Lemasa's Blog

The house is starting to come together.  it is fully bricked now.  We just need to get the stone on and it should look complete from the outside.  They have started the interior drywall as of Wednesday 12/30/09.  I haven’t been up to see it, but Trent said the ceilings have been done first and are looking really good!  Here are a few pictures of the most recent progress.

Link listed under:  12/25/09 – Making Progress

The Brick is almost completely finished.  I am amazed how those guys work out there with how frigid it is outside…Brrr…Things are moving so quickly right now.  We have had a couple of setbacks with the plumbing (shower heads too high and in the wrong spot, hose bibs in the wrong spot etc.), but we are going back out to mark where we want them and should get them fixed quickly.  They have also completed the electric work on the house.  It only took a couple of days and they were done!  We also got our 2 big 8 foot doors in.  They were delivered to Bob and Kathy’s because I have to stain them.  They looked beautiful.  They driver only had himself and the box with my and Amanda’s doors in it weighed 1000lbs!  We ended up having to break down the crate and taking each separate piece of each door out of the box and carried it up the driveway and to the basement!  It was a big ordeal and very inconvenient.  Later that evening as I was preparing to stain the door, Trent came in and with his eye for detail noticed that the door was hinged the wrong way!!!  We had to call the door company and they are shipping us a new one right away….It is always something!!!  Trent is beginning to wire for an alarm system today, so as soon as that is complete, they will start drywalling on Monday!  We’ll actually have walls soon!  I would guess they will be doing the stone on the exterior of the house soon too, once the bricking is finished.  Things are moving very quickly all of a sudden.  It feels as if everything is happening at once now.  We are coordinating, hardwood floors, cabinetry, tile, doors, etc….I’m sure it will only get more chaotic before it gets less! LOL  Just have to keep our eyes on the prize!

New pictures under “Roofing, Electric and Brick – Oh My!”

We have a stamped concrete porch now.  I am loving it.  It is the only finished product so far I’ve been able to see.  I am so happy with the results and how it turned out.  I was a little scared since it is colored and all, but I’m glad we made the selection we did and listened to the artistic opinion of the stamper!  I think it will all tie in together nicely once we get the walkway finished and the brick and stone is up on the house.  They started bricking the right side of the house today and we meet with the electrician on Monday morning to go over our electric plan.  They should begin drywall shortly after the electric work is complete.  We have chosen someone to do the stone on the interior fireplace, now I just need to select the stone to use!  So many decisions, so little time!!!  I will be breathing a big sigh of relief once this is all finished.  It is moving so quickly right now.  I feel like we are on a roller coaster going 90 miles and hour!!! WOO HOO!

Update pictures of the stamped porch are under: 12/3/09

We have a lot going on right now.  They are getting ready to pour the front porch tomorrow morning and then stamp the concrete.  We have so many selections to make on tile, hardwood, granite, etc.  Hopefully they will be bricking soon because our decking is in and needs to be delivered.  The exterior doors are still waiting to be installed too.  The HVAC guy was supposed to move our main trunk line closer to the I-beam in the basement and he actually moved it further away!  Hopefully Pat (the foreman) can get out there in a day or so to get this corrected.  Here are some new pictures of the house. It is completely shingled now and we have some full shots of it now

Link under “Interior Framing and Misc.”

The interior walls are up now!  They also have all the windows installed.  The roof is complete, they just have to put the shingles on and we’ll be completely under roof!  Things are starting to really take shape now!  We can see where all the rooms, closets, walls, doorways, etc are now.  I haven’t been out to see it all yet, but Trent took some pictures.  I’ll be updating the photos in the next few days so be on the look out for them.  The exterior doors have also been delivered, but not sure when they will be installed.  Loving this progress!

Pictures link under:  Interior Framing and Shingles

The roof has begun.  We have trusses up.  The garage roof isn’t finished quite yet, but they are moving quickly.  The house is taking shape now and we are able to get a real feel for what the outside is looking like!  Now we just need to use our imagination and picture the brick, windows, trim, shingles etc!  Hopefully it won’t be long.  We are so excited.  They have also dug the trench for the electric as well as the cable – so we should be up and running in no time! 

Pictures are located under link:  The Roof Begins

I was told the framer is coming back today to finish up.  We have doors ready to be delivered and all our appliances are being delivered to our house today.  They’ll be stored in the garage until we’re ready to move them to the new house.  Sears can’t hold them any longer in their ware house.  So, I might be parking outside for a while if everything doesn’t fit in there.  I guess next order of business is the concrete slab on the garage and front porch which we were told would be this week.  Doesn’t look like that is on track, but we haven’t been up there to check it out yet either so we don’t really know.  I am also waiting on a guy to come take some fire wood from the left over tree tops we have.  Hoping he comes out soon to helps us get rid of it.  The poor tree graveyard looks so sad with all those stumps and root balls all over the place!!!

They began framing this week.  The subfloor is down everywhere except for the garage because that is a concrete suspended slab.  They have also begun framing out the exterior walls of the house.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I am going out there tonight to take pictures.  I can’t wait to see the house start to take shape above ground level!  Our bridge plans were denied this week too   Now we have to resubmit them with a larger bridge detail so as not to increas the 100 year flood levels upstream of us.  All the other bridges on this creek are lower, more rickety, not as stable, older etc, however, they’ve all been grandfathered in so they don’t have to accomodate the same rules that we do!  That stinks…But at least we know we CAN have a bridge and won’t have to drive through the creek the rest of our time residing there!  Hopefully we can get that under wraps sooner than later.  What a LONG process!!! 

Link to pictures is under “Framing Begins”

They put in the concrete basement floor this week.  I was so excited about it because I could finally keep the kids out of the dusty rocks.  No more throwing rocks, no more sticking rocks into pipes, no more rolling in rocks.  Yay!  Well, now that the rocks are gone, they have just resorted to playing in the dust and dirt on the floor.  I can never win!!!  We also got someone to come up and take the trees from the property.  Now we just need to figure out if the grass is going to grow back or not.  Next order of business is going to be framing.  They have told us this will be starting next week!  Wow – I can’t wait to see the walls go up! 

Pictures under link “Concrete Floor”

I went up to the property today to hang some “No Trespassing” signs.  We’ve found out recently that we’ve had a few folks coming up there to check out the construction who we don’t even know.  So, to protect ourselves from any liabilities, I hung one at the tree by the road and one at the top of the hill near the home sites.  Just a little fearful that someone might go up there out of their own curiousity and possibly get injured.  If we don’t have those signs posted, we could be liable.  While I was up there, I noticed our entire yard was dug up and they were installing the leech lines!  Finally, a little progress.  We are currently waiting on our builder’s concrete guy who is working some other jobs.  Hoping he’ll get to us soon!!!  The trees are still there, but our tree man is supposed to come get them any day now!  Let’s hope soon.