Mid-December Update

It has been more than a month since my last blog entry. Progress remains steady on the house--not quick and not slow. According to our builder, Dreamweaver Homes, we are on schedule. If we stay on schedule, we'll move in next August. So, we still have a lot of time and work to go. 

During the last month the roof has been completed to point that that house is basically water tight (no shingles yet), most of the windows are in (a couple are still to be delivered), the plumbing is being roughed in, heating vents are being hung, and a lot more detail on the framing has been completed. Surprisingly, a few walls differ from the plan by as much as 6". (We are curious as to why this is the case, but assume there is some reasonable explanation. Luckily, none of the changes are problematic.) Today, Tricia and I took a laser measure and measured all of the major room dimensions. We haven't had time to compare our measurement to the plan.

Heat ducts and plumbing have shown up in unexpected places. Their location wasn't specified on the plan. This seems like a shortcoming, although I think it is standard practice. The latest puzzle is that by code our island requires more electrical outlets than we expected (or need). So, we're trying to figure out where to put them.

I've been working to understand the HVAC system. Apparently, all is dictated by a "Manual J &D" plan. This is heat load plan, which includes duct sizes and placement. Changing the furnace, which I inquired about doing, would require that the Manual J & D be re-done, which would cost more and create significant delays. For a modest cost, and without redoing the plan, we were able to upgrade the basement furnace to a 96% efficient, 2-speed furnace (matching the upstairs). The manufacturer, Rheem, makes 4 different 96% efficient furnaces. I wish I could have received a pros and cons explanation of the different models. Oh well, there are lots of decisions and the one we have is what the contractor thought was the best choice. He is probably right too.

Another major accomplishment is that Tricia has decided on the tiles. Wow! She said there were 35 separate tile decisions. Getting this done was a MAJOR accomplishment (she is still working on some of the layouts). And the tile is coming in significantly under budget, which is great. We are now working on selecting the lighting fixtures, and are getting close to a final list. We are also working with the cabinet builder to fine-tune the built-ins. Some had to be reworked to fit the changed spaces.

Below are the latest photos and a video. 

 View from the Street--deck is off master bedroom

View of Front of House from Side of Lot

Basement Bedroom Construction

From Kitchen Looking Across the Dining Room

Future Kitchen Area (knee wall is at location of island)

Finally, here is a video taken by David's drone (he and his family were visiting for Thanksgiving, and he enjoyed playing with his new gadget). This video predates the photos. It is bit long (not sure how to edit it), but it gives you an overview that you can't get from the ground. It was very windy, but the drone managed to stay stable.

Some of the Roof is Installed

The framers have been working for about 5 weeks and there is quite a bit of progress to show in that time. The upstairs is getting completed and much of the roof is now in place. They have not started framing downstairs work, but that should go fairly quickly. As usual, below are some photos and a video showing recent progress.

Front from the Street 

Whole House from Yard (note start of deck at left)

Detail of Garage

Looking Along House from Driveway

Entry Area

Video of Placing Beam

In terms of decisions, we've picked out plumbing fixtures and are almost done with tile (a huge job for Tricia). The next major set of decisions is lighting. Meanwhile, we're also tinkering around with where to put electrical outlets for such things as lights, wireless speakers, and other items.  

Framing continues

The weather has been great--thankfully--so the framing is going smoothly. The builder is trying to get the house "under roof" before it gets too cold and snowfall becomes an issue. Below are a few pictures showing recent progress (as of 10/27) on framing. 

 Facing the Front Door

South End of the "Great Room" from Outside

Looking to the South End of the Great Room from the Inside

We were a bit dismayed to learn that the framing crew is working our house on Monday to Wednesday and another house on Thursday and Friday. It seems like both houses end up being framed later than simply finishing one and then moving to the next. Oh well, such is the reality of the construction business when the demand for construction services is high.

Some exterior walls are framed

We've had almost two full weeks of framing and the house is taking shape. The pictures tell the story.

View from street

Future dining room and kitchen areas

Back yard

Future covered patio

The windows are larger than we imagined from the plans. The walls are tall (10' to 14') and the windows didn't look that big as drawn on the plans. But, now that some of the window openings are roughed in, we are getting a better sense of their actual size.

Framing will stop next week while we wait for roof trusses to be delivered. I'll add another post when the roof is mostly framed.

Framing has begun!

It has been over one month since my last blog post. During the month a lot has happened, but there was not much to look at. The major activities of the last month were laying the drain piping around the exterior of the house, waterproofing the foundation, installing precautionary radon mitigation piping on the inside of the foundation, installing the plumbing piping in the basement floor, pouring the basement floor, and backfilling the foundation.

With all of the above accomplished, the framing began this week. As you can see from the pictures below, the house is beginning to take shape.

From the garage looking into the house

Various framing materials

The sewer line being dug in (I have a new appreciation for the excavation sub)

The view from a future guest room window (look closely for elk in the background). The large pile of dirt is temporary...the view of Bergen Peak in the background is not!

A view of the primary steel beam from the front corner of the basement. 

