Ethernet ports, etc. We are getting close, mostly bottle-necked on light selection. We also have not selected which media company we will be using but it is down to two.

Days since we moved a wall: 28.

As a final treat, here is a 3D rendering of the game room. The architect actually made three of these so we can see the look with different types of wood. Ignore the view out of the windows which will be trees on the side and the porch through the glass doors with a river view. All those shelves will be filled with puzzles and games (and one laser printer).

We spent 2 1/2 hours this Sunday continuing our never ending work in removing invasive plants. This week we pulled out a bunch of buckthorn among other things, but we are stymied by the fact that some of the buckthorn that should be removed is actually in the wetlands, or in one case, it holds the wetland boundary flag, which we are not allowed to touch. We will need to go back to the Natural Resource Commission to get a permit to remove those.

Here is a picture of the waterfront, with Daphne for scale. The water is down some but still high.

Meanwhile, there has been slow progress on the framing of the house. At this point almost all of the exterior walls on the first floor are in place, although the undersiding is incomplete in areas. I have two pictures this week, from opposite corners.

Here is the usual corner view.

And here is the opposite corner. The game room is in the foreground (the porch has not been added yet). There is no second floor over the game room or the master bedroom, and you can start to see the interesting roof line on that side of the house.

No construction video this week. There was a memory card error. I will use a different memory card in the future.

This is a short week with a Monday holiday and a rain day on Thursday. The crew is working on the framing and they will be working on the framing for many weeks to come. Here is a picture of them getting ready to put in a support post. In this picture, taken from the Southeast corner, you can see the wall between the game room (which has no outside walls yet), and the living room. You can also see the second floor’s floor over the living room.

The architect and builder met with the siding people today and everything went smoothly, although it will be around 10 weeks until we can get the siding on site.

Meanwhile I struggle with TV selection. I need a 4K 65″ TV where the WiFi and Bluetooth can be disabled and the remote can be IR. I am having trouble finding one, but the search continues.

Soon the town will run water from the street into the house. The meter will be on the garage, when the garage is built, and the pipes will run in front of the garage, in front of the house and enter the basement well under the pantry window.

We decide to use the scrap bluestone from the old house as the steps down to the basement door, which will be easier on the feet than gravel. We also talked about changing the proposed finish on the basement exterior walls to a stone veneer, although that still needs to be selected.

Days since we moved a wall: 21.