Siding Begins!

The very first pieces of siding are on the building!

Nothing But Net (Insulation Continues)

Netting is going up on the exterior walls; this netting is what holds the cellulose in place until the drywall is installed. 

The Foam Ghost (Insulation Begins)

This apparition was seen in the Kitchen, spewing ectoplasm.

Piles Upon Piles

Schtuff

One of the features of being your own General Contractor - you end up with quite a lot of products & materials to store.

This is one side of our Dining Room.  Here you see doors, screens, an oven, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, weatherstripping, curtain track, tile, door hardware, nails, and spray foam, among other items.

The other wall of the room is similarly stacked.

Shiny

Living Room view West toward Dining & Entry

Ladies & Gentlemen - drum roll please - the first finished surface in the building.

Our polished concrete slab turned out nicely! 

Photos below.

Fine Grind

How to churn mud and almost hit everything.

Today the floor slab grinding & polishing guys arrived.

We are very, very excited (and a little nervous) to see the end result.

High Winds

Hard to tell from the photo, but we are having a massive wind storm right now.  The large roof overhang is flexing just a little in the biggest gusts (just the bottom corners - the ridge is solid).  Power is out in nearby blocks.  I've been collecting flying debris from around the yard.  

A friend is reporting on FB that her roof shingles are literally flying away.  Yikes!  

Upper Soffit Underway

Soffit, with stepped vent detail

The soffit is underway!  Even though were are not quite ready for siding, the siding contractor has arrived.

Since we can't start the siding yet, we got going on the upper roof soffit. 

Had a few minor design issues that had to be revised on the fly to account for framing conditions.
Florentino is doing a great job, and we are very pleased with the results.

Spray Foam Foray

Have Gun, Will Not Travel

Taking on the perimeter foam sealing of the windows and doors myself, for better or worse.

Got a professional foam gun, and some cans of low-expanding foam, and today I gave it a shot.

Roofing Woes

Still only a partially-finished roof.  A number of issues have been encountered:

Studies

Massive Massing Studies

So a couple of Architects finally get to design their own home.

There is a chance, it seems, that they might go a little overboard studying every possible permutation before settling on a scheme.

Above is an early 3d exploration of the building massing in relation to the site.

Somewhere along that line of variations was the seed of an idea that grew into the building currently being constructed.

Plans in Alignment

Another example: the drawing above is an AutoCad study showing a line of fairly well-developed floor plans, each differing in some way. 

Starting with "A", each plan was assigned a letter.  We ran out of alphabet and just began double letters before we circled back and ultimately chose plan "U" for further development.

An unusual effort perhaps, but for us this approach was a useful tool.  It was hard initially to fight the feeling of "one more missing better option".  The idea that hasn't been explored is hard to quantify.  By going ahead and drawing up every permutation we could think of (within reasonable constraints), we could more easily weigh them against each other. 

Some plans were easy to eliminate, but they served as good reminders that we had covered that ground.  Some were good solid contenders, and much harder to choose between. Of the solid options, we eventually decided that one of them was the right balance for us.

Wired

Rawrr!

For the last (almost) 2 weeks, the electricians have been running wire all over the house. 

Tomorrow we have our rough-in inspection scheduled.

Misc tales of an electrical nature below.