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.