First Snow

First snow at the new house. I walked up the hill west of the house to try to get a nice picture, but the snow was coming down too hard, and you could not see the house very well at all. Moved in and took this picture.

Siding Done

Siding was put up today. A fast moving storm ripped through right as I arrived, but everything seemed to weather it just fine.

Here is some fog rising out of the valley right after the storm ended.

Concrete done

Last Thursday was concrete prep, and Friday the concrete floors were poured. It was not possible to get inside and get good pictures. But on Monday, everything was nice and dry. Some additional framing work was also done, as well as the back french doors were put in. Electrical work was done the previous two days, and the outlet in the back is also visible.

This is the view from the inside.

The garage door was also installed.

Floor in the family room.

Framing for the closets and for the 3/4 bathroom in the utility room.

Here’s the basement floor. On hindsight, should have probably used the flash.

Shingles On

Weather has been great for the past few days, great day for putting on shingles.

Saturday, we practiced cutting some limestone. It was time consuming, but towards the end, the stone was breaking where I wanted it to.

Under Roof

The trusses and the dumpster made it up the hill today.

Back and side

From the boys room, you can see the vineyard:

This is the view from the living room window:

Framing

It is amazing to see all the work that was done in one day. At 5 pm, the generator showed 8 hours of run time, and the crew had just come back from dinner and ready to keep moving. The crew leader told me that the trusses were supposed to arrive today, but they did not, and that if they had arrived, he would have them up. At least that is what I think he said. He had a very heavy accent, some sort of German derivative.

From the front:

From the back:

Chimney

Family Room

Patio Door

There was a storm moving in, right in front of the sun, made some nice colors. Tried to capture them, but the picture is not as impressive as the real thing.

Backfill

Backfill was completed, but required another 5 truckloads of gravel. Looks like a lot of it was used in the front of the garage as well, which was not the optimal situation. Should have been modified there instead, which is significantly cheaper. The excavator left a significant amount of material blocking the swale that had been previously cut, so there’s more cleanup needed here. I’m a bit disappointed at the waste of #2 gravel and the way the material was left behind the house. More than one person had warned me about this particular excavator. Last year when I was looking for excavators, I was given their name, but when I called and left a message they never called me back. That turned out to be a good thing.

The generator was placed under a canvas tarp in the garage, since framing starts tomorrow. My nice pile that I used to climb up on is gone, so I don’t have quite the same vantage point as before.

There was a storm moving in to the west. Looked much more imposing in person. Still trying to figure out how to capture that. I went to shutter optimized and set the shutter speed to 1/4000th.

A good bit of the framing lumber was stacked in front. The schedule says the house will be under roof by the weekend, assuming no major delays. There is 40% or higher chance of scattered storms for the rest of the week, so that could impact the schedule as well.

Block Work Done

The block work was finished in the middle of all the rain last week. The waterproofing was supposed to happen Friday, but apparently he was backed up from the previous rain, and most of the foundation was still quite wet. Now everything moves up a day. On Saturday, we had three more truckloads of #4 delivered, and used in front of the garage, which had been turned into a mud pit by all the heavy trucks driving in there. The limestone dust was put at the bottom of the hill after we patched it up. At first it looked like someone skid the whole way up the hill, but then it became clear that it was a trailer brake that was locked and dragged halfway down the hill.

Here’s the view from the front. Garage is on the left.

The basement and family room:

The basement has an egress window. This shows the inside and outside views.

The foundation as seen from the back of the house. The hillside here gives a nice vantage point.

Block Work

The block work was started today. They ran out of block, and left to go work another job, and then the truck came a few hours later and restocked them for tomorrow. With a 60% chance of scattered showers, it’s not clear how much they will be able to get done.

Drains In

The forms were removed, drains were put in, and the block was delivered. I expect that they will start putting up some of the block tomorrow.

The main sewer line was put in through the footer.

Here is the back corner of the basement and the family room.

This is the corner on the other side, between the basement and the garage, showing the limestone and shale seam.

Up close detail of the shale/limestone seam:

This is the view from the shale pile on the back of the house showing the overall foundation. I should go get some of my astroimaging software and stitch the images together.