ROOF TRUSSES, RAFTERS, AND EXTERIOR WALLS NEW HOUSE UPDATE

Well look at what we have now!

The makings of a house!  This was from last Friday.  They started putting up the roof trusses and rafters.  It's amazing how different it looks when you start to see the lines of a roof taking shape.

This is looking "through" the wall of the living room into the master bedroom and bath...

This is standing in the kitchen looking through the wall into the pantry and beyond that, the garage.

What else do you see about these "interior" photos?  You can't see through to the outside, because...

We have exterior walls!  They've enclosed the house in wood and then wrapped it in Tyvek.  After this, they go back and cut the door and window openings.

In fact, in this photo, on the left end of the house, they had yet to cut into the transom window in the shower.  

And for this photo, go back and look at the first one in this post.  It's the same angle, just a few days later.  Things are changing so fast.  They told us they should finish up this phase by the end of the week, and then they will start on the roof decking next week.  The weather next week is iffy at best so we'll see how it goes.  After the decking, they'll install the windows and exterior doors and then put up the siding.  

So much progress.

We can't stop staring at the pictures.

We. Have. A. House.

 

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART MONDAY

Yep, we don't have a house update with photos (yet) and this weekend was crazy busy.  We had several things to do.  It was too wet to mow from the rains earlier in the week and then, to add more chaos, the main freeway to the farm was closed all weekend, both inbound and outbound, all main lanes, for an upgrade to the city's electrical grid. 

The other routes out there, besides being so much farther, were inundated with the extra traffic.  A normal hour and a half drive on them was two and a half hours or more according to the traffic reports.

We decided to stay and run our other errands.  Also did some cleaning out of things in the apartment.  We're starting to go through drawers and cabinets and closets and decide what we want to take with us when we move and what we'll get rid of.

We had some great food as usual.  Simple roasted chicken (there was a good sale on legs, ha).  Then we had some corn (love that on occasion) and used this great seasoning blend from Trader Joe's.  Of course, we started with a huge salad.  So yummy!

Hobart is not phased by any drama, as long as he has a comfy place to sleep (in this case his favorite towel), a full belly (he had just had a snack) and his catnip sock nearby (that we had just rolled in dried catnip), his life is happy.  Because...

#notspoiled

Builder is going to send us some house pictures so we'll have an update soon.

LIFE IS GOOD

There's nothing like standing there, looking at our new home being built...

...turning around to see wild berries growing along the fence line...

...and grabbing a handful for a snack. 😊

#lifeisgood

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

WE HAVE AN OUTHOUSE

 OK, had to laugh at this.  They had delivered this to the property...

So, does that mean we have a 2 1/2 bath house now?  LOL!  They delivered the porta-potty for the workers (we asked and the company that delivered it comes and cleans/changes it regularly).

But that made us think, with 11 acres and a future pond site several acres away, we were wondering if a real outhouse with some sort of composting toilet, would be practical?  Even if we added a structure by the pond, like a covered pavilion, we wouldn't have a septic tank dug and/or water pipes plumbed across acres just for that.

Something to think about for the future! 😀

WE HAVE A FRAME NEW HOUSE UPDATE

CHECK.

THIS.

OUT:

This was Wednesday.

The first framing went up!

By Thursday it looked like this!

And Saturday we drove out there...

Talk about the road/driveway going right to the house...

...it goes right straight into the garage.

Pretty cool!

By the weekend, all of the basic framing was done!

Here are some photos:

Here is where the kitchen sink will be, under the window that will look out onto the front porch!

This is the master bathroom walk-in shower.  There will be a transom style window at the top.

Here is the living room, looking out to the screened in porch, dining room is just visible off to the right and the kitchen is also to the right.  The wall on the left will be where the TV will hang.

Here's one of our favorite parts, this is the pantry!

16' long 7' wide.  Shelves along both sides all the way to a counter on the back wall.  It's going to be HUGE and we can't wait to be able to get it stocked and well organized!

Here's the side where the a/c condenser unit will be and then the septic will go off to the left off of the photo.

This is the back of the house, from left to right: the grilling/cooking porch (back of the garage wall), the laundry room, the two large dining room windows, the screened in porch and the master bedroom windows on the furthest end.

And here is the front!  From left to right:  Master bedroom closet, guest room windows, study windows, from porch, pantry and of course, the garage!

They will continue to work, the roof framing comes next and then they said the doors and windows will go in.  BUT...the weather is supposed to be rainy all week so there might not be a lot of work happening. 

We have a REAL HOUSE going up!

We are on cloud nine!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART EASTER SUNDAY

Here we are another week gone by, and what a week it's been.  Here's a note up front to say, don't miss tomorrow's post, big update on the house construction!

It's been a good weekend, well, half of it anyway.  Today rain is moving in and we are supposed to have some big storms and then rain pretty much all week.

We had some oven roasted pork chops (2nd Man used whole wheat flour with seasonings mixed in to give it a little crust) and then I made green beans with tomato, onions and a little turkey bacon. Yummy!

Hobart is sleeping in front of the fridge, nice warm air blowing out underneath.  We have to open it over him and step around him.  It's not cold outside but it's cool in the apartment and he's older so we let him sleep wherever he is comfortable.  Because...

