DAY 334: Jones Paint and Glass Installs Windows

Jones Paint and Glass snuck into our house and installed the transoms and sidelight windows in our kitchen doors.  It was a happy surprise!

What are you doing for Labor Day?  We will be laboring (surprise, surprise) at Our Concrete Home.  We have a lot of prep work before the sheet rock.  We'll be there Saturday and Monday if you want a tour while you can still see all the styrofoam.  Sheetrock starts Tuesday!!! 

DAY 332: We Passed! We Passed! We Passed!

We had  18 correction items after our four-way inspection.  If you hit 25, you are deemed not prepared and have to reschedule the inspection.  18.  Ugh.  But thanks to Brent and his never-stop-working ethic he got us through the four-way.  We officially passed the four way inspection this morning!!!!  So GOOD BYE correction notice and HELLO sheet rock!!!!

DAY 328: Mammoth Kitchen Door

We installed the mammoth kitchen door.  I couldn't take action photos since it took all 5 of us to get it in place.  Huge shout-out to Robert and Sandra for quickly coming to the rescue!  It was fun to show you around and we appreciated your muscles! Jones Paint and Glass will be coming soon to put in the side light and transom glass.  I couldn't believe how heavy it was....but we did it!

Here's a new progress shot.  We're getting closer to the time that we can cover it all up with siding and soon you won't even be able to tell that there was ever any styrofoam!

 Enjoyed a beautiful sunset tonight from our front porch.  They were cutting alfalfa in the field.  Quite picturesque! 

DAY 323: Photos for Engineer

Truss hold downs:

The biggest slice is in the northwest corner.  It goes almost all the way through the first 2x4:

Back deck photos:

Front porch photos:

 Garage beam:

DAY 321: The Doors and Saturday Work Day

It's Saturday work day at our house and all the kids helped...

There was window goop removal...

There was foam cutting...

 There was gap filling...

 There was sweeping (or better, posing for pictures)...

 There was real sweeping...

 There was cable repair (he did a lot of electrical touch-ups too)...

 There was weed whacking and an unhappy girlie when her sunflower was mistaken for a weed...

 There was filling the trailer with trash...

There was talk about dirty legs and dirty clothes (we are never clean when working!)...

We even hung a few doors!  Last week Brent and one of the framers got in two basement doors...

 Nailing in the side porch door.  There will be a very cute dentil shelf on the side and front doors...

Our cute side door.  Just needs the dentil shelf! 

 

There was lots of prep work for the front door.  This one took a couple of hours.  First (and often throughout the project) there was concrete grinding...

There was placing in 2x4s to fill in the spaces since the door and the opening don't match.  The door with the sidelight didn't come in the size we needed...

 Front door before being put into place....

 We lifted that door in place a gazillion and twenty times.  On one of the last attempts I joked that the 27th time was a charm.  Brent and Cole didn't think I was funny.

Door in place...Big Whew....

 

This is the beastly kitchen door.  They didn't even install the top and side windows since the door was already so heavy. We will try to install it hopefully next Saturday.  Anyone large in stature with muscles want to help?  It will be fun dangling from the deck as we try to install it.  Come on...it will be fun?

DAY 320: Shingle Time!

 We're getting shingles even as I type!  Yippie! 

 We've had a couple of projects that others have worked on for us this week.  Cement, that was a big one, and the shingles.  I love those projects (like when we installed the windows) because they are relatively quick compared to everything else we're doing and they have such a huge visual impact.  It makes me feel like we are making progress.

These are the steps on the side of the house.  This is the family entrance from the garage.  I love that we will have such a cute side of the house. 

Here is a shot of the driveway that was poured on Saturday along with the walkway to our front porch.  We still need to figure out the pathway leading to the back.  That's why the stairs pictured above don't have a sidewalk.  

We had our Four-Way inspection yesterday.  2 1/2 hours.  It was lllllloooooonnnnnnngggggg.  Every wall, every truss, every hold down, every wire, every pipe, every duct, every everything.  The last time we tried, we weren't ready (See 19 July 2012).  If we had more than 25 items to correct it would mean that we weren't ready again and we would be assessed a fee for an additional inspection.  So......18 items!!!! It feels do-able to me and I pretty much understand at least half of the things that need to be remedied.  I was happy for Brent because the electrical had only MINOR, very minor, corrections.  He did a great job with the electrical and could answer ALL of the inspectors questions.

Luckily the framers were there for the inspection and were great about doing fixes on the spot so they wouldn't go on the corrections list.  One of the more obvious mistakes was a window in the garage.  It was in the wrong place which meant that our straps couldn't be secured.  Window in the wrong place also meant that the sheer wall which was engineered a specific way wouldn't work.  I was convinced by another framer that the window would be too hard to move (I had noticed the mistake when the garage was framed) and that it would be fine where it is.  So, the framer that was there yesterday just rolled his eyes with my story and said "It's NOT a big deal to move it and correct it".  He was great to work with.  

I think the biggest issue was with the trusses.  Pretty sure that they were manufactured too long.  Too long for he house on both ends.  The bearing points completely miss the walls.  It's not a framing mistake.   So, the truss company will need their engineer to do a fix for us.  Ugh, more time. 

Brent and I had different reactions to the four way inspections.  I felt relieved that there were only 18 (now down to 16) and he said last night that he felt like he just had a root canal.  It still all feels like progress to me!  Now to hang some more doors tomorrow, hopefully!