House render video

Here's a video showing various external and internal views of the house:

Trusses arrive

The trusses were delivered yesterday morning along with a boom truck to help raise the heavy trusses onto the house. They will go up today.

The pile of trusses

Some of them are 40 feet long.

The trusses are 2x6" on the bottom and top chords, 2x4 for the webbing. There are 2 for each location which are nailed together, giving a bolder look, and allowing them to be spread every 4' instead of 2'.

The  boom loader we rented to put up the trusses. Some of them weigh up to 350lbs.

The pond water is beautifully clear at the moment - but will silt up again after the next storm. It's great to see fish swimming along the edges and through the weeds. They seem just as interested in me as I am in them.

Go week

Work on the interior framing continued today and will finish tomorrow when the roof trusses are delivered. Vanessa and I spent much of the weekend mowing the lawn so that is was ready for the house to take shape - something we probably shouldn't have left till the grass was almost 3 feet high in places- but you learn!

So hopefully the house will resemble the rendering in the picture below by the end of this weekend. The roof panels will go on on Saturday and the metal roof will be installed next Monday. Patio doors will be installed next Wednesday.

Rendering of finished house showing simulated shadows at midday.

Interior wall framing

6/9 of the interior walls were framed today, the key load bearing walls included. I found the process fascinating - I've never seen framing done before, having lived in reinforced concrete buildings for 95% of my life- and once they were up it was brilliant to see the separate rooms delineated in 3d and not just lines on the floor.

The first wall to be built was the master bedroom/bathroom divider

The above mentioned wall in place. Door to bathroom at right.

The back bathroom wall up..

The east kitchen wall / closet + laundry room wall.

Where the kitchen wall meets the load bearing wall opposite the front door. 

(Far) The load bearing all at the back of the two smaller bedrooms.

Nice clear day for framing - though everyone's sunburn may disagree.

Panorama of house with interior walls framed.

Below is a walkthrough I filmed pre-interior walls just to get an idea of the space:

Pond views

Panorama from the south side of the pond, house site at left. (click for full size)

Had another encounter with a snake today, maybe the same individual snake, but not sure. Caught it on video:

If you look carefully at 1:10 you can see some fish swim under the snake to its left.

Caught more sunfish/Crappie today, a couple of nice ones (hand sized), and a couple of ridiculously small ones. Bait wasters!

There are also a pair of Canada geese that frequent the pond when we're not around - here they just did a fly-by to let me know they're not amused. Now I know how the control tower in Top Gun feels, (and why Goose is named Goose?). Luckily, no hot coffee to spill on my freshly pressed military issue trousers. I was wearing shorts. How did we end up here? Oh yeah, geese:

I like the use of air brakes by the lower one.

The house takes shape

All the external wall panels were set today and the house really took shape. Everything fit snuggly and very few on site modifications/trims were needed. Dave mentioned a couple of times that he was impressed with the concrete foundation (being accurate in dimension and level) which was good to hear. A month earlier our soil compaction tester had said he was impressed with the quality of the pad compaction, so hopefully these observations will continue as the project progresses.

Video of the last panel being set. (Click the play button, bottom left)

Dave (in blue) and John get started on the panels 

Dave trimming the panel for a better fit. (1/8" difference)

Lower west wall set.

29/31 panels set. Kitchen has 2 large windows closest to camera

View from inside the house - surreal white and green, almost x-files like!

View from South west. Windows and openings covered with plastic to protect wood jambs.

View from West. Metal brace provides support until lag bolts are set.

View from North west.

View from the driveway (South)

All in all a pretty successful day, with the internal walls scheduled to be framed on Friday, roof trusses delivered and installed Monday/Tuesday. Though its set to rain tonight and tomorrow, the outlook appears good for the next 10 days or so.

Half a house

The exterior wall panels arrived on the land this morning and the tough task of unloading approximately 5000 pounds of steel framed, insulation filled walls began. It was pretty amazing to see all the exterior walls for this 2000 square foot house on one trailer.

The guys got to work and soon had the biggest panels ('the twins') standing up and set in place.

Setting the corner base plate

The twin patio door panels.

Master bedroom patio door panel. The green is the sprayed-in soy insulation. Once wiring is complete, drywall/sheet rock will enclose the insulation.

The front view of the panels at the end of day 1.

The same panels from the rear.

Although the panels might look like a set for a school theatre production, they are incredibly solid and sturdy. As you can see in the photo above, there are 2 300lb panels leaning on the erected panels. 

It was fantastic to see the view framed from different rooms and to have something so instantly gratifying. Here's hoping the rest of the panels and the interior walls go up tomorrow!

See the video below for more photos and leave a comment if you like!