Build - Day 16 - July 27, 2011

Today the crew will frame the non-ICF walls on the main level, mainly the garage walls and the front and back porches. They also wrapped the garage and got most of the basement stairs done. Tomorrow the main level ICF blocks will be back-filled with concrete.

Progress at 9am - start framing the garage and front porch

Progress at 1pm - garage framing almost done

End of the day pictures start here... The wrapped garage

Right side of the house

Framed back porch

Mostly framed front porch

Inside of the garage

This shows the window frame against the ICF wall

Basement stairs done, short of the landing

Toddler Boy Room

Now that we seem to be getting a handle on the kitchen, my attention has finally shifted to the other rooms of our new house. I've been starting to browse Houzz.com and other sites for ideas for our 2.5 year old's room. 

One really cool idea I want to talk to our builder about is making an "indoor tree house" in the nook in his room. It's just about the same size as the nook in this picture:

 

Another really cool idea, is this wall of bookshelves made of...rain gutters. Our son LOVES to read, and it's always fun for young kids to see books face out. I'm giddy thinking how much he would love this. You can find directions for making your own here. 

Here's another idea for books...and toys and other fun things.

Our son's namesake has two boys. When they were little, they had something like this in the corner of their room. It was great for reading, playing and night time prayers:

Z & N didn't have curtains or pink in their room!

We have a custom decal in D's room with his name and "sweet dreams" and  "slaap lekker" (Dutch, roughly translated as "sleep nicely"). I'd really like to do the decal thing again. Maybe something like this:

or this, which I found on etsy, and totally fits his love of all things transportation.

Another idea I've seen is a modern, dust-free version of the chalkboard: the dry erase board. A simple, customizable version (that I might use for the mudroom) is looks like this:

I could see using plane/train/automobile scrapbook paper in the frame.  Or in the kitchen, this size would make a great menu board.

Leave it to Ikea to have what I'm looking for!

A friend took bath pictures of her child for their family bath. I'm totally borrowing this idea for my son's bathroom.

Speaking of the bathroom, this one of Niels' first good ideas for the new house.

Build - Day 15 - July 26, 2011

Start of the third week of construction. As mentioned yesterday, the basement work - including the main level sub floor - is done, the lot is graded so no more moat and the main level ICF stacking has started.

Today, having the window casings ready we hoped to see some higher walls as a result. See for yourselves what the actual result was...

At 9:30am the main level walls are almost up. Nice progress, again...

Lunch-time progress. One more course and the main level ICFs are stacked.

Delivering lumber for the interior walls and I-joists for the 2nd floor.

Front of the house - main level ICF stacking complete

Back of the house - main level ICF stacking complete. Gorgeous sky...

Great room - ICF will go up to 14' high here. Just see the framing for the higher windows.

On the photo set page we've been grouping the pictures by week. I've added the 3rd week set and any pictures from today until next Monday will appear in that folder around 10pm each day.

Build - Day 14 - July 25, 2011

Today the basement walls were back-filled, the window casings for the main level constructed and in the afternoon the crew leveled out the lot. Tomorrow they will continue stacking the main level ICF blocks.

Very interesting to now be able to see the graded lot. It instantly shows the grade of the driveway which is a lot more level than I first thought. In the back it also starts to show what the height of the back porch will be.

One other thing we got to do today was to walk around in the fully closed-in basement and on the sub floor for the main level. It really starts to become more-and-more of a reality now. A couple of years of planning is all coming to fruition in literally only a couple of days. It sure makes the drive home interesting to see what they did that day.

Back-fill in progress. No one allowed on the lot due to safety reasons. Love telephoto lenses...

Action shot of the 'digger' as D likes to call 'm.

Graded garage.

Graded backyard.

Supplies on the main level sub floor for stacking more ICF blocks in the morning.

Window casings for the main and second floor. 

Good view of the graded front yard with the driveway shape. 

Build - Day 12/13 - July 23/24, 2011

The second weekend of the build. This week a lot was done in weather that most resembles the Gulf coast in mid-July rather than North-East Ohio. Despite RealFeel levels in the triple-digits, our Amish building crew has been able to make remarkable progress. Even a freak storm dumping 7 inches of rain in 3 hours didn't seem to faze them. A moat a foot-and-a-half deep (we have no drainage and/or backfilling yet so everything collected in the hole) was completely drained in the same amount of time it fell.

You might wonder about the off-the-grid lifestyle of the Amish - we actually do agree with it - but there is no denying their immense work ethic. They are on the job every day at 6am and every day when I get back from work they did more than we thought was possible. This build keeps going at an amazing speed.

Here's a little thought; if they continue the pace of the basement we'll be under roof in about 4 weeks. I know that the outside goes fast, I just didn't think it was sponsored by Team Penske (those who know us get the little inside joke here...).