The framers tell us they will first build the exterior shell of the house and then turn to the interior framing. Thus, the exterior of the home should take shape fairly quickly. I'll post more pictures as the framing continues.

Pouring foundation walls

The foundation walls were poured this week, so the house is beginning to take shape. I had never appreciated how much work it is to prepare the walls for pouring. The walls themselves are large (likely 12' in some sections) and are heavily reinforced with re-bar. Thus, it took a crew a couple of weeks to build the walls and place the re-bar. Once everything was in place, the actual pouring of the walls took about 4 hours. Below are some photos and videos of the process and finished product.

Below is an overview picture of the foundation walls with a pump truck in action. The forms themselves are heavy metal.

Here is an inside picture of one of the walls with re-bar in full display. As you can imagine, placing the re-bar is a time-consuming task.

Below is a link to a video of the walls being poured.

Notice how tall the finished walls are in the basement. This picture is looking towards the unfinished basement storage room.

Finally, here is a video of the finished product.

The next steps are putting in the foundation drainage pipes, waterproofing the walls, and getting water and sewer feeds into the house.

Pouring footings

There was a lot of excitement yesterday on the house project. The cement trucks arrived to pour the footings for the foundation. The attached video provides a good overview of the process.

And here are some pictures of the work and the end result.

Next step is to pour the walls. The amount of cement involved is impressive. We're gaining a better appreciation of what it means to build a house.

Lastly, our neighbors reported that a bear was running around our hole in the ground a couple of days ago. Word is getting out that this is an interesting place. A more likely explanation--the workers left some food lying around and the bear was glad to finish it off.

Excavation and rock hammering

As I write this post, the excavation is completed and the foundation work is scheduled to begin next week. The hole seems huge. As we look at the hole, we have to keep in mind that it is deeper and wider than the final house footprint (space is needed for foundation work and the footers go below the level of the floor). And the house footprint itself is large because of the ranch design.

While digging we hit rock. Yuk. Not totally unexpected, but it will add to the expense of the excavation. Below is a video of "rock hammering," which is used to shatter the rock. Fortunately, the rock was weak enough shatter, otherwise we would have needed to blast.

Below are a couple of shots with of the nearly final excavation.

If you see where I am standing in the top photo, just below me will be the walk-out part of the basement. This still needs to be dug out and there is lots of "final" grading to do once the foundation is set.

Today, we broke ground!

On a warm and sunny July 6th, we finally broke ground! Below are a photo and video to prove it. Tonight, we are opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

Click image below to start the video.

Overall design of the house

Below are a few drawings that show: (1) the placement of the house on the lot; (2) the overall look; and (3) the floor plan. You probably will need to zoom in with your browser to see these drawings.

Placement on Lot
First, here is how the home is placed on the lot (0.8 acres). North is about straight up and the driveway enters the lot from the street at the bottom and sweeps to the east. The 3-car garage is at the rear of the home, at about a 45 degree angle from the house. Many of the trees shown have been removed at this point (as you can see from the video in the previous post).

Overall Look
Below are a couple of snapshots from the 3D model of our home. The top shot gives an overall view of the home and the bottom is more detail of our master bedroom area and the approximate view from the street. The screenshots are from the Revit program the architects (TKP in Golden) used to design the home. The ground will slope up as you go from the bedroom (at left) toward the garage (at right).

Floor Plans

Below is the floor plan for the first level (simplified from the final construction drawing). It has 2,800 sq ft. finished. For scale, the Great Room/Kitchen room is 40' long from top to bottom.

Below is a snap shot from the construction drawings of the lower level, which will have 1,600 sq ft. finished and has three bedrooms for guests. It shows lots of detail, but you can still get the overall feel of the lower level. The empty space in the upper right is unfinished storage (about 1,000 sq. ft.).

Tree clearing is almost completely done

We've removed 50+ trees from the lot to make room for the house and to satisfy the fire mitigation rules of Jefferson County. The fire mitigation rules call for the removal of all trees within 15' of the house (with one possible exception) and drastic thinning of trees within 75' feet of the home. This thinning has changed the character of the lot. Below is a picture of the lot and a link to a video. Compare the video to the one in an earlier blog posted prior to thinning. I'm sure everything will look better once the house is in place. For now, it looks like--well--a construction zone.

Video of lot after tree clearing

Clearing of Trees

Today, the clearing of trees began in earnest. Yeah! In all, we're removing 45 trees and their stumps, plus about 20 mostly smaller trees which we're cutting flush with the ground. Click the link below to see footage from today's work.

Video of tree being pushed over


Here is a photo of the lot and some excavation equipment.

6/10/2016

Well, design took us way longer than expected. So many steps skipped in this blog. But now we have a permit and ready to begin. We've changed general contractors and are now working with Dream Weaver Homes to build the house. Here is a photo of the lot prior to clearing the trees.

Here is a video of the lot prior to tree clearing taken from approximately the location of the future front door. Video of lot prior to tree clearing

1/10/2016

We're mid-way in the design of our new house. This initial sketch of the front looks like this.

Still a lot of work to do, but Tricia and I are excited about the design. It took a lot of work from us to get it to this point.