Framing Studs Up

We have studs up on the perimeter and throughout the interior. It was pretty amazing to be able to walk through the rooms and differentiate the separate spaces. Plus, the tray ceilings in our bedroom, dining room, and playroom are framed up. And just today, they started on the cathedral ceiling for the living room and screen porch. That is the one that we really have been waiting on to see because it is the first true vertical height over the walls. It felt nice walking in and seeing that today.

Okay, so without further delay here are some pics. Though the photos really don't do the house justice because it is hard to capture a house going up through a snapshot.

Like I've said before, our framers are Tracy & Chris Terral and they have been doing a phenomenal job. I love the fact that they are doing all the framing themselves so I don't have to worry about a bunch of guys showing up on site that I don't know. Plus, they always greet me with a smile, are constantly looking ahead for potential issues so that we can avoid them, and have a great work ethic. Did I mention that I also absolutely trust them? Wow, that is a life saver when you are building a house. So without further ado, here is a pic of Chris. 

And here is Tracy working on the cathedral ceiling on the screen porch. I think this is going to be one of my favorite places in the house to sit, to think, to read, or just watch the kids playing in the backyard.

Here is the cathedral ceiling in the living room that extends out into the screen porch. Of course, eventually there will be a wall between them. I'm so glad that I changed back to the cathedral ceiling instead of the trey ceiling. My original plan was to have a cathedral ceiling with exposed rafters coming across the open space. I have since given up on that, but we will still have stained wood boards on the ceiling, just not the hanging exposed rafters. I started thinking about all that dust!

Here is the latest pic as of this afternoon. You can see the cathedral ceiling sticking up in the middle for the living room. From the front, our bedroom, bath, and kitchen are to the left of the living room, and the playroom, utility, and kids bedroom are to the right. The dining room is between the living room and front porch.

And after months of changing, pricing, and comparing windows just to do it all over again; I finally have the official window order filled out. Thanks to Blake at Read Lumber who was always incredibly patient with me and answered all of my questions (and I had alot). I think he deserves some kind of award. Hope you are reading this Blake! And here is the man himself.

And until next time, that is it for now!

Form, Footings, & Foundation

It keeps dawning on me over and over again, a little at a time, that we are really building this house that I imagined in my head. For so long, it was just this imaginary "thing" and now to see it become an actual physical object is quite amazing.

Through this time, I've also discovered that I'd probably continue to tweak things here and there for as long as possible until changing is no longer an option. So if we waited another year before we started this house, who knows what it would end up looking like.

Since I'm so late in posting (again!!) this post is going to cover quite a bit of things. This shows Chris working on the form. I wanted a built-up/elevated front porch so that is why they are having to dig out there in front. I should have gotten more pictures at this stage, because they were wearing me out just watching them drive the stakes in the ground. Talk about a great workout!

And apparently, I didn't get a picture of just the form finished, but you can see it below with the plumbing and footings already dug. The poles sticking up on the right side are for the open carport. They are up now so that they can be down in the poured concrete. 

Getting the form built and the required plumbing and electrical work installed actually went incredibly smooth and quick. Though I did have to pick out my tub within a couple hours one morning because they needed to know the drain location that day. But hey, it worked out because it probably saved me several hours of research. I just had to make a quick decision and know it was what it was so there was no need to worry about it after it was made.

So as I was saying, we were going along great and then came time to dig the footings/foundation. The contractor we had lined up ended up running into some issues on another job that kept dragging out... and out... and out. I think in the end, we waited close to 3 weeks. We then decided we just had to go ahead and get this done because even more rain was moving in and I was tired of just looking at the form. We ended up going with Marvin Wink and I was very pleased with his work. 

Here you can see the footings dug throughout the house with the rebar and plastic. 

Here is an upclose of the front porch footing. Since I wanted my 2 foot elevated porch, it ended up being a super deep hole. But some things are just worth it.

And so finally on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 we poured concrete. I later realized that the date was 11-12-13 and supposedly that makes it a lucky day. I'll take it. We started at 6:30am. When I first got out there, the sun wasn't even up. We used James Coughran to finish the concrete mainly because he came highly recommended. I was not disappointed. He did an excellent job!!! He could have easily pushed me back for other jobs for people that he did work for on a year around basis, but once he told me that he was coming, he came.

