Getting There

The visible progress seems to be slowing down now, but good things continue to happen on the house construction project.  The big news this past week is that we got the house roof dried in, that is the water & ice shield roof adhesive underlayment is now installed on the house portion of the roof.  We share a few pictures below to document the continued progress.

The Shop Beautification Project was completed by Michelle & Jim.  We thought it was a very nice touch and much appreciated.

This past week the garage roof was installed.  The first garage truss goes up in the picture below.  It is the same pitch and size as the house roof, but it is just 4 feet higher than the house roof.

First thing this past week, Nate & Chet finished installing the roof sheathing on the south side of the house.  The atmosphere was unsettled and those guys finished the job!  It rained hard a couple hours later and we squeegeed out many gallons of water from the house floor... again, even though the roof sheathing was now on.

Last garage roof truss set.

Chet building out the Outlookers on the garage roof

Nate hangs wall sheathing on the west garage wall.

Nate & Chet made short work of the west wall and moved to the front.

Now sheathing the common house/garage wall.

Common house/garage wall completed.

Nate makes the compound cut to the corner outlooker in the stiff wind.

Now the garage roof sheathing.

Just about all the sheathing completed... except the east gable end which you will see.

The siding/roofing crew came out Friday and dried in the house roof with the adhesive underlayment water & ice.  Now if it rains we shouldn't get much water at all on the house floor.  The weather became increasingly windy on Friday and the guys had to stop with finishing the house roof.  We are tentatively expecting the roofing crew to return Monday afternoon and dry in the garage roof.  You can see the east end gable wall that is the remaining wall to be sheathed. 

Gari & I performed a beta install test on the smaller foam board that fits into the floor joist bays.  It went together easier than we anticipated.  We manufactured foam board pieces for about 20 of the 72 joist bays in a couple of hours.  Not so bad.  We installed two layers of 2" foam board for a total thickness of 4".  It is starting to feel like a Yeti cooler down in the crawlspace.  We will use expanding foam around the edges of the joist bay pieces to lock them in place.  We cut the 2" foam board with a Brisket Knife.  You can see the 14" knife laying on the footing at frame bottom right.  That knife is SHARP!!!

Looking good down there.  We will place 2 layers of foam board on the ground as the last part of the foam board installation. 

Concluding photo for the end of last week.  Lift in place to complete the east end gable sheathing on Monday morning.  House roof dried in.  The windows and french door are here and you an seem them below, sitting on the porch wrapped in plastic.  With any luck and good weather we may get some of the windows installed this coming week.  Siding crew wants to start July 5th.  Exciting times for us here in Swan Valley.

We leave this blog post with Michelle's flowers of love in front of the Shop.

First Week of the Roof

The weather did not cooperate completely this past week, we had some rain and lots of high winds.  We made some progress nevertheless.  The pictures tell the story.

A couple rays of sunshine break through the clouds and fall on Mt Baldy.

This is where we stopped for the week; all roof trusses up on the house and partial roof sheathing installed on the north side.

First roof truss swings toward the roof.  Gari's job was pulling the ground steady line.

Steve's job was guiding and holding the far end while Nate and Chet made the connections.

We got into a rhythm installing the roof trusses.  Steve fetched the lifting strap from the last truss set, while Gari positioned and rigged the next truss for lifting.  Nate operated the lift while Chet finished installing fasteners and blocking.

We were able to get all the house roof trusses installed last week, garage roof trusses may be completed this coming week, we will see, more rain is forecast.  Below, Nate builds out the Outlooker Rafters from his lift platform.

Nate makes the compound cut on the corner outlooker.  He used his speed square to establish the cut markings.  He made it look easy.

Fascia board going up courtesy of Nate and Chet under the watchful eye of Inspector #1.

We started a beta test on installing the foam board in the to be encapsulated crawl space this weekend.  It went very well and we completed installing approximately half of the foam board on the walls.  There is still lots to do, but it was a great start for a beta test.

 And that folks is where we stopped at the end of last week.

We post a few parting shots taken last week.  This is the front door side of the house where our view windows will be installed.

Garage needs roof rafters.

We are still working on the east side of the driveway.  There is more gravel to install then we will line with the larger river rock that we have collected.

Materials are dwindling; the tall stack is the roof sheathing 5/8" OSB.

Michelle beautifies the place.

