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!