The Start of the Finishing!

While framing continued upstairs, Simon continued to install doors and windows all week.


Working very carefuly and with great precision, he was able to install up to 4 doors each day.

The wall between Evan's room and the Kid's Den takes shape,

Evan's room, still full of lumber!

The arch top windows in the Master Bedroom were placed, involving a little bit of custom adapting!

More bedroom level framing was completed:

The huge iron front door arrived this week! It was so heavy that the full crew was needed to get it into place, and that was just the frame and the transom! 

The frame was bolted to the rough framing, then each door (without the glass) took 2 people to carry and set onto the hinges. After the door frame was plumbed and squared, the glass panels were hung onto the doors.

The plumbers made a lot of progress this week! This view of the crawlspace behind the kitchen shows all of the waste lines for the upstairs bathrooms:


The plumbing in the wall between bathrooms and above the crawl space was also worked on:

As soon as enough windows and doors were installed,  the waterproofers from All Year Roofing came and caulked around all of the windows:

I guess to be a roofer you can't have a fear of heights!

A special caulking heavy-duty was used,  and all gaps between ICF,  concrete and window jambs were completely sealed.

Thomas Craven, the garage door finisher, came by to show me some finish samples.  He had one that matched the door and window finish,  and I thought would look really nice for the garage doors,  so we made the deal! 

The waste line was extended from the fitting in the middle of the driveway to the north side yard.  This would take the waste from the master bathroom and the roof sink.

The raised floor for the tub area in the Master Bathroom was started.

The stairs between the lower and upper roof decks were formed,

as well as the upper roof deck parapet walls.

The fire sprinkler company started installing the special orange piping this week.  They went very quickly;  in just a few days,  most of the pipe was placed.  

I had my guys cut out the foam channels and notch the steel joists,  so it was fairly straight forward.  

We still had to figure out how to run the lines to the proper locations,  and get the sprinkler heads at the right height.  

Sometimes this would mean making a little loop at the sprinkler heads.

Next week, some more exterior details!

Framing the 2nd Floor

This week the fireplace was installed! The opening in the concrete was a little wide, as planned, so wood studs were anchored to the concrete for the fireplace to be attached to. The depth of the alcove was not quite deep enough so one of the laborers had to jackhammer a few inches off of the whole back side!

The flue was attached and extended as far as we had built the chimney. The installation company would return to extend it all the way up later.

The stone columns and moulding also arrived and were stacked in the house until we could install them.




Now that the last of the shoring has been removed, the second floor interior framing could be started. The center walls that aligned with the structural posts and plumbing were laid out first, then the rest of the walls were laid out around them. In this photo, Charlie is laying out the sill plates for Kyle's room.

The Master Bedroom Suite was also laid out. The wall below separates the Sitting room from the Bathroom.

Under this window will be the Master Bath.

Now that the windows and doors were finally on site, I was able to start installing them. The first ones in were the Kitchen/Great Room windows.


Tim Adams from All Year Roofing came by to offer advice on the first windows, making sure we installed the flashing properly so they would not leak.

The most challenging windows turned out to be the arch topped windows in the curved wall of the Master Bedroom tower. To simplify the forming of the wall, the openings were formed as rectangles, so now the openings needed to be adapted to fit the windows.

Most of the upstairs walls were framed, except for the ones blocked by the huge stacks of drywall!

The skylight openings with the forms removed:

Up on the roof, the forms were being set for the parapet walls. All the leftover shoring lumber was stacked on the roof to allow some clear working area on the bedroom level, which made it pretty crowded on the roof!

The round tower section forms were removed to make way for the parapet framing:

The South parapet wall with it's three openings is formed:

The 6' high east wall is formed:

As the forms rose around the roof deck, the pile of scrap wood and foam rose in the middle!

Soon I would have to take the time to get it all down to the recycling dumpster!

Next week, more doors and windows!

A Couple of Important Deliveries!

So much has been happening,  and I have not been able to keep up on the construction and the blog!  I have been taking pictures throughout,  and will try to recall the last month's progress!

In the second week of October the drywall was delivered for the entire house!  The process of "stocking" the house took most of the morning.  First,  two trucks full of drywall were unloaded in to neat stacks on the street.  

The Gradall Forklift then took one stack at a time and positioned it outside of the garage,  while the stocking crew slid it off the forklift and re-stacked it inside.  They next lifted a large stack to the livingroom.

Another stack was loaded into the kitchen.

Here the stockers are pulling double sheets of drywall into the kitchen through the window.      

Another big stack was set into the Master Bedroom,

Finally,  the rest of the drywall was lifted to the top level.  Since the stockers had to slide it in through the porch doors,  trhe drywall had to be loaded onto a special rack,  then lifted 33 feet abovee the street to the kids porch, slid in and stacked.  

The crew worked very hard and did a great job!

Also this week,  the HVAC crew came to do more duck work for the 2nd floor.

When we poured the 2nd floor,  there were quite a few places where I forgot to leave voids in the concrete for ducts,  so we have had to cut and chip a lot of holes in the concrete.  Lot's of noisy work!  Daniel is shown chipping a hole in the tower wall for a heater vent.

FINALLY,  the custom doors and windows arrived!  The journey from my design,  to ordering from Tikal Doors,  to manufacturing by Antigua Doors in Guatemala,  and finally to Buckingham was a long one,  delayed yet another week by Customs!  As luck would have it,  the container with my order was picked at random for a detailed Customs search. 

 Everything was pulled out,  piece by piece,  inspected,  then repacked.  Not very well re-packed,  in my opinion!  In fact,  one of the doors had a large scratch on it,  I'm sure because it was so badly repacked by the Customs Office. 

When the container arrived,  it was parked at the bottom of Buckingham,  and each door and window was unloaded and carried up to the lot.

The smaller doors and windows were carried up the path,  and the larger unites were pulled up to the house on a ramp in front of the garage.  Some of these double doors were HEAVY!

All of the doors and windows were stockpiled in the round tower room for later installation.