Windows

old back porch thru which my kitchen window looked

So this is a picture of the back porch to our old house.  It was the door we used 95% of the time.  It had the freezers, the trash cans, muddy boots, the cat's beds and the floor door to the cellar... and the a/c units just outside.  My kitchen window looked into this area.  The glass seals of the big glass panels were broken, making the view impaired by the cloudy glass... not to mention all the distracting sights that stood between me and the outside.  

I was driving up the driveway yesterday focusing on the roof as I stewed over another potential problem... more on that later... when I was about to go around the bend and came to a screeching halt, turned off the radio (?) and rolled down the window.  The windows along the kitchen wall had been installed.  They were stunning even with Tyvek siding.  My eyes actually started to well with tears.

kitchen window at left, then pantry window & bedroom windows

You see, when I first starting designing our house last fall, the very first thing that went on the paper was the kitchen window. I knew exactly what it would look like and the direction it would face. I literally drew the kitchen and the rest of the house around this window. I love to cook, I love to be in my kitchen, and I love to look out the window and see birds at a bird feeder, flowers in a garden or deer walking by.  

So when I came up the driveway last night and saw the kitchen window and the rest of them along that wall, it was then that I realized that my dream of a new kitchen and a new house was really going to come to fruition.  It was even more beautiful than I had imagined and the view from inside was even more breath-taking ... even though there are no bird feeders or flowers yet. 

Colton modeling the kitchen window with enthusiasm! I know... there is a telephone pole I didn't consider.  Good place to plant a tree.

I love windows.  I think they are magical and we definitely went over the top with the quantity and size of windows in our design.  But they are really going to accent the house from the outside and show off the beautiful views from the inside.

Demolition Day

Two steps forward.  One step back.  The lumber company decided they wanted the wrong trusses back after all.  So the guys worked Saturday morning and took the sheeting off with the forks on the "Sky Trak" and then lifted the trusses off.  They were done in less than 4 hours.  The new trusses should be here Monday. 

removing sheeting from the garage

No more trusses on the garage

Meanwhile, they started sheeting the gable end on the other side and also built the stairs to the 2nd floor.  The basement stairs were built earlier this week.  

stairs to the basement

entry from the front door; still need to cut the hole in the sheeting to the 2nd floor.

This Week's Progress

Sheeting just about complete

front of house; most windows still covered with Tyvek

Back of house & walkout basement; this is the side you see driving up the lane

I can't get over how neat and organized these guys are.  I take that to be a good sign of workmanship.

Wow!  This little stack of scrap 2x4s just struck me as funny.

The living room and kitchen toward the back still braced up.  Look how clean!  Hope I can keep it that clean!

End of day Friday, rubber mat was on the roof.  It's not tar paper -- it's a self-sealing rubber membrane.  Roof won't leak!

2nd floor bedroom - gable end window

2nd floor bedroom - dormer window

gable end window framed

Wrong Trusses. Oops!

  

I received a frantic call from my builder Monday morning saying they put the wrong trusses on the garage and as such, the exterior trim on the garage won’t match the exterior trim on the house. No need to panic. It was the lumber yard’s miss and they are willing to make it right. He wants an on-site meeting as soon as possible to discuss the impact and options. Mind you, just minutes earlier, Preston IM’s me and says the last piece of sheeting went on the garage roof (remember, he has remote cameras he can watch from his computer at work).



garage trusses with regular rafter tails 



So I went home early and we met with the builders (2 brothers). They showed me how the trusses on the house step up to provide a view of the double frieze board that is along the top of the wall. With the trusses on the garage, they will hang over the side wall, not providing enough room for both frieze boards and covering up the one that would be there. So there would be no way to make the elevation match the house. I didn’t see any other options except to put the correct trusses on the house. They said they would take the sheeting off, but leave the existing trusses there, cut the rafter tails off and sister the correct trusses to them. I suggested making sure there wouldn’t be a load issue with the existing footers that were poured. Otherwise, it will make for a very stout storage area above the garage! The lumber company, to their credit, didn’t even flinch in admitting it was their mistake in reading the plans and were willing to make it right. Kudos to them.



house trusses with step up rafters



Close up of our design.  The door goes into the garage; left of the door is the front porch.  Yellow is the gutter.  Red is the fascia.  Blue/purple/green is the double frieze boards/trim.  So you can see if that was all missing on the garage, it clearly wouldn't look right. 