We were somewhat worried that it was going to be too cold to pour or that it wasn't going to setup properly because the temperatures were suppose to get below freezing in the early morning hours. Thankfully, we had no issues with that. They added calcium to the screen porch and front porch since they were the last to be poured just as a precaution. Though a couple of them were out there til after 8pm to make sure it finally set completely.

Here is a picture of the first concrete truck. One of my biggest concerns since I found out it was a potential problem way back when we were first doing the dirtwork was that one (or more) of the concrete trucks would get stuck. Not only did they have to go up a steep driveway, but they also had to cross pastureland. Added to the problem was the fact that there were muddy areas around the house from where we had an extremely heavy thunderstorm the week before. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded and none of them got stuck. Though a couple of them apparently did temporarily break-down after going up the driveway. 

The picture quality isn't the greatest because I snapped these on my phone, but they are better than nothing.

Here is our view from the back of the house. Though it doesn't really capture the full beauty, it is the closest I've been able to get so far. I am so excited about being able to look out and see this on a daily basis. Especially during the fall time when the leaves are all changing colors. 

This is the only picture I have so far of them working on the framing of the house. The "them" being Tracy & Chris Terral. I have not regretted once our decision in hiring them. Though they are technically just our framers since we are contracting it out ourselves, they have guided us through the entire process and make sure that we get all of the boxes checked.

This view is from standing on the carport and looking down the side of the house.

I'll try to take some more pictures soon and post them, because this is the stage when it really looks like a house going up.

Permits & Dirtwork

There were lots of steps that had to occur before we could officially "start building" the house. And these steps had to occur in a specific order and most could not overlap.

     - Apply for Construction Loan

     - Get Appraisal Ordered thru bank (2 weeks)

     - Get Land Survey (1-2 wks) 

     - Apply for Building Permit

          - 911 Address (5 minutes)

          - Sanitation Department Permit (3-5 Business days)

          - Plan Review & Building Permit Issue (5-10 B. days)

     - Close on Loan

     - Get Site Review & Approval for Electricity (3-5 days)

     - Get Electricity Turned On (5-10 days)

Getting a building permit definitely takes a little hoop jumping. Thankfully, all of the ladies that I worked with were really helpful and nice. 

Here are the hoops and time frame (to the best of my memory).

Get a 911 Address at the Courthouse. This was surprisingly easy and quick. It took less than 5 minutes. Then take the approved 911 address form to the Sanitation Department. We attempted to get passed for sewage field lines (we failed). But in order to do the test, we (Pappy & Buster) had to dig 3 30 inch deep holes, fill them with water for 2 days, and then get the sanitation lady to come test. Let me note here that this was before we got any of the rain lately, and the ground was hard. Rock solid hard. The boys were not happy about this task. 30 inches never looked so deep. So since we "failed" our test b/c the water didn't soak into the ground properly, it looks like we are going to have an over land system. Which, ironically, I found out later is actually cheaper than the field lines. Go figure!

Here are a couple pictures of Pappy & Buster digging their holes. They had to get inventive since the ground was so hard.

After getting our sanitation permit, I dropped the plans off at the clerk of court office (with the permit and plan review fee). Thankfully, my fear that this step would be difficult and time consuming was unfounded. 

While the boys were digging their 30 inches holes, I decided to go ahead and mark off exactly where we wanted the house. We originally, had it parallel with the woods, but decided to angle the house with the hill. In the end, I'm really glad that we did, b/c it is going to make the view better out the back, my elevated front porch works better, and it saved us alot of money not only with the dirtwork but also other foundation issues. Buster likes to remind me that he suggested this a couple months ago but I wouldn't hear him out. :)

We decided to use Channing Nolan of C&L Construction for our dirtwork and housepad. They brought out the trackhoe and dozier. They did an excellent job and I was pleasantly surprised by how fast they worked. This is the only task in the entire house building process that we agreed on an hourly rate instead of a by job basis. Hourly rates truly worry me. But they worked fast, didn't stretch out their time, and actually came in well below the job estimate (granted the estimate was given before we angled the house... but still I felt like I definitely got my money's worth).

In this picture, they are removing the topsoil.

Chris Terral (the son of our father/son framing team) came out to make sure that the housepad dimensions were correct and properly placed. Though he didn't have to do this b/c we are contracting out the house ourselves, I was extremely happy that he did. Definitely going above and beyond the required job. Even though we are still early in the building process, I have already learned that having a main person that you completely trust is extremely helpful and comforting.