To recap, last weekend the foundation was dug, footers were poured, and the crew had just started stacking the basement forms. In the last 5 days, they:

• stacked the rest of basement forms
• braced the basement wall
• drained the basement
• reset the forms on the footers and re-straightened the walls
• poured the concrete into the ICF forms
• laid the concrete blocks for the garage, front porch and back porch
• installed the steel i-beams, supports for the i-joists, and the i-joists for the main level
• laid the sub floor
• installed the moisture barrier wrap
• passed the basement inspection
• started laying the blocks for the main level.

Amazing. Anyway, the crew is enjoying a well deserved weekend's rest. We're off to a wedding and will be back taking pictures first thing Monday-morning.

Build - Day 11 - July 22, 2011

Temperature remains in the 90s. Humidity levels aren't far behind. Afternoon thunderstorms are the norm. Welcome to building a house in North East Ohio in July. Yet, the build keeps progressing at a break-neck pace. Today the main level sub floor (Advantech) was laid, the water proofing was added, the basement inspection passed (yay!) and the guys starting stacking the first couple rows of the main level ICF walls.

In the afternoon we had a meeting with our builder to the select our windows and doors. This was either perfect timing or simply well-planned because our castle/moat becomes a house on Monday morning when   the basement walls are back filled. Also on deck for Monday: the work crew will be assembling the wood casings for the main level windows so they can stack the ICF blocks around it and thenvmaybe late Tuesday or early Wednesday, they'll pour the main level exterior walls.

But first: have a great and restful weekend, guys! C U Monday.

As always, more pictures on the 'Photo Set' page but here is a sampling of today's progress.

Laying the Advantech sub floor

Basement water proofing, back filling on Tuesday

Amish-built... Immense respect for their work in this heat 

Starting to rise up like a phoenix from the flame (sure feels hot enough!)

View of the front porch, office window and front door

Back-porch with floor supports and slider-cut-outs

Only 9 building days and this is the progress 

Windows and Doors

Today we met with our builder to discuss the doors and windows. We pretty much knew what we wanted to get but still ended up with a number of changes by the time our 90 minute discussion was done. Here's an overview of what we decided:

• We switched from double-hung windows (both top and bottom window part slide up and down) to single-hung windows (only the bottom window slides up). The main reason was the extra efficiency of the single-hungs and since most windows are easily accessible we can clean most of them from the outside anyway.



Jeld-Wen Energy Star Builders Vinyl Single Hung  with Prairie Grill

View our windows like ours. Unfortunately, this is not our view. 

• We switched from the standard Jeld-Wen Vinyl Low-E window to Energy Saver Plus. The reason for that is simple, only the Energy Saver Plus (in the Builders Vinyl range) qualifies as an Energy Star window for the Northern US. Overall, by switching from double-hung to single-hung and going from just Low-E to the Energy Saver Plus we are gaining a little over 20% in window efficiency for about the same price.
• We moved from three rows of windows in the dinette to a single casing with 3 windows. Better efficiency than 3 single cuts with nothing but 2x4s in between.
• We switched from solid wood pocket-doors to hollow-core pockets doors. Even though this seems like a down-grade, it actually adds functionality since the solid wood door are so much heavier that as pocket doors they actually become hard to operate/slide. So, we added functionality for a cheaper price.
• We switched from pocket-doors to regular swing doors in the in-law suite. After consulting with The Mother-In-Law, we decided to go with regular doors as they are easier to operate (the handles on a regular door are larger than the recessed little lever on the side of the pocket doors.

Modern brushed nickel lever.

• We switched from prairie-grid glass in our sliders to built-in blinds for privacy and easy-of-use. No drapes to wash, hang and maintain.



Sliding door with super cool blinds in the glass

• Picked the Jeld-Wen two-panel interior door style for all the interior doors.

Jeld-Wen Cambridge Molded Wood Composite All Panel Interior Door

• Picked the ThermaThru Smooth Fiberglass Saratoga front door with matching sidelite windows on either side.



ThermaTru Fiberglass Front Door

Very productive meeting where we made sure we only pay for function and/or efficiency and not for mere design. At the end we made a couple more decisions that we can cross off our list. We'll try to get some pictures for some of the doors since windows look like, well, windows but the doors actually have a distinct design.

Build - Day 10 - July 21, 2011

In the sweltering heat with temperatures feeling like 105F our brave crew again delivered a great effort. Helped by lots of water and a cooler of popsicles and ice delivered by our little boy, they installed the Micro-Lam steel I-beams, the supports for the I-joists and the I-joists themselves.

Here are a few pictures from today's progress...

Basement view with Micro-Lams and floor joist supports.

View from the front porch.

Exercise room studs are up.

Special delivery.

The floor joists are in.

It's getting hot in here...

Besides making it REALLY hot, the sun also makes beautiful shadows.