My requirement, though, is to focus on completing the trusses and sheeting on the house, install the windows and doors, getting it completely closed in and prepared for rough mechanicals and THEN going back and working on the garage roof. That will allow for minimal impact to the schedule (project manager coming out in me). They agreed.



My motivation was not only driven by schedule, but also by the torrential rains we received Sat, Sun and Mon morning. Sunday evening, we had about an inch of standing water throughout the house. Although it was raining into the basement, most of it was trapped in each room because the 2x4 thresholds hadn’t been cut out of the doorways yet. The sheeting is OSB which is supposedly very resilient to water. However, when you are looking at that much water in your house, you can’t help but be skeptical. So I asked Preston if he would bring his wet/dry vac over and I would suck up the water. He helped by pushing the water toward the vacuum with a push broom and emptying out the 16 gallon tank at least 5-6 times. Just to save you from doing the math, that’s about 80 gallons of water. Then I wake up Monday morning to the sound of thunder. Another down pour before I left for work and there was an inch of rain again. Discouraging to say the least. In our meeting with the builder, he assured me that the sheeting will be fine. But to appease me (and score some points for the truss issue, I am sure), he offered to put down some Thompson’s Water Seal to prevent any further damage. And sure enough, it was down by the time I came home Tuesday. Hopefully, they will have the roof complete before any more rain. The forecast looks good until Monday.


Example of a Greek Revival style house.  Picture is from http://connorbuilding.com/

  Back to the exterior trim. My challenge since we put the plans out for bid is explaining to the builders that I want a Greek Revival style farm house. I am learning that people were much more creative and imaginative in their residential architectural pursuits in centuries past. I think low cost and speed to build has made architectural design considerations a mute point. You look at some of the structures that were built hundreds of years ago and you can’t even fathom how they were able to create such amazing architectural artistry with the equipment they had ... or didn't have (no power tools, no pre-molded trim pieces, no CAD software). I find it fascinating, but sad that we don’t want to pay homage by copying it more often.




Front & Rear Elevation of our House



So this is my attempt to respect the past and design and construct something more than just a house with siding and a roof. And feed the “inner me” who wanted to be an architect growing up. Our house will be white-sided Craneboard with a dark bronze standing seam metal roof. Here are the elevation plans of our house.

Setting Trusses

This was one of those milestone events that is fun to watch, so Preston took the day off and I worked from my picnic table.  Looks like a house now!  

Look closely at the last picture... Preston is operating the boom and setting the truss.  He didn't even knock anyone off the barn!  I said to Colton as we looked on, it's like being brought up from the minor leagues after operating his own tractor with a boom setting trusses on our pole barn.  Hey, wait!  That was me who did that ;)  When do I get a turn???

Where There's a Will ...

... there's a way.  It didn't take me too long to come up with a solution to the dryer-in-the-window problem.  We are going to switch the washer & dryer with the laundry tub.  Since my ever-so-talented husband is making the cabinets in the laundry room (and some of the kitchen, the mudroom and the living room), we can make them low/shallow enough so they don't obstruct the window.  Problem solved!

Here is the original design...

...and the revised

For the laundry tub, we're doing something kind of unique.  A few years ago, my Mom and Dad brought me an old galvanized laundry tub with the wringer/roller still attached.  I think it came out of my grandparent's house.  It has sat on my floor really serving no purpose until I saw this picture ...

So I am going to have Preston (re. the ever-so-talented one) mount it on a cabinet and modify into a sink.  I'm hoping I can keep the wringer piece attached.  I'll have to see how much space it will take up, but I'm sure I'll integrate it somehow.

