attic access, door handles, siding

Hoyt hung around above the garage for awhile today finishing up a set of stairs into the attic space. We also completed putting in the door knobs and can now lock up the house. The front door handle required drilling into the door to set the bottom of the handle in place.

The siding on the front of the house is finished except at the top where we will be attaching the soffit. We also did more work on the back of the house. Soon we will need two tall ladders to reach the back heights but I plan to get out on the roof and do the sides and the dormers first.

As you can see there are some ditches dug in the front yard. On the right front corner of the front yard is the water hook up and a ditch had to be dug for laying the piping up to the house. Around the center of the front yard is the underground power and it was buried about five feet below ground. There is a ditch dug about three to four feet deep and about 60-70 feet long up to the location for where the meter will be located on the right side of the garage door facing.

David and Scott are working on the underground electric tonight. The sheetrock crew say they will be out tomorrow and could be done hanging by as soon as Saturday. I don't think that will happen but we'll see. Brick will be delivered tomorrow.

Installing siding

We got serious about installing siding on Saturday. We did a lot of measuring and leveling and made progress on the front porch. By the end of the day we covered most of the face of the porch. We also met the drywall contractor, Bill Thompson.

Sunday we didn't work at all but Delinda and I placed our order for kitchen cabinets (Kraftmaid - maple w/cognac glaze) and Corian countertops. We actually may be in the house before our countertops are delivered. That will be interesting...

Monday we finished up the more of the porch siding leaving the top level open before the soffit is in place. We only were able to work until about 4:30 today.

Tuesday we progressed much faster, finishing the front porch, covering the entire right end of the house and moving around the back about a 1/4 of the way. If you look at the pictures you will see where the siding begins about 4-5 feet up the house. The area below that will be brick along with the front of the porch where you see block and wood.

The sheetrock was ordered today and will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. I got 200 -4x12 boards, 30 buckets of mud, and 10 rolls of tape along with corner bead. Thursday the drywall crew will begin hanging. We are supposed to be ready to paint in 10 working days.

Tomorrow we are ordering brick and the masons will start Tuesday.

Drywall

We are ready for hanging drywall. All of the interior walls have been covered with plastic sheeting to create a vapor barrier.

After thinking it over and over we decided it was best to hire someone to hang and finish the drywall for us. I am beginning vacation this weekend so we will have a lot of time to get things done. While someone else does the hardest job we would have probably faced, we will work on siding the exterior. I had started the siding last weekend but we realized the garage opening had not been framed correctly so today I had to take down everything around the garage that we had cut and hung. We have to add a 2x4 on the left side of the garage opening and remove one on the right and cut back the base a little.

We have had several people in the neighborhood stop to see the house. A lady who lives up the street from us offered to make a trade with me on her home. Her son-in-law builds homes in the New Orleans area and she had moved up from there after Katrina. We see a lot of Florida families and other nearby states moving into the area.

Getting ready for the next step

We are about 99% complete with insulation. Delinda and I got several hours in today. We still need to insulate the roof interior of the three dormer windows and we will be ready to begin putting up plastic sheeting. We will probably move onto working more on the siding as we wait for cable and phone wiring to be done.

I need to have the gravel guy come out and tell me how much it will take to raise the garage floor to the correct level before pouring concrete. We have to decide whether to spend more on raising the floor level or having a taller garage door built. The problem is that we have a good slope up to the level of the lot before going into the garage and I don't want to raise the floor so much that my driveway isn't level at all.

insulation and siding

We have been working this week on insulating and got started today on siding. I had to go to Nashville to a sales meeting so I am sorry to say I didn't get to work with the insulation but Delinda and her Mom, Judy have done about 60-70% of the wall insulation. Everything on the 1st story is done and they started on the 2nd story today.

We bought a whirlpool tub for the master bath that has required a box to be framed around it. I wouldn't recommend buying a tub that does not already have the box built in. It took a couple of days to figure out how to get that thing level and build the frame so the tub would be centered.

Yesterday the temperature dropped back down to highs in the 40s after reaching the mid 70s earlier in the week. Ironically just as we planned to get the siding done we have to stand out in the wind and cold. Mark and Gary from church came out and helped today, Mark had worked with siding before so that was a big help. We are going to do about 70% siding and 30% brick on the exterior. Our upcoming plans are to be ready for sheetrock by mid week and probably get the garage floor poured and leveled before working on the garage walls.

Prepping for insulation/sheetrock

This weekend we worked on nailing in blocking in closets and the kitchen so shelving and cabinets will have something to better hang onto. We are ready to begin putting in insulation and sheetrock right away. The electrical work is ready for the rough-in inspection and the plumber should be done by Tues. At least we can get started on the areas where there is no plumbing if we need to. The A/C rough-in is complete except for a couple small items.

We will probably get our brick delivered this week and possibly the siding. We will do the siding first and then have the mason come in at least after we have put up the bottom levels of siding around the house. When we do the interior work we plan to do the house room by room putting in insulation, hanging sheetrock, and then mudding.

The weather has been great, high 60s to 70 lately. We are looking forward to getting some serious progress underway.

Rough-ins coming to completion

Everything got delivered yesterday but one item was broken and had to go back. We spent this evening put up insulation behind where the tubs and showers will go and building some boxes for the return air vents.

I talked to David today and they plan to finish up electrical, phone, and cable wiring by Saturday. The a/c will be done tomorrow and plumbing should be d0ne Friday or Saturday.

Delinda changed her mind on the brick color and knowing my issues with color blindness I am sure she is right. I got another quote from a brick mason today. We plan to get the siding complete before doing the brick.

kitchen redesign

Our plumbing rough-in begins this week so we decided to mix things up a little with the kitchen design:) We are lucky we thought of these things before it went too far. I met Mike from Home Depot a few days ago to get the kitchen measured for cabinets and realized that our eat-in bar was too short. Extending the bar would have cut into the walk through space into the kitchen too much, so off to the drawing board. We met with a kitchen designer who sells Merrillat cabinets and redesigned the layout with the bar in the kitchen and moved the refrigerator and pantry to where the bar had been. The result is more open space, better seating for quick meals or hanging out and the addition of a center island without spending any more money. We are going to go back to Home Depot and have them draw up the changes as well and see where we get the best price.

Today we finished up shopping for all remaining electrical, cable, and phone wiring supplies. We also bought our tub/shower for the second bath, and whirlpool and shower for the master bath. The bathroom supplies will be delivered for the rough-in.

Tomorrow we begin adding some dead wood to prepare ahead for sheet rock and working on getting some trash ready to burn.

Monday we place order for siding materials.

We had hoped to be working on insulation by this weekend but had to make other plans because rough-ins are running a little slow.

Hoyt and Judy came up this evening and are staying for several weeks to help us out and visit.