One person's floor is another person's ceiling.

There's been quite a bit of activity at the house in the last week. The floor was completed for the main floor, and they chalk-lined where all of the walls would go.

Brian and Shawn even came out last Saturday to build the stairs to the basement. We got a half-inch of rain that day (very unusual), so I'm sure it was a lot of fun.

Looks a little hazardous, doesn't it?

Even more unusual, we got almost an INCH of rain the next day. Needless to say, there was a lot of water in the basement. Luckily there was a squeegee floor wiper thingy laying around, so on Monday I spread around what was still left down there so it could dry out.

We were busy almost every night last week; Brett was out of town, and Jake had either baseball practice or a game most evenings. So we didn't get out to the house until pretty late each night. Tuesday night Jake and I picked up McDonald's on our way out there. And since a) I got my car detailed last week, and 2) we hadn't had a first meal out there, we waited until we got to the house to eat. We sat on a wall that had already been built but was still laying on its side. I tried to get Jake to toast me with his french fries, but he just looked at me like I was crazy. Brett would have played along.

Brett came back into town around 9pm Wednesday evening, so I met him out there. We were losing daylight quickly, but since he had been out of town for a couple of days, he was pretty excited to see the changes.

While he was gone they had gotten a couple of the walls up and poured the footings for the dining room nook (which sticks out from the main foundation) and put up the header and two posts that will hold up the nook.

Again on Thursday, we didn't get out there until late because Jake had a baseball game. They had put up more walls and laid out the top and bottom 'rungs' of each of the interior walls. However, we did find a list of things that needed to be changed. The biggest one was for the doors on either side of the nook that lead out to the deck. They are too short.

See how they're shorter than the windows straight ahead? Brett did not like that at all since it cuts off the view from the kitchen to Mission Ridge. Well it does for him but not for me since I'm a lot shorter than him. And our builder Brian is, let's stay untall. Brian said he'll frame the deck first, then pull those walls down to fix them. Now we have to decide exactly what we want in that space as far as windows and a door is concerned. There were a couple of other minor changes, mainly moving a couple of doors that had only been marked with pencil so far.


Almost all of the outside walls are up.

We went to SavMart yesterday to finalize the appliances. We picked out the rangetop, double ovens, microwave, dishwasher, washer and dryer. That's nice to have marked off the list.

We had our first "dinner party" at the house. We called the Allens and had them meet us. Brian and Craig the excavator were still there, so they joined us too. (Craig has moved to the excavation of the Allens' property.) Cheri brought some spicy asian chicken wings and jojos, and that combined with the potato chips and popcorn I brought...tada! our first dinner party.

It's really beginning to feel like a home.

We've got floor joists!

It's amazing what two men can accomplish in a day. When we showed up yesterday to see what was done, Brian and Shawn had ALL of the floor joists installed. This is approximately the front entrance back to the great room. You can see on the right side of the picture the area that will be the stairs leading down. The dining room and kitchen will be on the left of the pic.

This is (from front to back) the guest bedroom, the stairwell, the master closet, bath, and bedroom. Great view, huh? The master bath actually cantilevers out from the main body of the house, so the joists run perpendicular to the rest.

Here's a better picture of that. I'm not sure why that first one is longer than the rest. But hey, I'm not the expert, I'm just assuming Brian knows what he's doing.

We also checked out the downstairs, which feels more like real rooms with the addition of the "ceiling" of floor joists above. Jake went with us and was checking out his new bedroom. Sorry I didn't take any pictures from the inside. His room is on the opposite side of the house from ours. No more hearing XBox coming up through the air vents. I did take a picture from the road though.

His room is the window on the right. He has a great view of Mission Ridge. We were trying to figure out if he could place his bed so he could see Mission from it.