#notspoiled

ART PRINT TRASH TO TREASURE

Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor, and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

For this post, we're going to tease what the image was until the end, because it's so stinkin' cute!

So I went downstairs as usual and found this tucked between the two dumpsters.  I slid it out to see what it was (stay tuned!) and immediately grabbed it.

I looked at it and there was still a price tag on the back,  $129.99!  I took it upstairs and showed 2nd Man and he thought it was an awesome find.

The frame has some scuff marks around the edges but we think it only adds to the character.  And what is that peeking out of the picture?

Wait, too much of a closeup?  Ha!

Behold!

The most adorable calf (or maybe already grown cow).  We love it.  It's huge, four feet wide and almost three feet high.  I told 2nd Man I think I want to hang it in the barn.  We won't have cattle of course (though a miniature cow is so cute, I digress, ha) but it would be nice to have a little bit of that vibe in the barn.  As 2nd Man suggested, we could hang it on the loft beam at one end of the barn so that it is out of the way but in a prominent spot when you walk in and see it.  I thought it might also be cute on the back of the house by the grilling/outdoor kitchen area.

The name of the print is "Chocolate Milk", ha!

Once destined for the landfill, now it will hang in a new place at the farm for years to come.

SLAB PART TWO NEW HOUSE UPDATE

 As you may have seen HERE on Monday, our slab was poured last Friday!  I went out Saturday to mow and then Sunday, 2nd Man and I went out so we could walk around on the slab together.

It has to cure for a few days but it was safe to walk on just hours after they finished.  They could go ahead and start framing but they are going to wait a few days before they start that.

Here are some pictures are various areas of the house and a couple of photos of the whole slab.

This is a view from the living room toward the screened in porch with the large sliding doors.  Big enough for our farm dining table, the yellow hutch and maybe a couple of chairs to relax in.

This is "seeing through the wall", ha, into the master bath.  The pipe in the foreground is for both bathroom sinks, the rectangular recessed area with the drain in the middle is the walk in shower at the other two slab pipes sticking up are for the toilet closet.  The large one sticking up on the outside is for the septic and you can see the square a/c slab.

Here are a couple of fun pictures:

This is from the front yard looking at the front porch!

Picture a white railing on the right side and one across the front with an opening and then the front door at the back on the left side.  Those two pipes you can see?  Those are for the kitchen sink under the window that will look out onto the porch and front yard.

Speaking of that view...

This is where we still stand and look out the window while washing dishes!  We think we can get used to having this view every day, ha.

Here are a couple of pictures of the slab in its entirety:

This is from the back corner...that's the grilling/kitchen porch and back of the garage looking across the house toward the barn and shed...

...and here is the opposite side; the front corner of the master bedroom closet and guest room, back toward where I was standing in the previous picture.

It was a LOT of concrete.  Our foreman said it ending up being 14 trucks of concrete, which is 140 cubic yards.

How much concrete is that?

It is approximately 28,276 gallons

It weighs 280 tons (or 560,000 pounds)

It poured about 3000 square feet of concrete (living space + garage + porches)

And the slab is 6" thick (standard is 4") and has footings/beams that are almost 4 feet deep into the ground.  It's not moving and it's well up from water that might stand in the yard after a monsoon.  That dirt around the edge has been removed and leveled out with the yard, it was there to hold up the wooded forms.

Wood is being delivered this week and framing will begin as soon as they get the wood!

Our first steps on the more than solid foundation of our future home!

SLAB IS POURED PART ONE NEW HOUSE UPDATE

Picture heavy post ahead!

Saturday, when we posted about the weekend, I said there was a good thing on the horizon.  A couple of you picked up on that...a hidden thing in the photo...

Here it is zoomed in:

You see that?  That's the "good thing on the horizon" we mentioned, ha.  It arrived about 6:30am on Friday morning while it was still dark.  But what is it?

Behold!

The pump truck for the concrete that would fill our foundation!

Yep!  The concrete mixer trucks arrived and they lined up on the road out front and then, one at a time, they came down the driveway.  After each trip up and down, a skid steer went up and down the driveway to keep things smoothed out.

The pump truck pulls it from the mixer and then the boom lets them direct it right to where they want it to go.  Remember, our beams were 4 feet deep so that's a LOT of concrete.

They worked through sunrise and into the early morning.  They start in the dark when it's cooler because that is good for the concrete.

They started filling at the farthest back corner of the house from where they parked (the master bedroom) and worked toward the other front corner closest to the equipment (the garage and front porch).

Got there about 9:30am.  This was the view driving in.  

Since they started before sunrise...

...by 9:30, they were almost done!

Here, they are pouring the front porch.

They worked hard getting it all smoothed out.

This was one of the last trucks...we loved the little saying on the back end!

And then they were done!

Fourteen concrete trucks later...

We.

Have.

A.

Slab!

After that, the trucks and workers left and it was time to just let nature take its course and leave the concrete to do its thing while curing (thanks Roderick!) and hardening.

The next post, we'll have some slab pics from when 2nd Man and I went out and roamed around by ourselves to walk on our foundation for the first time.