I'll start with the east wing addition since there is less progress on it :)
On a snowy day after a lot of progress had been made building up the concrete walls:
A couple of days later, on a December weekend we realized we needed to make room for a pile of gravel and a neighbor building a house and moving into the area was asking for some extra fill dirt. And we happened to have some! So, Gabe made 7 or 8 loads with a borrowed trailer of LOTS of dirt to the neighbors house. He made sure to have a little fun with the borrowed bobcat and his 4 year old son:
Notice the space freed up for a load of gravel the following Monday!
Contractor Dave still had a good bit of work to do to grade down the dirt where the garage pad was going to go.
The ground was so hard and compacted from where the driveway had been, he had to manually grade it in some spots, hiring a few guys to help.
All prepped and ready to go for concrete pour!
And then, the day we left for Christmas break, the concrete truck arrived to pour the slab for the garage!! It was fun to be there for a little bit of it!
Oh the excitement of a cement mixer!
Kids loved watching (us adults did too):
The morning was chilly, so it slowed down the process a little at first, but ultimately it was not cold enough to stop them!
Freshly paved!
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| Photo cred: contractor Dave |
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| Photo cred: contractor Dave |
Quite a few weeks passed by, while Dave worked on the west wing, before this picture was taken:
He was filling the top holes of the concrete block with more concrete to install bolts to attach the sill plates for wood frame walls.
About a week ago, Dave started framing the east wing walls. It was a beautiful day, perfect for watching!
This exciting step goes so fast!
Just this last weekend, Gabe tackled the replacing of our mudroom/basement door. It did a poor job keeping the cold out anyways and the storm door would need to be removed soon anyway if we were going to finish up the frame walls of the garage.
Gabe removes the door and the trim:
Funny story about the door just removed--it so happened to be a windy day, from the south, and would have knocked the door over if Gabe had not caught it! He promptly moved the door to prop it against the brick wall ;)
An overview of the current state of the framed walls this last Saturday:
Varying stages of doneness:
Okay. Now I want to back track a bit and detail the west wing addition. There is much more visual progress here!
Rewind back to the middle of November. It's amazing to notice how far we've come in 2 1/2 months!
Reminder of freshly poured footings on the west side:
Almost a month later, concrete walls going up, corners first:
And then the task of grading down, much easier than on the east side:
Complete right before Christmas.
Our contractor sent us a few pictures of his progress while we were out of town:
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| Photo cred: contractor Dave |
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| Photo cred: contractor Dave |
And then Dave surprised us with all the progress he had made when we returned, right after the new year:
He had finished the joists, platform, frame walls, some roof joists, and some sheathing. We were impressed he had placed the ridge beam BY HIMSELF. What???
A couple of days later he was finishing roof joists, working on placing windows, finishing the sheathing on walls and roof:
And then home wrap/vapor barrier:
A couple days later, he accomplished the fascia and some prep work for roof sheathing (shingles):
Here it can be seen that until the power line is moved he can't finish the roof:
Some shots of the interior:
Imagine the existing brick staying in our master bedroom. Yes! Without the power meter there, of course :D
The window on the new north wall (pictured below) will be enclosed in the "her's" walk in closet.
Looking at this brick wall below, imagine there is the hall door cut right down the middle, in-between the two windows. There will be a small 2' door overlapping somewhat with the left window which will lead to the future master bathroom (currently "Zoe's bedroom"--she sleeps in the basement with us currently). The master bathroom will be a project for another time and not under the scope of what our contractor Dave will be doing for us before the summertime.
After a frustrating morning trying to locate the actual shingles of our roof (that was replaced less than a year ago), Dave hustled and accomplished most of the shingles on the westerly addition.
From the back:
I'd say it looks great! It it a slight shade darker, but will fade out as the existing roof has done in just a little over 6 months.
From the front side:
Dave has to keep it tarped over until the power line situation can get taken care of.
He framed in the large triangular transom window in the master bedroom:
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| Hello sunset viewings from our bedroom! |
The framed south window--larger for egress:
Over the next couple of days, the contractor worked on things that aren't so visible, like hurricane ties for the joists, blocking and adding electrical boxes. He placed a window order, which was exciting!
Last week was pretty slow around here, waiting on a few materials ordered, acquiring electrical permit so we can move forward moving the power lines underground.
This week already proves to be more exciting since we got 2 metal I beams delivered this morning, one of which is 800-1000 lb and will be the headers for the garage doors:
East wing trusses will be delivered on Friday! FriYAY! Can't wait to see the east wing addition take shape!!
More to come....
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