FRAMING - PART TWO

Hello, everybody!  Ready for more pictures?  I hope so!!

In my "Framing - Part One" post, I left everyone with this photo ... (excuse me while I rummage through 395,392 photos to find the one that I left you with last time ....)

Here it is!

The framers had completed the walls for the entire first floor.

So, here is what has happened since then!  Drumroll, please ....

Oh, hey!  Snow!!!  And ... a second floor!

Here is the view from the front right corner (the attached garage):

And the view from the side:

And Odie and Bandit make an appearance.  <3

And this is the view from the opposite back corner:

It looks pretty confusing, I know.  The door to the left goes into the the back of the garage and the big opening you see is actually where our fireplace will go, so that's not a doorway.  Also, the boards that are jutting out to the right off the upper level will be a tiny little balcony from our master bedroom!  Apparently those boards had to go there anyway, but the framers had to cut all of them to the length of our house.  We just had them leave a few uncut and replaced a window with a door and bam!  Balcony!

Then they finished up covering everything with plywood.  You know, to keep the snow out from the snowstorms we have been getting every. single. Monday.  For the last four Mondays.  Go away, winter!

  

And then .... the garage got a roof!!

Ahh!  I was so excited this day!  It's really starting to look like a house!!  And, I may be a little biased, but I think it is so stinkin' cute from the front!!

We still don't have the main roof on quite yet, but they did finish up with the plywood and enclosing that bonus room above the garage today.  We were able to walk around up there this afternoon and I am so ecstatic for that room!  That bonus room above the garage will remain unfinished, but we didn't realize how spacious it was.  Eventually (years from now), Carleton and I can finish that room ourselves and make it something cool!

So .... do you want to see what our house will look like soon??  Yes, you do?  Okay!

Isn't it so cute?!!  <3  Can't wait!

FRAMING - PART ONE

Well, it's about time I give an update on the house, isn't it??  Why, yes.  It is!

Framing is well underway!  Initially, we thought framing would take about 3-4 weeks, which means that since we started in mid-January, it would be almost done right about now ... but, we live in New England.  So, there's this little thing called "snow" that keeps getting in our way.  :)  But, I am still amazed at how quickly these guys build rooms and floors on nice-weather days when they are actually able to work!  They are SO fast!

Last time, I promised more pictures.  So .... this post has tons of them!

Carleton has taken approximately 3,583,956 photos of the framing progress.  (Bless his heart.  Seriously.  I'm so glad he's good at remembering to take pictures every step of the way!)  But, because there are so many pictures, I have decided to split all of the framing progress into several blog posts.  So, without further adieu, here is the first of many posts about the framing of our house!

The framers were scheduled to start on Monday, January 12th.  Unfortunately, it snowed that day.  So, materials were delivered but framing didn't start until the next day.  Here's what it looked like that Monday before framing began...

The view of our soon to be attached garage:

The side yard to the right of the garage:

Looking down into our basement:

A view of the rear of our house - our walk-out basement:

Less typing ... more pictures ...

Once the framers arrived the next day (Tuesday), they got right to work and quickly framed out the basement and walk-out:

We'll have a sliding glass door and some nice big windows all along that back wall so that our basement will be sunny and bright!

Check out these huge beams that run along the top:

Here's the view from the front corner where the attached garage is:

Looking down into the basement:

Here's the view from our side yard, looking towards Carleton's mom's house <3 (where we currently live):

You can see how they stepped the foundation wall down gradually along the sides towards the back.  Our siding will eventually step down accordingly.

Then they capped it off:

Once they finished capping off the basement level, guess what they did next?  Add walls, of course!  I may have freaked out a tiny bit this day:
  

The opening that is the furthest to the left in this next photo will be french doors that walk out onto a small deck:

One day later, the rest of the exterior walls for the first floor went up.  Here are the front walls (to the left):

This is the window that will be over our sink, looking out of the front of our house:

When I walked around the back of the house and looked up .... oh my goodness.  It seems so tall:

This is the view of the front of our house.  The window to the left is the kitchen sink window.  The opening just to the right of that is the front door.  And the concrete that juts out forward to the right of that will be our garage:

Driving up to our house!

Are you excited to see the interior walls of the first floor?  And the second floor?  You should be!  They are already built!  :)  I can't wait to show you the next round of photos!  Stay tuned!