The Week of the Walls

This past week has been a hard working busy week on the house build project.  There's a lot to tell, so I think this post will be pretty long.  After completing the floor system last week and getting a few exterior wall sections stood up, this week completed the walls exterior and interior, a little bit of wall sheathing installed and the porch columns and beams set.  Next week we believe that we are ready to start lifting the roof trusses on installing the roof system.  We received 180 each, 4'x8'x2" EPS foamboard panels for encapsulation of the crawlspace.  We had worked hard to receive the foamboard before the floor system was installed, but that didn't happen.  We missed the delivery by two or three days because a delay in shipping.  We are now placing each individual foamboard panel into the crawlspace via the 32"x54" crawlspace access hatch located inside the pantry.  After one week we have about 60 panels of foamboard under the house.  Doors and windows arrive next week we are told.

Gari in the garage after a long hard week of work. 

A little commemorative concrete work in the driveway made from the left over concrete from all the pours.  This will end up being covered by the 3/4 gravel.  We poured the leftovers here because we needed to build up the elevation.  It should be an excellent base.

A midweek view of the House and Shop from the north driveway.

Nate and Chet raise the south garage wall with the Cat loader.

Chet and Steve pull the west garage wall into place as Nate secures the wall connection  from the ladder.

Nate maneuvers the loader into place to set the north overhead garage door opening wall.

Front view of the completed garage walls.  Partial north house wall is up too.  We have three window rough openings there!

We're checking out our window views as soon as a window opening goes up.  Below is our guest bedroom window.  We love this view; come see us, you will too.  You can just barely see Stewart Peak (10,101 ft) in Wyoming.  The snow stays up there most of the summer.  Just to frame right of Stewart Peak you can clearly see Red Ridge (8,900 ft) which is located near the Palisades dam, about 8 miles away from the guest bedroom window.

Nate considers his next move as a few exterior walls are now built out on the floor.

The loader lifts the big triple window wall section.  This window has the same view as the guest bedroom window.  The story here is that the LVL window header got cut too short, oh no!  That was an expensive boo boo.  (Laminated Veneer Lumber) so Gari hooked up the flatbed trailer and rode over the Pine Creek Pass to Victor, Idaho to get a replacement while the guys kept working.  She saw a mama moose on her way over, and on the way back saw the calf moose there with her mama.  That was nice.

All exterior walls stood up below.  Gari walks through and checks everything out.  The view is looking in from the garage entry door and seeing Mt Baldy (9,800 ft) to the east.  The snow is usually gone by mid June, which isn't far off.  It was 80 F in the valley today.

Northwest elevation view below, all exterior walls complete.

Progress this week didn't stop with the exterior walls, Nate and Chet were back the next day building out the interior walls.

Below is our floor plan to help you visualize our layout if you're interested.  We are looking forward to using the wrap around porch!

Below we see the first few panels of exterior wall sheathing that went up.  That is the south side of the house and garage.  You can see our porch columns staged at the porch's edge in the second picture below.  They will be set soon enough....

Gari and Michelle check out the east view from the Great-room window.  Our neighbors ride by on their horses at the foot of Mt. Baldy.

We had to make up our closet door selections on the fly as Chet asked what the rough openings should be.  We wrote the R.O. numbers on the small note paper that he has in his hand.  Nate works the modification we made to the master bedroom closet below.  We added a chamfer to the closet corner that is just inside the bedroom door. 

We won't get tired of the view of Mt. Baldy.

All walls, exterior and interior complete, more exterior wall sheathing installed.  Loader work platform sits out front on the rough driveway area.

Hamburger Friday, Nate starts work trimming to length and setting the porch columns.  We cooked hamburgers for Nate and Chet at lunchtime, hence Hamburger Friday.  Excitement was high for this momentous event lol.

All porch columns set, first porch beam going in.  Chet works from the ladder to pull the beam into the pocket at the garage wall.  This approach of using an 11" x 3/8" lag screw ended in injury.  The lag screw started to pull the beam, but stopped after the head became buried in the garage wall stud.  While investigating, Chet touched the lag with the edge of his hand and was immediately branded by the extremely hot lag screw!  Owie!  The lag screw had to be cut off with a grinding wheel.

The next approach used a large squeeze clamp.  This approach worked well and without problem or injury.

End of the day Friday below.  Porch columns and beams in place, with all architectural connection hardware installed.