Shear Genius

We spent Saturday afternoon up at our "broken house." Mark was working on electrical, and my sister (the architect!) and her husband wanted to see it, as did I, so we went up for a picnic. A PF Chang's picnic. We're fancy like that. It was terribly awesome to see the house take shape. There are walls and window openings and a roof so you can really feel exactly what the house is going to be like. We spent a lot of time staring at the walls just marveling at the progress. The kids enjoyed the picnic and managed not to fall down any holes. It was also nice to have everyone there to figure out where all the outlets and switches go. It looks so good!

The house taking shape! The window on the right is actually larger, the shearwall just isn't trimmed to the edges.


Here's a view from the front door down the long hallway and from the back bedroom to the front door. It's a straight shot, compared to twisty path we used to have.


This is our big bank of windows! Our living and dining room are here.


The new stair location with walls, but no steps yet.


The massive laundry room. It's very big, but it has to be since we have no garage.

Not the house.

We've had a few requests for photos of the girls, not the house. So here's a few from our fun summer. The first three are from Seattle and Bainbridge Island, where we spent a week before Mark climbed Mount Rainier. We spent the time on the island with our good friends Ben, Lisa, and their son Jake. The last photo is from our camping trip on Bass Lake. We rented a pontoon boat and had the best time! Even if the girls didn't love their life vests. Especially Mayanna.






But I can't wait to show you the new photos of the house! We have a roof and walls and shearwall and drainrock and everything. If only Mark would bring home the camera.

more pics and a really heavy beam

We went up to visit and the main beam was installed today! And the boys were even eating their lunch under it, so they must have trusted it enough. It is soooooooo huge. It's 5" x 18" x 32 feet. Mark thinks it weighs about 1000 pounds. It would have been very interesting to watch them put it in, but it was like first thing this morning and we weren't there. Oh well. But it looks great because the outside walls are in and you can see how the house will look. Today I told Jose that I just loved staring at the beams and studs now that it gives a shape to the place, and he told me that next week I would be able to see my house. Jose rocks.

Here is the ceiling of the living room. It is way more beautiful than the old ceiling. Just imagine a ceiling made of broken, stained fence boards with a million nails in them and you get a pretty good idea of the old one.


Here you can see all the subfloor in and them working on the framing of the west wall. This picture was from Monday.


Also from Monday, this is a good before shot of the house pre-beam.


Ta da! Here's the after shot of the house with the beam and the outside walls in. You can also see the two office windows in the bottom center. The boards that stick out to the right will support our front deck eventually.


Here's our office, from the doorway. The front deck will be above. It's going to be nice to have a dedicated space for all my stuff!


Once again, the big big beam. It's the awesomest ever.


Just another photo. Gaze in wonder.

the great wall

Here's our laundry room wall! Isn't it a lovely view? When we stopped by on Monday, this and the office walls were the only ones up, along with all the subfloor and the front deck joists. They are building the walls on the ground first then putting them up into place. But I hear today they are putting in the roof ridge beam, which is the main beam that runs down the center of the ceiling. Now that will be a great photo!

the floor

Here's a photo of our floor! The guys got the big cantilevered beams in really quickly. Like by 10 am on Wednesday. The floor will be 1x8s on the bottom and 1.25 (or a half?) inch thick plywood on top, then the real floor. It's going to be crazy thick and sturdy. The hole on the right is where our new stairs are going to be, and you can see the office on the lower part of the photo. The framing of the office wall wasn't started when I took this photo on Thursday, but by the end of the day I heard they finished it. Aren't you excited for next week's photo?

the wise man built his house upon a...

rock!

So, we finished our foundation! We got the special permit letter from our structural engineer, the inspector approved the forms, and we poured last week. Twice. Monday the piers and retaining walls and Friday for the slabs and parking places. It was a lot of concrete. Like six trucks or something. I'll have to have Mark do a write up with all the details because I wasn't there. But it looks great and we're framing this week.

The concrete truck and pump set up and ready to go.


The guys getting ready to fill the forms.


Filling up the retaining wall forms.


Smoothing out the top.


The finished wall!!


Pouring the slab of the crawl space on Friday.


Pouring and smoothing the office slab.


The form and rebar set up for the parking spots.


The finished spots with expansion joints. We have one more spot for a total of four now.

this is the hard part

Sorry no posts for a while. We were on vacation and while we were gone, they finished getting our foundation ready for the pour. An inspector even came but then didn't approve us because it turns out we need a special letter from our structural engineer and blah blah blah we're working on that and we really should pour any day now. But all the forms are up, the rebar is in, and it's braced and ready.

Here's the area that's under the kitchen, taken from the north on our existing back deck. You're looking toward our front stairs and gate. The white on the right is our downstairs living room. The big area with all the sticks in it will be our giant crawl space. But without the sticks.


This is the new office retaining wall. It's below our front deck, taken from the northwest corner of the room. You can also see it in the very top of the first photo.


And this is just one our our piers with a rebar double helix. No, I think it's just a spiral. But a double helix would be cool, wouldn't it?


The foundation is the biggest part of our remodel for both cost and time. This is one crazy complicated foundation that's going to need 30 yards of concrete (a concrete truck holds about 8), and we've even had a concrete guy reject our job because it's too complicated. But we'll get it done, don't you worry. Woot!

[Thanks to Linds and Jen for helping me figure out if yards is the proper unit of measurement for concrete and if I should be saying cement instead.]

dig dug

So they have been digging out tons and tons and tons of dirt for our new foundation, storage space, and office. It would probably take a couple hours if you could use a bobcat or some kind of machinery. But instead it takes six guys a week. Poor dudes. But now our crawl/storage space under our kitchen, which I though was only going to be four feet tall, is going to be eight feet tall. It's the biggest crawl space ever.

Here's a photo I took today. Mark has been taking additional photos, but I don't have them now since they are on a different camera. But you can see the bathroom is now gone, and the dirt under where the kitchen used to be is a major hole. And they have taken the siding off the wall where the new office is going to be. And there's a lovely view into our downstairs living room, you can see the wood-burning stove!

Mark singing with Mirabelle

Mark was singing "Summertime" to Mirabelle and she had quite a commentary to add:

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...
Fish are jumpin'
"Fish aren't jumpin'! They're just floatin'!"
And the cotton is high.
"The airplane is high and the moon is high!"
Your Daddy's rich, and your Momma's good lookin'
"Momma's not lookin', she's washin' the dishes!"
Hush little baby, don't you cry.
"Mayanna's not cryin' anymore. Just Mayanna's chewin' on something!"

funny-lookin' house

Here's the latest tear-down photos. The deck is gone, the floor is gone, and many of the downstairs beams are gone. Not thrown away, of course, those beams are worth their weight in gold! Well, not that much. Anyway. The house looks crazy, and though you can still use the bathroom, it has plumbing and everything, there is no roof and you have to walk across four beams to get there. How cool is that?