Porch Roof Framed

The porch, sunroom, entryway and mechanical roofs were trussed and framed yesterday. This really gives a sense of the final shape of the house. It looks a lot more balanced now with the wraparound porch defined visually. I just love it.

Here's the view from below, standing in front of the sunroom door.
Cary checks out the potential for roof access via the bedroom dormer.
Here's the view from the SW. That little flange of roof above the first floor on the south wall is designed to allow the midday sun to shine into the windows in the winter, but to shade them in the summer when the sun is at a higher angle. Same with the eaves cutting across the gable face above the bedroom window. If I (ok, it was mostly Gabe) did the math right, those eves will provide a us with passive solar heating when we need it, but keep us cool when we don't. The trees should take care of shading the western windows, the sun goes behind them at about 6:30 pm this time of year.
Today the plan is for the framers to finish up! That means installing the windows and sheeting all the lower storey roofs that were just framed, as well as some odds and ends like the north gable. If they pull all that off today, then tomorrow the roofers are supposed to start. I'm not sure how long that will take, but I bet it'll go pretty fast. Also next week the siding starts going up. The exterior is on track to be finished by the end of August - it's crazy how fast this part goes. I understand things slow down a bit when we get into the interior - there's a lot of "guts" that go into a house. :)

Roof Sheets and Cornice Returns

The whole main roof was sheeted yesterday, and they started building the cornice returns. It's getting better all the time. This shot is from the SW:
This is from the north - see the fancy window:
Here's a couple of shots from the inside. You can see the soffit vents and the shaping of the southern gable eves in this shot.

This is shot from inside the bathroom, looking towards the middle of the roof where the two directions of the roof come together. Um...yeah. I bet there's a word for that, but my house vocabulary is maddeningly limited sometimes.


Now that the roof is sheeted, we need to pick out the wood heater because that will determine the size of the stove pipe. I also have to find out the dimensions of the stove pipe for my wood cook stove*. Both the stoves will go into the same chimney, which will come up through the roof right there in the middle where the two directions come together. I'm really going to have to find out what the word is for that!

*more on that later, no time today!

Mexican Sink

As I was preparing to leave work to go to the plumbing store, I realized I hadn't posted a picture of the cool Mexican sink that Mom & Dad gave me for my birthday last year. It's going in the upstairs bathroom. So here it is:

The other major fixture that I already have is my great-great-grandpa's clawfoot bathtub. I don't have a picture of it (it's still sitting in the bushes behind the barn) but it's a standard 5-footer, white enamel on the inside and greyish-black on the out/underside. It'll be going in the downstairs bathroom. Aparently it's going to be quite a challenge to find faucet hardware that will fit, because the holes are 3.5" apart on center, and the standard is 3 3/8".

The story of how my great-great-grandpa's tub ended up behind my parent's barn is a pretty good one. When I was a little kid, my dad's cousin Joyce bought a fixer-upper in East Wenatchee. When Grandma Mary went to see the new place, she immediately recognized the house as having been HER grandpa's house, where she (my grandma) was actually BORN! She had also spent her summers when she was a girl, so she knew it well. All the original fixtures were there, although the house was in need of serious remodelling & repair. They took everything out, and I guess they decided not to put the tub back in when they were done.

So my dad took it home, and used it to water the cows and occasionally to hold beer & ice at outdoor parties (for instance, at my brother's wedding). The feet were taken off for safekeeping. It's in great shape, considering. Just a couple little nicks in the enamel, which we'll repair. I didn't know its history until we were about halfway through the house design process, when Dad offered the tub to me. Of course we immediately made room for it in the new house. It's great that even though I'm building a couple hundred miles from the old family homestead(s), I can bring some family history with me.

Cabinet Update

I just finalized the cabinet order with Robin. Turns out that the plastic laminate cabinets we were considering putting in the laundry room - because we thought they'd be cheaper than maple - cost the same amount. Hmmm, so wood vs. plastic - that's an easy choice! Back to the wood, and back to being $200 over budget. Or are we... ?

The good news is that we hadn't taken into acount that we were underbudget on knobs and handles! So when everything is totalled up, cabinets PLUS knobs is only about $100 over the total budget for both. And that can come out of the extra left in the lighting budget, with some more left over. So, we get all the cabinets we wanted*, even the cool black finish on the island, and we're still within the total budget. Yay!

*Well, everything except the wine rack. They don't make them small enough for the little space we wanted to tuck it in. But I think we can handle keeping the wine in the pantry. :)

Roof Trussed

The roof trusses on the second floor are all in place! The porch, sunroom and mechanical room trusses haven't been put up yet, so the house looks extra tall and kind of skinny. The visual proportions of the final house will really show once those are done.
The gables have been sheeted on the east and west ends of the house. I expect they'll do some more sheeting today as well.

Here's the interior of one of the bedroom gables, you can see the trussing and framing that goes into each one.

Also, you can see the outline of the fancy window in the north/front bedroom now that they've framed and sheeted the space for it.

L-R: Cary, his brother Eric, Eric's partner Miriam, and Brian Bird, potter, tenant & friend. Eric and Miriam just returned (literally, they flew in yesterday morning) to the US after several years of teaching english in Japan. It was great to see them!

This afternoon I have an appointment to meet Robin at the plumbing supply store. I'm looking forward to picking out sinks, faucets and other fixtures. :)

Friday Framing Fantastic

The roof trusses were delivered and raised onto the top of the second floor walls. They haven't been positioned yet, but just having the bundles of trusses sitting on top of the house is pretty impressive.

The interior walls of the second floor have all been framed now. There's a lot of bracing in place, which is necessary until the trusses have been positioned and nailed into place.

Clockwise from bottom: Bo, Marty and Cary had fun climbing around in the rafters like a bunch of monkeys.

Here's the view from the SW corner of the house, you can get a sense of how big it will look once the roof is all framed. Don't worry if you can't make sense of the roofline, I'll have better pictures tomorrow - because they're placing the trusses and hopefully sheeting the roof today!

Upstairs & Stairs Framed

First the Stairs:
I got a little carried away with pictures from the outside last night. I'm just really excited (I bet you couldn't tell), it's like Christmas every day when I go see what they've finished. And, just for a little extra fun, I've labeled the rooms on these shots so the folks at home can see it taking shape like I do. :)
As you can see if you look closely at these photos, only the exterior walls were framed on the second floor. I expect that they'll finish the interior wall framing today, and also start framing up the porch roof. After that, I think we're just waiting for the trusses to arrive and the roof will go on. Wow.

Meanwhile, I got the quote back for the cabinets, and if we take our whole wish list of options and upgrades we'll be about $200 over budget. So now we have to decide if it's worth going a teensy bit over budget (dangerous thinking, I know) or if we should trim *something* from the order to bring it under budget. Which, it goes without saying, is a real conundrum. Cary and I will have to think it over through the weekend, if not longer. Functional stuff has priority, but it's also hard to put the extra-pretty finishing flourishes on the chopping block.