House Construction Firmly Underway!

Jumping right into what's been going on at the ranch in the last three months--

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!

Photo cred: contractor Dave

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:

Photo cred: contractor Dave

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:

Hello sunset viewings from our bedroom!

Showing the recently framed his and hers walk in closets:

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....

The latest update: Christmas edition

Merry Christmas!

This post is doubling as a Christmas update this time, with details on the house at the end.

Since last year, we have finished a bedroom and bathroom in the basement, which has really helped out our family living arrangements in our small house!  After a few deep breaths, we decided to tackle another house project (yes, right after I said no more house projects), and do flanking east/west additions, nearly doubling our livable space.  The thing that makes this project different than any we have tackled so far is the inclusion of a General Contractor.  We can now claim most of our weekends back from the clutches of house project intensity!!!!  For this I am thankful.

A glimpse of simple floor plans:

We spent Easter in VA with my parents, touring the Goodstone Inn, a country bed and breakfast remodel project my dad had been working on for some time, and celebrating my mom's birthday.

The Good grands with their grandchildren:

We managed a trip to Ocean City, MD for Mother's day, which included a few rainy days, a visit to Assateague, a discovery museum, miniature golf (of course!) a visit with dear friends, and a bad burn on Zoe's ankle from hot coffee.

For Father's Day at a local restaurant:

Our family also got a chance to visit Mackinac Island on a leg of our trip up to Michigan in August.  I had never been, and it had been a long time since Gabe had been.  We spend 3 days at the Grand Hotel with Gabe's parents, exploring around the island while Papa Cropsey attended the prosecutor's conference.  Judah and Zoe loved biking around the island with Daddy and I loved taking in all the grand decor of an iconic hotel.  We enjoyed sunny days touring an old fort, biking around the island, dressing up for fancy dinners and meeting up with dear friends there as well.

The next leg of that trip was to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes and Traverse City on the way back to Gabe's parent's place.  Gabe and Judah had fun hiking up the dunes, while my fond memories lie in looking for Petoskey stones at the shore.  Both children enjoyed playing together on the beach at Mission Point Lighthouse:

We stopped at Grand Rapids for a brief visit with some more dear friends, before arriving at Gabe's parents place to spend almost a week there with them.  We enjoyed cousin time playing Legos, watching some fireworks, riding tractors with Papa, visiting new playgrounds and good ol' fashioned sitting around the dinner table reconnecting with family members.

The whole Cropsey clan with two to be added in the next couple weeks/months:

And Cropsey grands with their grandchildren:

Later in the year, our family at a local fall festival (a la Christmas card):

Next is the kiddos in their Thanksgiving best, Judah reading a book to Zoe (his one and only, so far, reading to sister debut.  Staged by Gabe, knowing this book reading would get them to smile and be distracted from the camera!)

Same book, different day.  Super cute video!!

Lastly, we were honored to have Gabe's parents come visit from MI and my brother Ian and his wife Kate visit from NYC for Zoe's dedication-a time when we as parents make a public profession to nurture and raise children for the glory of God.  We are thankful to God for the blessing of our children and wanted to acknowledge before Him and our community this responsibility and our reliance on God in this endeavor.

We also took the opportunity to get a Good family photo while we were at it :)

An outtake:

"Just us" photo:

We also had an opportunity while family was in town for Thanksgiving to visit the National Zoo.  It was Zoe's first time at the big zoo and we enjoyed hearing tigers chuffing, seeing a baby orangutan and big pandas, and other interesting "am-als".

If you are still reading (Hi!!) I'll give a brief update on each of us.

Gabe started with a new company in May and continues to engineer solutions both for his job and his building/remodeling hobby.  He enjoys playing and reading with the kids when he gets home, getting his hands dirty in house projects when he can (wanna switch out a septic line, anybody?) and occasional game nights with guys from church.  We are thankful to have joined a shepherd group  again, after a few years hiatus.

Bethany (I) have been nursing a few maladies this last year, while juggling parenting responsibilities and house designing.  I was diagnosed with tendinitis in my left foot (diagnosis changed to chronic foot pain later in the year) as well as a ganglion cyst in my left wrist that was giving some problems.  My wrist has currently resolved itself with a minorly invasive procedure and I am in physical therapy for my foot, trying to practice the art of relaxing to alleviate the nerve issues that have arisen since the original diagnosis.  May this not define me next year!  I am grateful for any chance have to hit the gym and hang out with other moms, in playgroup and in my evening "mothership" group.  When I can, I enjoy jewelry making, sewing and dabbling in homeschooling :)

Judah is learning and growing so much!  He is 90% for height--usually every where he goes, people think he's older than he is.  He is exuberant, can be gregarious and boisterous--enjoying a good laugh with his Papa and Gramps, when he can.

He is really getting into Legos these days and he loves books.  He has a very helpful and thoughtful spirit, seems to be mechanically minded, and has a flair for anything silly.  He occasionally will put puzzles together, if he can get around his sister's grabby fingers.  When he has some alone time with Mommy or Daddy, he likes to play Chutes and Ladders, Go Fish or Crazy 8's.  He and I have been going thru a preschool curriculum called God's Little Explorers, loosely, making scripture stories come alive with fun activities, such as acting out David and Goliath---he liked that one :)

This kid is probably the sweetest boy I know and I'm so glad he's my son!!

Zoe girl is also really tall for her age (go figure)--about 90% too.  This girl is FULL of personality--she attacks life with gusto and enthusiasm.  She is very nurturing with her baby dolls and has a knack for destroying books with love.  She's in a phase now where she is saying new words almost every day, which is a lot of fun.  Zoe is particularly curious, being our climber and adventurer, so far.  She happens to love Judah's boisterous play, having always been a pretty tough cookie.  She plays hard and she sleeps hard.  You could say the girl has spunk.  Ok, I'll say it.  The girl's got spunk!!!

And she gives so many kisses!!  For how busy she is, she can be just so sweet!!

*********************************************************

And now for the latest, in house project news, and I'll be brief:

Concrete footers poured:

Concrete setting on the east addition, driveway side:

Concrete setting on the west side, where master bedroom will be:

Looking down at the east addition from the deck:

Walking on newly minted concrete:

Repairing septic line:

Concrete block foundation going up, starting at the corners:

Note repaired septic line

Hopefully, the garage slab can be poured next week!  But of course this depends on the weather and the availability of the concrete guy.

May you experience wonder and joy in God's love for us through Jesus this holiday season and always!

"See" you in 2018!!!