The other space we are integrating into the house plan are spaces for the dogs' beds.  In the old house, we put them in the middle of the hallway at night and put them away (ie. in front of the washer/dryer) in the morning.  Then out on the porch if you wanted to do laundry.  You get the picture.  So they are now going to have their own "space" beneath one of the cabinets similar to this one.  One will be in the laundry room and one in the mudroom. 

Traditional Kitchen design by Chicago Architect COOK ARCHITECTURAL Design Studio

Their food and water won't be in the middle of the floor either!

And did I mention you won't have to trip over/ through the mudroom to get to the laundry area? Ahhh, it's the little things.

Framing Update

Here is the progress at the end of day Friday.  It rained Monday, but the rest of the week is supposed to be beautiful.  Trusses are to be delivered this week.  Since we are building a "story and a half," the trusses will sit on the first floor walls and then the upstairs rooms will be framed within the room trusses.

They have chalked all the remaining walls, so I went around with a tape measure this weekend making sure they were correct.  I found one that was incorrect... the wall between the masterbath and closet had our closet at only 5' wide ... that would have been a little snug.  So fortunately I caught that before they framed it. 

The other "disconnect" I'll call it, is the wall between the two doorways that go into the kitchen.  This wall will have the wall oven/microwave cabinet with 2 adjacent cabinets and it was also supposed to have one of the old posts we pulled from the old house standing vertically and holding a horizontal post across the kitchen ceiling (with another vertical post on the other side).  Well, the wall wasn't quite drawn as long as it should have been, so no vertical post.  In fact, we need to have them put an additional stud in both doorways to add 3" to that wall to accommodate the cabinets and trim.  We're still going to have the beam go across the ceiling ... but disappointed I won't have the verticals.  Ah well, part of the building process... it doesn't always go as planned.

And in the category of "I thought I thought of everything..." I measured the height of the laundry room window (34") and the height of the dryer (36") and the depth of the wall (26") and the depth of the dryer from the wall (~30") ... the dryer will have a profile view from the window (which is in the front of the house) and more so if we buy the high efficiency versions in the near future.  It doesn't help that I am having window sills/ stools cased around my windows.  I'll talk with the trim carpenter to see if he has any ideas.  Preston suggested making a lower profile sill which sounded like a good one.  Move the washer and dryer?  Still an option.

P.S. In case you didn't know, you can double-click on the pictures and they get bigger and create a slide show view.

Opening at the left is the front door.  Openings at the right are the door to the deck and living room window .

Here you can see the 2 doorways to the kitchen & eat-in area.  That's the wall that is too narrow.  Through the doorways, you can see (from L-R) the pantry window, kitchen sink window and sliding door.

This is the other side of that same wall (sliding door... kitchen window)

Master bedroom with the last wall still on the floor.  Nice View!!!

Framing Starts!

Framing started Monday.  The basement load bearing walls are complete.  The deck is on the first floor.  They have framed the long wall that runs along the dining room, kitchen, pantry, master bath and master bedroom.  It's still laying on the deck, but they'll put it up tomorrow.

start of framing ... just the load bearing walls.  we'll finish the basement later.

setting the beam 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

looking into the walk out basement

future theater room

looking into mechanical room on left, bathroom on right and bedroom/office/exercise room in back

looking out the walkout ... there are always deer in this pasture.  We saw two a couple nights ago.

door on left goes to stairs; next door is closet under stairs

my kitchen window and the view once it's upright!!!  I'll see lots of deer.

this is the sliding door opening in the dining room

Preston and Annie standing at the entrance to the mudroom from the garage.

Game Room in Action

A little fun before the framing begins...

Colton and Terry racing RC cars in the garage.

Our cars will be a little bigger

Preston didn't have a car, so he brought in the golf cart to race.

Sweeping up the gravel and concrete dust...

Me cleaning house ALREADY!!

"What'd you go and do that for, Annie?!"

Stamp of Approval