Week 9
Other then watching the first story walls go up, this week we were asked to start shopping for interior doors, fireplaces, and plumbing. We decided to tackle the first one since it seemed the easiest..
For the most part we needed 5 types of doors..
1. a front door - stained wood w/dental shelf & delta frost glass
2. a pantry door - white with etched glass with the word pantry
3. a basement door - fiberglass, cheap, built to last, no window
4. the rest of our interior doors - 5 panel craftsman style
5. 3 interior doors that we wanted different from the rest for the master bedroom. - same as #4 however stained and frosted glass panels instead of wood. i.e. something like this:
It was fairly trivial shopping for doors for us. The salesman helped us understand some differences in manufacturing and gave his thoughts on what we should buy for each. We didn't realize that the exterior doors were very susceptible to sun and weather and the warranty may not be honored if we put a wood stained door on the exterior that was in direct sunlight. Fortunately in our case the front door is under a porch so should be pretty protected from sun and rain.
Other then that it was very exciting to see the first floor spaces take shape and to be able to walk around them and get our first sense of size. With just the subfloor built, things looked smaller then we'd hoped and we had some concerns. Now that the walls were up and we could walk around the space we really started liking the sizes of things..
First story walls framing
Interior door shopping
front left
rear left
rear right
looking towards the front of the house from the future dining room area
looking towards the family room from the future kitchen area
looking towards the dining room and kitchen part of the great room from the family room area
Week 10 & 11
We were out on vacation these two weeks so this is what we came back to.. Lots of progress on framing!
Second story flooring framing & subfloor
Second story walls framing
big beams
upstairs bedroom looking towards street
upstairs bedroom walk in closet
upstairs bedroom bathroom
looking from bedroom towards master bedroom
future staircase area
from master bedroom looking towards closet (left) and bathroom (right)
view from master bedroom (left)
view from master bedroom (straight)
view from master bedroom (right)
future walk in closet (beyond wall)
future master bath (beyond wall)
Week 12
Plumbing shopping was educational. Rules about water usage excluding certain configurations (e.g. two shower fixtures in a single shower) or how much water flows from a given fixture. Also rules against the use of lead in fixtures (who knew that was a problem? it seemed safe to me! :)).
Fireplace shopping was also educational and trying to work with the guy to get the look that we want and the size right wasn't too bad. It's helpful to go to a showroom and educate yourself on all the various types and options so that you can make an informed decision. I must say that a lot of modern fireplaces look fake to me with their shallow fireplace depths and fake logs and stone. Ultimately, we looked for a fireplace with some depth to give it a better sense of realism and found that a porcelain black back looked more realistic since the fire reflects off of it and it looks deeper then it really is. The fake brick ones mostly looked terrible IMO.
Worked on this week:
Second story walls framing
Side sheeting
Roofing framing
Plumbing shopping
Fireplace shopping
There is about 1 week left of framing.. Next week the roof framing should wrap up as will the side and roof sheeting. Also the staircase will get built. Then in the coming weeks we have HVAC, windows/doors, electrical, plumbing, etc..
