Ceiling Job

We are working on the porch ceiling and we are doing this expeditiously in order to prevent the birds from nesting in the open soffits at the roof eaves.  After the porch ceiling job, the next task on the agenda is complete the encapsulated crawlspace to the floor.  That should be a one or two day job.  We already have about  5 or 6 days of work completed in the crawlspace.  Once the crawlspace work is complete, we will start with the plumbing and the electrical work.  We picked up a 42 space/84 circuit 225 amp service panel in Idaho Falls last trip into town.  We want to go ahead and set the electric service entrance for the house up as soon as possible.  When we picked up the service panel we checked on the pricing of the service entrance cable and were told that it is going up in price daily.  Of course, we know the drill, prices have been doing this for over a year now.  Pretty much all the building material pricing is still insane.  We need to pull the service entrance cable about 70 ft through and underground conduit, so it is a special and large cable.

The good news this week is that my finger has healed very nicely.  We are pretty amazed that it did so well.  The young doctor did a fine job sewing it back up.  Before & after about 2 weeks later.

The siding subcontractor ran out of steel last week, as you can see at the northwest corner and at the gable peak.  That gave us the opportunity to install the porch ceiling material we picked up a week or so ago.  We want to get the porch ceiling up asap to keep the birds out of the open eaves.

A shot below of the completed north porch ceiling.  We installed a 45 degree transition as the ceiling wraps around the east side of the house.  For a couple of amateurs, we are pleased with how it turned out.

Action shot of Gari up on the ladder working the last 8 feet of porch ceiling.  The end is now in sight for this job!

Steve wielding the pneumatic staple/brad gun.  We picked this little gem up at Hobo Freight.  It has been perfect for the porch ceiling job.

The house is looking pretty complete from the outside, but the inside is another story.  Below is the kitchen and family room area.

Below is the kitchen area.  The kitchen sink will be under the left window.

July Construction

First construction injury this month for Steve.  Not much of anything else new around here this month.  We have been getting up early everyday and trying to do something in the house.  It isn't exciting, but there are a fair share of problems most days so it is interesting.  We never know what to expect next.  I think that's the way it is when you decide to do your own general contracting on a house build. 

While using the angle grinder, the cut off wheel broke and sliced the top of Steve's knuckle open.

Dr. Anna stitched Steve up with 7 stitches.  That exam room chair was almost as uncomfortable as the injury.

Gari takes a spin on our neighbor's 4 wheeler in the front yard.

The metal workers have been here for a couple of weeks and have most of the siding and roof completed.  It is looking almost finished on the outside, but is far from finished on the inside. Looking northwest below.  We call this the back of the house.  At frame right is what we call our front door on the east side of the house, but we call the east side the side. haha.

Looking north east below.  We call the right side of the frame the back of the house.  We will put the A/C compressor and the LP tank back there.

Looking southwest below.  We call the right side of the frame the front of the house, but there is no door there, haha, that's the way we roll.

We took on installing the porch ceiling to save $10k.  Gari points at a detail.  We completed about 15 ft of ceiling on our first day of installation.  We learned a number of things and discovered a few framing problems that we are correcting.  Fun, fun, fun.

Close up on our porch ceiling work.