Please Pray

   Some of you may have heard about the Benton Accident that happened earlier today in Yates County involving members of an Amish community from Jasper/Woodhull.  We received a call tonight from our builder and passengers in the van were all members of his community.  As many of you know the Amish community is a close knit one and even if someone is not related to you they are like family.  Our builder and one of the men who has been working with him both lost a member of their family today.  Please pray for Titus, Roy, Melvin, and their family and community as they deal with this tragic event.

Whew!

   The weather has been lousy for farmers, but great for builders.  Titus and crew got the second story on and framed last week.

View from our future bedroom.  Hmm.. maybe we should go for a more modern no walls look?

   We only ran into a few problems on the the framing.  Our architect while great at getting our overall vision on paper, was a little lacking in details like door sizes an adult human could actually fit through and window placement that wouldn't get our house a PG-13 rating.  For instance, our upstairs bathroom window was very large and would be great for letting a lot of light in.  The only problem was the toilet was placed directly below it. Not exactly the best way to introduce ourselves to the neighbors.  We also had an issue with some of the downstairs door sizes.  She listened when we said we wanted a spacious mudroom, but she failed to tell us she was only giving us a 24 " doorway to pass through it, and the clearance would be shrunk down even more when our washer jutted out into 12" of the said 24".  I would definitely have been joining Weight Watchers just to be able to get into the house.
    Titus has had to reframe a few  windows and doors, but I'm trying to keep him happy by baking cookies and bringing lots of Pepsi and Gatorade. Who new building a house could also make you a better baker!

2nd floor of house

 Cute little child in the bottom of the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note the more appropriately sized window that can accommodate a toilet underneath. The window previously was another 18" closer to the floor...not a pretty picture.

 

 

Upstairs Framing

 

 

 

Roof Trusses

 

To the right of the house they have started the slab for the garage.

Typically trusses are put on with a crane, but we couldn't find anyone who could come up and get them on in a timely manner....

So they put the trusses on Amish style...by hand.  I wish I had pictures of  them pulling each one up using just  rope.

The excavators were there doing excavating type stuff... you know moving dirt.

  Tomorrow we will be looking at siding samples.  I know it's just so darn exciting you can't stand it.  Most likely we will be going with red, but I may be persuaded by sagey green if the sample speaks to me.  I'll keep you posted on the color choice.

A Post in Pictures

    Because I'm tired and all of my synapses are not firing this, will be a post in pictures, or as I've seen on other blogs "Wordless Wednesday". I guess it isn't really "Wordless Wednesday" since I've already used some words.  I guess we're back to "A Post in Pictures". 

The Concrete Smoother (I don't think that is the official name.)

Basement Floor brought to you by Titus and Crew.

These are the radiant heating tubes that will be keeping our floor and toes warm and toasty.

LVL (don't ask me what it stands for, I just know it will be keeping our first two stories on the first two stories.)

"I joist"  I think it is called that because it looks like an "I".  How clever!

Many joist with a floor on top.

 

 

 

A real room (sort of).

The raising of the walls.

It's starting to look big and this isn't even 1/2 of it.

 

 

Future mudroom (my happy place).

Entryway and Staircase

Future Kitchen

  So there you have it.  The progress that has been made without any help from me.  More details to follow when my brain decides to cooperate.