Build journal – Moving on up

Wow – how can it already be September!? Summer has just flown by! But it’s not officially over till September 22nd, so I’m holding onto it till then!

We really want to have the house weather-tight by November so we can get the concrete floors poured (we’re going to have radiant heated floors on the main floor and in the second floor bathroom) and then work on the interior of the house over the winter. It looks like we still have a long way to go to get there, but Brian is the slow & steady & quiet & confident type, so I’m sure we’ll get there if he says we will :-)

We’ve made some pretty good progress over the past couple of weeks. My last post was about framing the main floor, and this time around we’re moving on up to the second floor. But before we could do that, we had to install a set of temporary stairs.

 

Then we carried up lots of sheets of subflooring and started with installing it on the east end.

Hello there garage :-)

From below…

And then down the walkway to the west end…

And the west end. One more piece!

All done!

Too bad we have to put a roof on the house, this is the perfect spot for a picnic!

Plus the views aren’t too shabby either…

Next up is building the framing for the two end walls and then getting a crane to come in and lift framing and some beams and rafters up to the second floor.

Yep, these two goofballs are really building a house!

Build journal – House floor goes down

Seeing the garage come together has been exciting. But I have to say, seeing the house start to take shape is even more exciting! This is where we’re actually going to live, where we’ll have views of the ocean from every room, where we’ll sleep and eat and watch the boats out in our “backyard” :-)

The house build started with the excavation back in mid-May and the foundation was poured towards the end of May. Then the foundation exterior was sealed and back filled, and the footings for the deck were poured. Click here for all the details. We’ve done a lot of work since then, although I have to say it isn’t going fast enough for my impatient self! Here’s what we’ve done since my last update…

July 22nd – Putting the big floor beams in place.

July 24th – Gluing the foam insulation to the interior walls of the crawl space. I’m now a caulking gun expert :-)

And I created this lovely pile of glue poop – with the caulking gun, not my butt :-D

July 27th – Yay, foam insulation is all done!

July 30th – Installing the floor joists.

August 4th – Joists all done and starting to install the subfloor

Somebody (Brian) put the glue on the joists and was about to put down the first piece of subfloor, when someone else (Kelly) said, “But aren’t we supposed to put the fibreglass insulation between the joists first?” Someone (Brian) grunted and wouldn’t admit that someone else (Kelly) had a good point there, but someone else (Kelly) definitely was on the ball more than someone (Brian).

August 5th – Over halfway there! I’m also now nail gun expert.

August 6th – One more piece to go….

And the subfloor is done!

 

Now we can finally really see the footprint and walk through our house! Having no walls is just a minor detail ;-)