Big Progress

This weekend was an incredibly productive weekend, despite the weather. It is finally starting to look like a house, not a nuclear bomb bunker. I have walls standing up out of the ground, and I can start to see my rooms, doors, and windows.

Having the Tennessee Hillbilly (who would prefer to be referred to as the Bicycling Hillbilly) up all week to work was a tremendous help! He and I would build walls while Dad laid out plates ahead of us. We had a pretty good system going this week. Vic has requested that we give a shout out to his wife in Tennessee...so hi Lisa! Thank you for letting us borrow your husband for the week! It has been great fun.

Saturday we had a full crew out working. Laura took the day off from studying to come help us, and Grandpa showed up to help also. Then Mom came out after her tournament to work. We were able to run two compressors and nail guns which made the walls go together pretty quickly. Saturday was a pretty miserable day, weather-wise. It was cold, cloudy, windy and wet. Dad gave Grandpa the "rookie" job when he got there. He was building wall partitions. It's pretty much two 2x4 studs, with three 2x4 blocks in between to give us something to nail adjoining walls to. Dad said he built thousands of those when he started working with Grandpa when he was growing up. Laura and I thought maybe it was payback...but Dad says he gave that job to Grandpa so he could work standing up at the saw horses. Good thinkin' Dad! However, Grandpa is a very industrious worker and finished a pile of those in no time, so he and Laura teamed up to build some walls. Laura laughed because the process she and Grandpa used was slightly different than the one Vic and I used. Vic would position the stud and then say, "good" and I would nail it. Laura and Grandpa's process was Laura would be positioning the stud, Grandpa would nail and say, "good?" before it was positioned. :) Regardless of methods, we built and sheeted a fair amount of walls, but couldn't stand them up due to the high winds. I then took my crew to Pat and Jerry's for dinner. The entertaining stories from Grandpa and Vic were a great ending to the day.

Sunday it was Dad, Mom, Vic and myself working. When Dad and I arrived at the house there was frost all over the floor and the walls. So we grabbed a couple brooms to sweep them off in hopes of the floor drying a bit quicker. Dad swept all of his frost into a nice pile, made a snowball, and threw it at me. I am thankful that he doesn't have the aim of my mother with his tosses...it missed. :) As you can see from the pictures, Sunday turned out to be a fabulous day...blue sky, sunshine, not much wind. The outhouse bandit was at it again this weekend. She locked Vic in the outhouse, but he broke himself out. We did find out that she can dish it out, but is afraid to take it. When she needed to use the outhouse she didn't trust us not to lock her in, so she drove to Auburn!

As you can see, we made some great progress this weekend. We're ready for our electrical service to go in. Hopefully we'll get the rest of the walls up and get the trusses up before it snows.

Almost there...

It looks like I can finally stand close to the edge of the house and not worry about how high I am off the ground, because now I can step up to it. The excavator was in yesterday to do most of the backfill. The south side of the house will remain unfilled until we use the lumber piled up there to build our walls. The rest of the house is up to grade, or almost there. They put the septic tank in and started on the septic field. They were planning on coming back to finish the garage and the septic field today. I've posted two pictures, one is from the south side of the house, my normal picture angle, and the other is looking at the front of the house from the road.

It looks like this week our friend Vic will be back in town to help again too. So hopefully with three of us working we can get some walls up! I can continue my Styrofoam project while Dad and Vic build walls tonight.

Bring in the Dirt

This weekend was used to prepare the house for backfill. Friday was miserable out at the house. The wind was blowing like you wouldn't believe, we worked through at least two rain showers, and it was COLD! Saturday and Sunday were windy, but very pleasant temperatures. Sunday I even worked in short sleeves for awhile!

We put the Styrofoam up around the house. The wind made that a bit difficult, but we prevailed. We also finished building the garage and porch foundation walls. Three of the four garage walls are up with the fourth to be stood after the excavator is in. Dad also had enough material to build one brick ledge, the other will have to wait until we get some more treated lumber.

I did not get any pictures this weekend. I'll try to stop and get one after the backfill has been done today on my way home from work.

All Wrapped Up...All We Need Is a Bow

We had another productive weekend...and for the most part we had a fun weekend also. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do when I use up the rest of my vacation in the next week or so and have to start working 5 day weeks in the office again! :)

Friday was pretty productive, even without our supervisor on site. Mom and I worked a good portion of the day alone while Dad did some work for the job that actually pays him. He also made a couple trips to pick up the garage foundation lumber. The all woman work crew did a pretty nice job while he was gone. The best part of Friday came during one of Dad's trips to the lumber yard. A man pulled up in his pick-up truck and as he is walking up the driveway I can see him scanning the work site for a man, even though I am the one walking towards him. As he continues to scan the work site, two women start walking towards him, both wearing tool belts. So the man says, "Hello girls." I asked if I could help him and he asked if we were looking for a concrete guy. I told him I already had one, but would gladly take his card. So we talked about some of his other jobs in the area for a bit and he decided to leave. On the way out, still confounded that there was NO MAN on this job, he said, "Have a nice day ladies." You can bet he's probably not getting any concrete work out of this lady!

