Almost done enough to receive C of O

This pic is a bit outdated since we've had two snowfalls since then and now have at least a foot and a half of snow at the house. But, we are finally pretty close (within a few weeks) to getting the certificate of occupancy, which was our goal before winter so we could take a break from working on the house. It has been a long, very hard year with Jeff working every weekend and as much as he could during the week along with a demanding full time job. This project has taken every spare ounce of our energy and money and has been pretty stressful. Although we didn't quite get done before the snow arrived, it looks like it will actually finally happen and I can't express how relieved we are. Here is the stairway going up and parking area. Front deck. Back deck. Bathroom. Doors. Partial kitchen. Went with a solid granite sink, and temporary butcher block counters, we'll change to concrete and add some nice appliances when we have more time and money.

Flooring, back deck, bathroom tile

The past few weeks have been spent finishing drywall, painting, trimming windows and doors, wiring outlets and switches, installing lighting, pouring concrete for the parking pad and tiling the shower/bath. Looking back, quite a lot has been accomplished and things have gone pretty smoothly, but it has still been a stressful month trying to stay on schedule. This is the beginning of the back deck. Here is the flooring going in. 5 inch heart pine flooring is going in on a 1/2 inch soundproofing material. Flooring operations on the front deck. Here is the main floor shower bath with a whirlpool tub, can't wait for that, Brooke will love it. Here is the kitchen ready for flooring and cabinets. So, we have just given our notice where we are living with plans to be moved out by the end of November. 5 weeks and counting...Yikes, now the pressure is really on! So, what remains is basically flooring, cabinets, bath and shower fixtures, countertops, back deck and exterior grading. I'm sure it will be a busy month!

Exterior stairs, retaining walls, drywall

Once again, I can't believe a month has passed since the last time I posted. Lets see, well we have exterior stairs finally, which not only makes accessing the house so much easier, I think look great. We also have a retaining wall which really cleans up the entry area. We will pour more concrete stairs for access to the upper parking area soon. This is the lower parking pad. Amazing how flat the city requires the grade to be... 12% is basically flat and it required quite a bit of grading here. Need to pass final inspection and then these retaining walls can be finished. Finally passed plumbing and electrical inspections and were able to start on drywall inside. This is the wall between master bedroom and what will be Savannah's room for now. So, time is flying by! Next we have trim work, drywall finishing and then comes flooring and cabinets. We have been agonizing over these two decisions for months, but I think we are finally done and making those orders.

Windows, deck, and stairs

The installation of the front gable windows and front deck dramatically change the appearance of the front of the house. Exciting to see our vision take shape. View from the front deck. Gable windows. Completed deck. Interior stairs to the loft. Front patio doors. Pouring concrete for exterior stairs. Can't wait till those are completed. We were hoping to have completed the plumbing and be ready to start closing in walls, but the city decided to require us to change an entire floor of plumbing from pvc to cast iron. Supposedly it is for fire safety, but its not something typically required and it sets us back a week and a significant amount of $$. Ugh, the inspections continue to be difficult. So, that is what this next week entails followed by more window installations, building exterior stairs, ordering flooring and cabinets and lots more to stick to our goal of completion by the end of Oct.

So, already almost a month since the last blog... I guess I've been a little distracted with a baby due any day now, but that's not to say there hasn't been progress at the home site. The front and back gables were framed in, just barely in time to make the window order and take advantage of another window sale at Home Depot. We were a little stressed about the measurements as it became quite a time crunch, but it worked out. They should arrive the first week of August. Most of the windows have been installed and look good. This is the only entrance to the main level at the moment till we get the front deck finished. Its a little precarious for me 9 months pregnant, but soon we will have the deck done and won't have to walk the plank to enter. We are really excited about how the loft railing looks. The stair landings are in place and should be done soon. Walls for bathroom. Wall for master walk-in closet/bathroom. Unloading wood. If they can plan in advance the local hardware store delivers for free, but that's often not the case. Poured concrete for the deck piers. We were unfortunately one log short for the deck posts using leftover pieces so had to track one down. I called around to see if there had been any recent logging where we could go out and pick it up. No one could give me this info but finally directed me to a logging business that had could help. This guy had some leftover logs cut down in the burn area from last year's big fire. He said we could have one for $20 if we could come get it. Without the option of a better trailer, we drove out there with the boat trailer hoping it would be able to do the job. We were a bit stressed driving pretty far back in the mountains on dirt roads with the boat trailer to get here, but were happy we'd made the trip. He loaded it on and it seemed the trailer would hold it ok. Jeff managed to back the trailer up the steep driveway. They tied the end while Jeff pulled away and it was fortunately unloaded without incident. So, still working on plumbing and electrical, walls, stairs and deck... Trying to make decisions on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanity. Everything is going along ok for the moment.

