Forms and Footings

Things are moving right along. This week they poured the footings. They got the forms up and poured footings within a day or two. One day later they took the forms off the footings and started setting up the forms for the foundation walls.

Here the common foundation is not slab like I'm used to from homes I worked on back home when I was in college or high school. We will have a crawl space but it will be about 4 feet tall so its more of a crouch space than a crawl space. This picture below is my daughter who is 4' 6" tall walking around with me on a site visit after soccer practice.

In other news, the price of lumber keeps climbing and we have a new estimate on cost, which stinks, because it's a bit higher than the first estimate. Because we had the delay with the financing issues in November/December and we pushed the start date out to late February/early March the costs went up about 35%. This totally sucks but we really have no choice at this point. Below is a screen shot of the lumbar prices I've been following on nasdaq.com - I have no idea how it actually translates to lumber prices at the store but, clearly, things have gone up on the website and compared to the prices when we got our first estimate in October 2020 ($482.4) vs now ($867.10) apparently the price at the store has gone up too.

Luckily, we made some other changes on the doors that will save us a hefty chunk so that the increase in lumber cost is negated somewhat by the savings in some of the other areas. We had the plans drawn up showing several exterior doors but really we just wanted them to be windows and the windows are expected to cost significantly less than the doors.

We are meeting with our builder this coming week to talk windows and doors and get those all picked out and ordered so when they start framing they have the exact specifications when it comes to those items.

Things keep moving along and I'm pleased with the pace thus far. I hope they can keep it up. They told us they expected 10 months from day 1 until the day we move in but I'm hoping it will be faster than that.

Wrapping up the framing - Plumbing and HVAC

Garage is open and now that the framing is done they uncovered the windows. The final awnings were being built. Final set of awnings are now over the garage. Blue roofing material went on parts of the roof this week. I imagine it should be done by the end of next week. We showed up and found a bunch of mechanical heating/cooling equipment in the garage early in the week. We changed the stain color for our beams to Dark Oak with the tongue and groove being stained at 50% of the same color so we have some contrast. More of the roof. Most recent photo of the front of the house. Back porch is done. See the pictures below for the process. Picture from the inside with the upper wall still open. Picture from the upstairs bedroom looking into the backyard and onto the new pack patio/porch. Chimney was added! Heating/cooling and plumbing coming along nicely below the house. In the crawl space it is clear that they've been working but not much to show in the actual house as of yet. T...

Finished framing! Plumbing, HVAC and electrical...

This was just a cool picture from a lightning storm up at the property. HVAC stuff began getting installed. Exposed beams for the grand room prepped and ready for installation. Supports for above the beam are in place. Center main beam is ready to go. Front timbers done. Back timbers done. Blue roofing base is on most of the house at this point. More HVAC vents installed. Toilet mounts ready to go. Cedar posts on the awnings. Beautiful sunset. More vents installed. BEAMS ARE UP!!! View from the entry way with the fireplace and beams in place. Tongue and groove (T&G) installed in the front. Other half of the porch T&G installed. Electrical stuff getting done. T&G done on half of the back porch. Tubs arrived for the upstairs bathrooms. Plumbing for the tubs is done. Back porch with T&G. View from the front door with the T&G done. View of the front porch with the T&G. Vents from the bathrooms up to the roof. Upstairs plumbing coming along. Ve...

Foundations

One of the things I really want is a big, open garage. We planned it all out in the drawings but recently we heard back from the structural engineer that they will have to put a post/column in the middle of the garage. We talked with our builder about what could be done. She asked about a bigger truss but the truss guy says that they can't build a bigger truss. We decided to pay the engineer to do the math and see if a large steel beam could be used because according to our builder she doesn't expect the beam to add that much cost, if its possible. The engineer is currently working on seeing if its possible. If it is possible they will likely have to make the footings bigger and that would add concrete cost but overall the cost can't be predicted until the engineer updates his plans. Once the plans are updated our builder can let us know about costs and at that point we can decide if the increase cost is worth it or not. I feel that paying an engineer a little mo...

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