It’s Coming Together

Hello everyone! It’s been over a month since the last update! So much has gone on, so here’s the pictures!

And some of the recent developments that are REALLY exciting: the roof is up and ready (no more going on the roof!), the windows are all in and the plumbing and electrical are done! The insulators are going in on Wednesday and the plaster walls should be going up next week!

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So, now it looks like we’ll be moving in around the middle of August. Our timeline has definitely been pushed back and the budget has been stretched. But with the help of our friends and family, we’re confident that we’ll be in as soon as possible. And without breaking the bank…too much.

You Can “Truss” Me

Big goings on at the Pozzy house! Last week we had the trusses put up on the roof. We’re putting the sheathing on as well so that we can dry-in the house. Today is a rainy day, which is allowing for David to go into the armory for work and I’ve been doing some things around the apartment  hotel room. But the forecast for the next 10 days is sunny and 70/80! I am crossing my fingers that it stays that way.

The first few photos is of the double wall that David installed. We also put up the interior walls and the joists for the loft spaces. And the piece de resistance is the lovely trusses that went up! We put up the first six by having some poeple pass them up to us on the platform and we would install them. That would have taken forever (those alone took about 3 hours) if we needed to put them up where the house is open to the ceiling. Thankfully, my awesome brother in law was able to get in touch with a crane company that could come out that same day and put it up for wicked cheap. So, we jumped on it and the remaining 17 trusses went up in an hour! Now we’ll just have to level ‘em, plum ‘em and attach sheathing to make them sturdier. David rented scaffolding from Home Depot so we should be able to reach the high points with more ease.

It is so cool to see everything coming together so well. I still can’t believe that my husband is building this. It’s such a cool thing to be a part of.

We Have Walls!

Hey guys! Well it’s been a very busy month but I’m happy to say that we actually have walls up at the house! As of tonight (which happens to be David’s birthday!) we have the four outer walls up as well as the double interior wall. We are doing a double wall system so as to have more insulation in our outer cavity. It’s projected that our walls will have a whole wall R-value of around 40 and we’ll have about 11 1/4 inches of dense packed cellulose.

We were hoping to have inner walls done by now but the rain is not cooperating with us. Once those walls go up, we can put the joists and flooring up for the lofts and then the roof trusses go in. Our ultimate goal right now (besides the obvious of getting this house done) is to get the whole house dried in so that we can continue to work on the inside without worrying about the weather. Of course, when we were waiting to get our demo permit, the weather was perfect and now that we can build it rains like it’s the end of the world.

So exciting to see it all come together! I remember working on the foundation and thinking that that was never ending.

Our end in sight? Shooting for July.

Foundation Completed

Hello all!

Some exciting news on the home front. Because the weather has been so beautiful (and will continue to be that way) we were able to finish the foundation. All four levels of block are done; the concrete truck came and dropped off 10 cubic yards of concrete and we filled the cores and put in the 3 inch thick concrete slab (non load bearing) into the crawl space. It took 4 men (and me supervising and taking pictures) to complete that task in about 2 and a half hours. But everything looks great!

David and my father in law also installed a new plastic water pipe since the old cast iron one was falling apart and pretty disgusting. Eventually we’ll have to replace the whole pipe that leads up to the street, but right now the house is the priority. They also installed a conduit that will allow electricity to go to the garage (again, in the future).

With the weather being as nice as it’s forecasted to be, the framing should go up pretty quickly. We have all of the materials to build and we need to order our roof trusses.

Our goal is still to be in my the end of June, early July. Fingers crossed!

An Update – In Photos

Busy busy week! I’ll upload some more videos when I get a chance. Right now here are some pictures of the foundation! We’re so close!

It was also my father in law’s birthday, so we had some lunch and cake with the family to celebrate.

Up Next: We’re getting grout on Monday to put in the cinderblock walls and in the crawl space. We can start framing soon too!!

A Family Affair

This past Sunday it was a family affair over at the homestead: me, David, my dad, his dad & mom, sister and brother in law. We were all gung-ho on getting the foundation done. We were able to fix up the uneven foundation and put in the center footers where beams will go to hold up the main beam in the house.

Only one injury that day; a splinter. No biggie. :-)

I could only help out in the morning since I had to work in the afternoon. But I was there from 7am to 12pm. Good solid day to help.

Today David informed me that the building materials were delivered! We now have wood to actually start building a house. Maybe the end of May isn’t too out of the picture?

I’ve also updated the video page!

Establishing a Foundation

Yesterday was a big day at the property! We’ve poured the footers for the part of the foundation wall that needed to be replaced. The old one was crumbling so bad that there was no way it could be salvaged.

Instead of using all concrete blocks, David rented a mixer and we made our own blend of concrete: gravel, cement, water and sand. We filled in our forms (made from scrap wood from the house) and added in some rebar for extra support. We even had the extra hand in the form of David’s army buddy Tom. That was a HUGE help. And I finally met our neighbor, Marian, who had brought over coffee and some Italian cookies. She’s been dropping things off for David over the past few days. So nice.

We worked from about 10AM to 8PM. In addition to the mixer, we also rented a hammer drill to get holes into the concrete. His intention was to have the new blocks tie in to the old blocks, for extra stability.

Next up is putting the blocks onto the form and then level the out-of-whack foundation.

And our building materials come in on Monday!