A Halloween Treat

Here's a glimpse of the living room ceiling...more tomorrow!

More beams....

All of the living room beams have been placed now, as has the main beam from the house to the garage, where the screened-in porch will be located. I think the support brackets that Matt designed look great!

Beam me up!

Yesterday the first two beams were placed...those are the most difficult ones, and today should show a big change as more go up. That main beam will be trimmed down (it's about 6 ft too long right now) once all the others are placed.

On Saturday Matt enjoyed doing some physical labor on the house - using Tim's joiner to smooth the sides of what will be the treads of our stairway.

The details

The sofits of the garage and second story were completed this week with the same douglas fir tongue in groove paneling that will cover the living room and porch ceilings....

The beams are now stained and ready to be placed first thing next week! By the end of next week, the living room ceiling and roof should be complete. The weather forecast finally looks good - and once the house is closed in, the weather will no longer matter!

A full garage

Materials continue to arrive daily. The Prodema siding (the resin impregnated wood veneer panels used on the East side of the house, garage, and around the large stairwell windows) arrived from Spain yesterday. It's an amazingly small crate - that weighs a ton! (as in 2000 pounds) It's still sealed up, so we are like children at Christmas, waiting to see what's inside.

The douglas fir tongue-in-groove paneling has also arrived. (see photo) This will be the ceiling of our living room and porch, as well as the underside of the exterior sofits of the house. They started working on the sofits today - and we hear they look great, but haven't yet seen them.

The interior photo here is from the living room looking into the kitchen/dining rooms.

We're hoping those 26 foot beams can be stained this week - until those are ready, we're at a bit of a standstill. Once those are up, windows can go in! (They've arrived offsite and are just waiting for us.)

More fixtures...

These are a few fixtures we ordered yesterday. Our exterior lighting will be similar to the bottom right fixture in the collage of photos. The one that looks like folded paper is for the "media room" just off the living room, and the sconces are for the master bath.

The timbers have arrived!

Our 26 foot douglas fir beams arrived on Thursday and they look beautiful! There was a bit of a mix-up, though...they weren't finished (as in varnished). It's kind of a mixed blessing, as now we will be able to really control the color and final finish, but it will put us back about a week in the schedule. All of the other beams arrived, as well, most of them being reclaimed from old warehouses. It's neat to see the old nail holes and think about the stories these beams could tell. Matt designed the brackets that hold the beams and they also arrived on Thursday...with their black powder coat finish, I think they're going to look great.

Yesterday we drove over to Milwaukee to see the fireplace we've selected in person. It is amazing, and we are feeling much better about opting for gas over wood burning. We also visited a crazy lighting store - BBC Lighting Supply...and purchased several fixtures. Even if you're not really in the market for light fixtures, if you're in the Milwaukee area, this is something to see!

In other news, we closed on the sale of our house this Friday! Phew.

Fireplace Frustrations

We have continued to struggle with the fireplace. On one hand, we really like the idea (smell, feel) of a wood burning fireplace. On the other hand, we are aware that it is polluting and worse for the environment than gas. Another major struggle has been with the look of gas fireplaces...ie: the fake log. Also, if we do a non-sealed wood burning fireplace, our home will not qualify as an "energy star" home...not that that gets us anything other than bragging rights. Yesterday we re-discovered this gas fireplace from Montigo and have decided to throw out the idea of a corner fireplace in favor of this contemporary gas one with stones instead of a fake log.

The roof

Last Friday, the roof trusses were installed and today the roof sheathing was placed...what a difference it makes in the way the upstairs rooms feel! A temporary stairway is in place, so we can really see how things are going up there. The crew plans on completing the SIP portions of the roof this week, and once we get a decent dry stretch, the timber beams and tongue in grove paneling for the the living room ceiling can be placed.

Keeping an eye on the prize

What a dramatic change in the past two weeks - all the SIP walls are up. Now the progress becomes less obvious. Today all of the upstairs walls were framed and the stairway was started. Here's a little eye candy (to me anyways!) of the revised exterior of the house...with the metal siding, red windows, and updated stonework.

Onwards and Upwards!

Today Matt and I met for lunch at the land and were pleasantly suprised to see the second story going up! All of the SIP walls are now in place and tomorrow they will start on the stairway or the SIP roof panels. Also, the concrete guys were out to prepare to pour the porch floor, outside entry, and living room steps tomorrow. The timber for the beams is scheduled to arrive this week, and next week the windows should arrive! Today was a good day.

On a side note, we moved this past weekend to our condo sublet. What a job with our two little guys! We're still not done moving the garage stuff, but are anxious to close on our house sale on the 19th - that will be a big relief.

Progress continues....

The first floor SIPs are almost all up - the missing spaces are mostly windows...and we can tell that the windows are going to be pretty impressive in the living room. The ceiling is high - 13' - and all glass on the South facing wall. You can see in the photo the media room door and window from the living room. The concrete closet will be poured tomorrow. Other concrete will have to be delayed due to rain, but what's new?

October is off to a good start!

After being away for almost a week, we were pleasantly surprised upon our first visit back to the land. The walls are going up and most of them should be erected by the end of this week. Today Tim placed the styrofoam forms (ICFs) for our concrete closet - my "safe room" from tornadoes, since we have no basement. (You can see that in the photo - the white walls.) Currently the first floor of the West side of the house and most of the North side are up, as well as the South facing dining room wall.

The plan is to have our garage floor, the master closet walls, porch floor, exterior entry, and living room steps all poured with concrete this Thursday. It's very exciting to have something to look at finally - and even more fun to walk around and picture the final product in our minds.