Per my design, the front porch is elevated 2 feet on the furthermost side from the house. Since the house will be built on a concrete slab, they had to dig out with the trackhoe to make this edge.

This is the completed housepad. The little step up in the front is where my elevated front porch will be. Thankfully, they didn't have to bring in a lot of dirt.

Here is our driveway. And yes, it is steep. Once the house is finished, we will blacktop just this entryway. We really had limited options on the driveway due to coming out below the hill on the main road. So we had to move all the way on top of the hill for safety reasons. And wouldn't you know it, the gas line is just on top of that ridge and is only buried 3 feet deep. Therefore, we couldn't dig out the driveway like we originally planned.

I've already learned that some things just are out of my control and I just have to let them go. When the guy from the electric company came out to give us the approval for electricity and set the pole location, he informed us that the line had to have a 40 feet opening between trees (limb to limb). The line is coming across the road almost directly in front of our carport. So my beautiful tree-lined privacy barrier from the road just got a huge 40 foot hole put in it. Lovely! Just lovely! And since we didn't know this until after the dirt guys were gone, guess who got to cut those trees. Yeh, that is right. Pappy & Buster. Again, they were super excited.

When we were on the last tree Saturday afternoon, a huge soaking rain came down. There was not a dry spot on any of us. But since we were already wet, we decided to just finish. 

And here are the stumps. Aren't they just lovely. We will eventually do something with them, but right now we just needed to get them down. We, also now have a pile of nice-size pine trees. Wish I could get my lumber out of them from the house. 

Taking Down the Trees

Though I have been talking about this house, planning on this house, and dreaming about this house for a really long time now, I have hesitated starting this blog in the fear that something was going to fall through and we weren't going to actually be able to build it. Though we still have some hurdles to pass, it looks like we are in the clear enough that I am comfortable enough to start posting some pics.

Throughout the summer, we have been working on deciding exactly where we wanted the house situated. We decided in the pasture next to my parent's house. The exact spot is all based off of a huge oak tree in the backyard that I love. Hopefully, it won't get struck by lightning anytime soon, b/c then I will just be heartbroken.

We started out planning on buying a house on the lake, but we couldn't find just what we wanted in our price range. When we moved to building, we again thought about trying to purchase land, but soon realized that we should build our house where we really want it, b/c we have little plans of ever moving again. And since this house will be on family land, that pretty much isn't an option (moving).

Here are a few pictures from the last few months.

I was given the task of running the tractor and pushing on the tree to make sure it fell in the right direction. Thankfully, it did.

This is us catching a ride back to the house. Much easier than walking.

Pappy is still trying to figure out how he gets roped into all of our projects. Though he likes to grumble about it, we all know that he secretly loves it.

Buster can now say he can handle a chainsaw. I, on the other hand, am not allowed to touch it. I'm not gonna argue with them over that right.

Though I don't have any pictures from August, I can assure you that we were out there working.

Of course, where I want the house is right on top of the old shed. So we had to tear it down. After Pappy and Buster tore off all the old metal walls, we had to tackle the roof. In an effort to keep the nails from all falling and poking out a tire, we climbed on top of the roof and were pulling them up by hands.

I questioned my sanity several times that day. Especially, as Pappy was underneath us and saying things like "yeah that 2x4 under you is completely rotted through", " this really is pretty dangerous", "as long as you stay on that 2x6 you should be fine" which is then followed by a shutter as the 2x6 gives away. 

After we removed all of the metal, Pappy pushed the rest down with the tractor. I liked this plan much better than the one that had me standing on rusted through metal sheets on top of rotten boards.

I was so excited when we got the hole cleaned out for the driveway yesterday. Unfortunately, today we decided to move the drive on top of the hill to avoid problems with water run-off. Though the new placement is going to make for a longer driveway, in the long run supposedly it will hold up better and be cheaper. We'll see.

Though Nana is not pictured, most of the work done so far would not have been possible if she had not been willing to watch our kids. One of the perks of moving back.

Hopefully, it will rain soon so we can get movement on the house pad. We should have our appraisal back tomorrow. And then I have to schedule our survey to get our 5 acres carved out, and jump through all the hoops to get the building permit. As long as everything goes to plan (and it rains), we should be set to start on the footings and foundation the first part of October!