Saturday morning started out with a fantastic surprise! Dad's "Little Buddy" Chris came out to lend a hand for the morning. Chris is a fellow builder and knows his way around a construction site. So it was probably nice for Dad to have some skilled labor on-site for once. Chris also could make a living as a stand-up comedian. The guy is hilarious. He kept us laughing while we built as many walls for the garage foundation as we could with the crappy lumber we had.

Sunday had the most visible progress of the weekend. Mom, Dad and I wrapped the house in two layers of visqueen. We did final prep work to the outside of the house, sealing the plywood joints, scraping excess glue from the rim board, etc. Mom thought the funniest part of the weekend was Sunday...but I beg to differ. The house going up next to me has a porta-john out front. This has made it very convenient for us, and made it so I do not have to drive into Auburn to use the bathroom. Note to everyone out there reading this...DO NOT USE A PORTA-JOHN WHEN MELISSA IS AROUND!!!! She locked me in and then started walking back to my house doubled over laughing. I tried pleading, I tried yelling, I tried doing nothing...but all she did was laugh harder and keep walking. I had to put my head up by the vents and holler across the lot, "Dad! Please come rescue me! Mom locked me in!" Dad had to come all the way over to let me out. I'm sure my neighbors were all looking out their windows wondering what in the hell kind of neighbor they were getting!

After all the shenanigans, we got back to work wrapping the house. The temperature dropped dramatically, the clouds rolled in, and the rain started. We were troopers though and finished the wrap in the rain. We did call it a bit of an early night and went home. We have a bit more prep work to do, but if the weather cooperates we might be able to back fill this week still. So keep your fingers crossed!

You Want Me to Climb Up WHERE???

This weekend was a very exciting and productive weekend. The sub-floor is on and we are ready to start building walls!

I found out this weekend that I'm more of a big chicken than I thought I was. I REALLY don't like being up on the joist without the plywood down. I tried to get up there on Friday to do some work and was extremely uncomfortable. Dad offered to strap a board across my butt so I wouldn't fall through, but I don't think even that could help! I did all the work I needed to do from ladders on the basement floor. Once Mom and Dad put a few sheets of plywood down I could climb up, but I did so from a ladder inside the basement, not across the empty spaces at the edge of the house. That being said, I am eternally grateful that Paco and Steven came out to lend a couple extra hands on Saturday. Neither of them seemed too upset to climb out on those things. Paco even went down and retrieved my hammer for me when I forgot to bring it up with me, just so I didn't have to climb down the ladder. What a fantastic friend! :)

Paco did most of the gluing for us. He climbed out on the joist and glued away. I was very relieved to see him out on the joists with the glue gun instead of it being me, sliding out on my butt, doing it. Paco also hauled plywood, was very good at dropping the sheets into place, and put his Michigan Tech engineering skills to good use when needed. I really appreciate that he was willing to make the drive up from A2 for the day just to help me out, then get up at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning to drive back downstate to work for the morning.

Steven did a little bit of everything for us. He hauled plywood, ran the sledgehammer, ran the nailer, did some gluing of his own, and kept us going with some comic relief. Steven was not aware that we had a Green Bay Packer fan in our midst when he started making fun of Brett Favre and Lambeau Field...which only added to the enjoyment of the day. Steven also hung around and help Mom and I spread waterproofing on the floor to provide some protection if it rains.

Today Mom and I finished putting the bracing in the basement while Dad did some layout for the walls of the house and trimmed the plywood around the edges. Hopefully this week we will finish the small details with the foundation so our excavator can back fill. I know that I will feel much more comfortable being up on the first floor when the back fill is there!

It was incredibly warm here this weekend, with record setting temperatures around 90 degrees. Later this week it's supposed to drop the mid 50s...I was kind of hoping for something in between. Mid 60s to 70 is a good temp for me to work!

I hope everyone has a fantastic week and maybe I'll have some new pics towards the end of the week!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

This is what the house looked like Sunday morning. It still looks pretty similar. All of the floor joist were put up last week, and the remaining work is details. These details aren't really visible from the bird's eye view. We have put extra bracing in for the walls that run parallel to the joist so that when we back fill the walls don't push in. I have cut mini studs for those same walls so we have something to nail the sub-floor to. We have also put extra bracing in the cantilevered joist that overhang the basement foundation. Most of the rim board is up around the house. The only section remaining is the south side, the one you can see in the picture. Dad was going to take today off to work on that, but the rain has foiled that plan. I do consider us pretty lucky though...the weather this weekend was fantastic! It was sunny and mid 70s.

Both Dad and I thought we would be putting the sub-floor on by Sunday at the latest...considering we both took Friday off to work on the house. However, the details are going slower than both of us thought they would. Details are good though...it means I won't have my fireplace falling off the back of my house because it wasn't supported properly. I won't have visitors falling through the patio door for the same reason.

Things are moving...and hopefully once we get the floor down you'll see more progress. I know the pictures all pretty much look the same so far. :) I hope everyone is having a Happy Monday!