Plumbing, loft floor, windows, and deck footings

Still working on multiple fronts. Progress could be better if we didn't have to deal with inspections, which often feel like just jumping through hoops... Weather was also a factor a few weeks ago when we had a few really cold days with rain and some hail. Jeff also decided to take a rare weekend off and go out of town to celebrate Brooke's 2 year b-day. Otherwise, here is the progress over the past few weeks. We have scratch coat on the icf walls. This is how we will leave it for awhile and cover it with stone next spring. Jeff had planned to do more of the plumbing himself, but it proved too time consuming. Mario had a guy who isn't too busy and is doing it for a discounted rate. He has done a good job so far and will be doing much of the electrical work too. This is the gas line running upstairs and outside too if we want to use it for direct hookup to the bbq. Pad for heater is poured and installed. This is the footing required for building a load bearing wall to support the upstairs. If inspections go well today, we'll be pouring concrete in this and the front deck footings this week. Windows and doors for the main level finally arrived from Home Depot. I had been worried about the colors of the doors matching the windows since they came from different manufactures (Atrium and Jeld-Wen) so we could take advantage of some sales. But, they are a close match, dark bronze aluminum clad exterior and wood interior. These should all be installed soon. The loft floor is complete and this shows where the main floor bedroom (Brooke's room) and bathroom will be. Still need to cut the hole for the bath window, we've been waiting to make sure we know how the venting is going to run up first. This is the future kitchen and door going out to the back deck. Finally, we got to get up on the loft floor where the master bedroom and bath will be and check out the view. This picture doesn't do it justice at all. The lake view is amazing and the view of the mountains out the back is beautiful too. This last weekend we finalized the window plan for the gable ends you see above. Harder than you'd think especially in the back where we are trying to plan the bedroom furniture and bath layout so windows are best placed. In the end, we decided to place the bed against the sloped ceiling wall and make this gable almost entirely windows like the front, the view is just too good.

Roof and walls completed, working on loft floor and plumbing

The roof was completed without any problems in a few days. We are happy with our decision to go with the shingles vs. the metal. We were also glad to get it done by a licensed contractor who needed the work and did it for much less than the other companies in town would have. Mario had some extra plywood so he and his crew built some temporary doors for the basement in no time. It will be great to be able to leave more tools at the property now instead of constantly moving them back and forth. The basement will remain unfinished this year and we will get permits and finish building it out next spring. Digging trenches in the basement for utilities required a bit of jackhammering boulders, but not too bad. We need to pour a footing for the water heater and furnace as well as build one wall for plumbing and gas to run upstairs. Plumbing has been a little difficult to plan but we are getting through it. Inside, we've been mainly working on building the loft floor, which you see below. This week the beams will be inspected and they can lay the t&g on top. We're waiting on some changes to our plan from the engineer and we can build the stairs to the loft, start building the front deck and stairs which will serve as our main entry off the front for now till the basement is finished. We have also been working to design the windows for the gables, which seems to be coming together. As soon as we can get up in the loft and walk things out, we can feel confident with our window plan for the master bedroom and bath and go ahead and start framing and order those windows. Windows and doors for the main level will be delivered in the next week or two and we can start installing those. So, lots happening on different fronts. Good progress, but not without constant stress that its not going fast enough, but money is... I'm sure this will continue to be the case.

Well, can't believe its been 3 weeks already since the last post. A lot has been happening, but we're basically still working on the same things I mentioned last time. The roof is coming along, amazing how many steps there are, most of which include an inspection by the city. City inspectors have been a little particular, requiring extra detail from the engineer, which slowed things a little. But, at this point we should have the roof completed by the end of the week. As I'd mentioned, we'd wanted a standing seam metal roof, but bids came in higher than we'd expected and we started to have second thoughts. We priced just getting the materials from a wholesaler and having our crew do it, but materials were still really expensive. Eventually, we decided that the extra money we'd save (cost is about a third as much) going with a regular shingle roof could be better spent on other things. And, a big deciding factor was that our house sits on an upslope lot and you can't even see the roof from the front of the house. So, we've picked out some charcoal colored shingles and found a roofing contractor that needs work and will do it for $15 an hour. We should have the roof completed this weekend. The other major tasks have been finishing the log walls. It took longer than we'd expected, about 10 days to sand the entire thing and our crew went through tons of sanding discs. But, we were happy with the results. Despite sanding off several layers of wood, these logs have a lot of black grain that shows through, but it lends a rustic feel to them. You can see the difference on the overdangles which were left black since they will be cut shorter. After lots of samples on log pieces, we finally went with an oil-based stain by Cabot in a natural color. Since we won't be moving in for at least six months, we were told there would be no voc's to worry about. Cabot makes a good, long lasting product and we're hoping to have it last as long as possible. ,Then comes the chinking. We'd known this would be a time consuming project. It took about 2.5 days to chink the first exterior wall with two guys working on the wall and one below mixing concrete. The next few walls were a little quicker as they had more openings, but it still takes about 2 days per wall. Inside should be easier though, with a floor to work on. Its exciting to see the wall looking finished though and we really like how its turning out. This weekend, we'll start laying out the plumbing for the basement so we can pour a slab. Then, as soon as the walls and roof are done we'll start building the loft floor and stairs. Jeff has been staining the flooring at home every evening for this project. We've ordered windows and doors for the main level and those should be arriving in about a month. Building the front deck and stairs from the outside is also a priority since this will be the entry till we can finish the basement down the road. Lots happening at once, but still so much to do.

Roofing, Sanding Logs, Digging Trench for Utilities

Our crew has continued work on the roof, which has included laying the TGIs and the facia around the edges. We are now getting quotes for the metal roof and hoping it fits in our tight budget. Jeff installed the recessed lighting over the weekend. We have cans throughout the greatroom/dining room, in the upstairs master bath/walk-in closet and on the front and back overhangs for our outdoor deck lighting. Our workers have now just about completed sanding the inside and outside of the log walls and they look so pretty (pics to come.) Sanding turned out to be easier than pressure washing and scrubbing. We still plan to spray on a chemical cleaner and then need to use the borates to treat for termites before being ready to stain. Today and yesterday the graders came to dig the utility trench. In a few days they lay the pipes and wiring for gas, electric, water and cable. Exciting to see such progress but a little stressful to see money fly out the door at this rate. Still, our goal at this point is to finish asap and get a certificate of occupancy so we can refinance the loan.