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.

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.