Washington state implemented some wonderful (hear the sarcasm?) new energy codes this year. Only 17% of the area of the outer walls can be windows/glass; the insulation in the walls went from R21 to R23; the roof insulation has to be something like R41; and we couldn't have any unfinished crawlspace unless we put a layer of foamcore insulation beneath the concrete we did pour. So it was about a toss up between choosing between paying for the extra concrete, thus eliminating the unfinished crawlspace, or the foamcore under the other concrete. We chose to pay for the extra concrete, as it gave us more dry storage.

Two issues I have with this: one, with how cheap our power is here in the valley (like 1.5 cents/kwh), it's going to take us 100 years to recoup the added costs of the energy "savings"; and two, I want the family room floor downstairs to be stained concrete. How does the new energy codes affect that you might ask. Well a picture's worth a thousand words:

Well maybe not, as I'm going to have to explain it. See on this side of the concrete, the light blue stripe? That's the foamcore insulation that goes along the whole south edge of the south wall in the basement. It's on the inside of the house. Here you can see it with the concrete floor poured:

Imagine there's a 2"x4" running along the edge of this floor. And since a 2"x4" is really only 1.5"x2.5", and even with the 1/2" of sheetrock, it doesn't cover this lovely blue strip of foamcore. So we've been brainstorming on how to cover it up and not have to carpet the family room. 

This is what I want the floor to look like:

I'm not sure if we'll add the gloss to the top. And I'm not sure how we're going to cover that stupid blue strip. Any suggestions?

Basement framing: check.

The entire basement is completely framed now. Doesn't it look like a mouse maze?

Our builder and his framer were still there when we got there this evening. He said the floor joists will arrive tomorrow! The framing for the main floor will go more quickly than the basement because they won't have to cut each stud individually.

We had to go to the PUD to pay for the transformer that we'll share with Dave and Cheri next door. While we're waiting for that, we had to go apply for temporary electrical service. Thank goodness Brett understands all of that stuff...I wouldn't have been able to answer any of the questions. Well maybe the name and address part.

Craig, our excavator, has done an excellent job. From the road, the driveway used to dip down then go up the hill. He took a lot of the dirt from the top of the driveway where it comes up to the garage and moved it down to make the lower driveway more level. It is beautiful! Every time we drive on it, we comment on how awesome it is.

Here's another place he had to move dirt to (never end a sentence with a preposition?). This wall of concrete was previously bare on both sides. We want to be able to put as much grass on the east side of the house as we can. Plus there's a door that goes out that side of the house. I think we're going to end up with at least 4 tiers to the property when all is said and done.

Craig's next project is the septic system. He brought out three loads of small river rock today so he can start working on the drain field.


The progress is moving right along. Maybe I should make one of those paper chains we used to make at Christmas in elementary school so I can keep track of the days until we move in. Of course, I'm sure that's a moving target.

In the beginning...

Let's start by getting caught up. We haven't had time until now to get this blog started. But in order to easily keep all of our family and friends updated on the progress of the house, I decided it was time to do it. Because procrastination is my middle name (right Dad?), and if I waited any longer, many of you would have already slept in the guest room.

We broke ground at the end of March.

As you may or may not know, we had to build a daylight basement because our land is so sloping. It's about a 10-degree slope. Here's the view we'll have from what would be considered the back of the house.

So the back of the house faces the road (to the south), and the front of the house faces the hillside. This will be the view out the great room windows. Here's a view pic that was taken on a clear day.

Next came the footings (view to the east). This happened around the middle of April. It's weird because I know how big the house is, but when I was walking around this, it seemed small.

Then the forms:

While I was in Seattle for a conference, the rest of the foundation was poured! I had to wait 5 whole days before I got to see it. It was a tough wait.

Just a couple more pictures for today. By last weekend, the basement floor was poured and the rough plumbing was in. The concrete is wet because it was pretty windy and the concrete guy didn't want it drying too quickly and cracking.

Last week some of the lumber was delivered...

...and the basement walls started going up! I'll get some better pictures of the walls for my next post. It was getting dark the last couple times we were there, so not perfect for pictures.

That's it for now. I wish all the moms out there a Happy Mother's Day!!