Day 27 | Walls are up

House Day: 27
Loan Day: 44

After the floor joists were complete yesterday, they were able to lay the floor boards today. We first got there around 2:00 today and they had 2 walls up and were working on the east wall (the one you see on the left). It was neat to see them lift it up into position. I would have video recorded it but I'm not sure that I'm allowed to photograph/video the Amish.

We came back later that evening to be able to take more pics and get a feel for how things are really going to be laid out. It really is exciting to see chalk lines on the floor boards too!


Facing the front of the house here. 

Standing in the e-space/dining area, and facing the master bedroom (left) and master bath (right). The front of the house is seen on the right here and the back is the opening on the left.

Now standing in the master room and facing the kitchen (right), dining /e-space on the left side.

Great room wall is laying down, you can see its going to be two story great room wall. The window there is in the kitchen, its all open to the great room.

Front entrance, with the stairs in the 2 story foyer. 

Aaron is enjoying it. :)


Standing in the e-space/dining room and looking into kitchen and the laundry room is next to that doorway (to the garage).

Dining room on left, it will be to the front of the house.. and the small window will be an e-space area. you can see where they will have a [small] wall to the left of the window and then also to the right of the window will be a wall. Kitchen will be on the other side of that wall, with a doorway connecting the two.

Laundry room:

Walkout basement side is looking good! Thats our mast bedroom on the corner with the three windows, and then our bath on the left corner towards the front of the house. Our walkout is actually on the west side of the house, when you are facing the front.

The back view has our large master window, and then french doors from the great room will be here that lead out onto a covered porch.

We went down and checked out the basement. Definitely feels roomier down here now with flooring up over us. This is really exciting! Oh.. Tony approves too, he's looking forward to getting his Man Cave back. :)

Stairway upstairs where the light is, and the plumbing in the back there for the future full bath in basement.


A final pic of the front of the house. 

Outside the windows to (R to L) are dining room, e-space, kitchen and laundry room. What? you don't see the laundry room window? Oh yea, thats because they forgot it. :P No worries, I pointed it out and they will fix it. :)

Standing in the garage and looking at the garage entrance into the house that walks by the laundry on the right, and goes right into the kitchen on the right with great room on the left.

Laundry room!

So for tomorrow I bet they will raise this 2 story great room wall up and start framing the inside walls?

Day 26 | Floor Joists

House Day: 26
Loan Day: 43

Today Tylutki came in and filled the garage with more dirt and graded out the area behind the garage/house a little more. 

James and his [Amish] crew came out early this morning, 7:30am, and started with the beam posts. Well they got one one, but then realized that the beam pocket didn't line up right on the other. So they had to wait till the afternoon when Cooks could get out there and recut the beam pocket. It was off by about 1 foot! So once that was fixed around 2:30, they certainly worked fast to get the rest of the floor joists in! It's pretty neat to walk in the basement now and can get a feel for how tall the ceilings are. We chose to go with 9 foot ceilings and I already LOVE it!

I bet they will be laying the floor boards tomorrow, as they have moved them over to the house, and that seems to be the next step.

Here you can see the beam pocket to the left, and then actually where it should be. I was a little worried and concerned that half of the beam is not on the concrete, but actually on 2x4's, but I'm assuming they know what they are doing here... RIGHT?! Also, this is where the basement stairs are at and there are footings below this beam, so there will be a weight baring wall right under this, and technically doesn't need a beam overhead. So I guess since thats the case, there will be support under it, then we should be good. 

I'm pretty excited about the basement. We kinda had to plan things out and where we want them so that we could plan the future bathroom plumbing. We will only have two standalone beam posts, and once we finish the basement, it will just be this one. The other will be framed within the bathroom wall. 

This is looking up where the opening for the stairs will be. 

And of course a basement selfie. :)

Day 23 | Framing has started!

House Day: 23
Loan Day: 40

We hired James Zehr and his Amish crew from Dutch Craft Construction of Coldwater to do our framing, siding and roofing. He's great to communicate with and a real hard worker. He got his crew in there as soon as they could! While we wish the basement floor was poured, its not going to hold up the framers. Cook has already said to continue with framing and then they would just pump the concrete in to the basement floor. And because the basement floor wasn't poured, then the beam posts were the wrong size, short by 4". So they couldn't set the beams up today. But they did lay boards down around the perimeter, and also framed the walkout basement wall. They are just leaving it down for now so they can get the equipment in to raise the beam on Monday. 

You can also see that Tylutki came in and did partial backfill around the house. That will help to secure the foam in that we laid against the exterior wall and also for the framers to get in and be close to the house.

Day 22 | Framing materials delivered

House Day: 22
Loan Day: 39

My brother-in-law Dan works for Chelsea Lumber and brought our scheduled delivery of framing materials this morning. We met him at the site. He also took back the left over foam sheets and returned them for credit for us. THANKS DAN!!!

A video posted by LeeAnn Howard (@froggyleggs) on Jun 25, 2015 at 11:32am PDT

Day 21 | Floor trusses delivered

House Day: 21
Loan Day: 38

I called in the morning to see if we were on the schedule today for Cook to pour the basement floor and they said we were, along with a commercial job. Well at the end of the day, they never came by. Which is too bad, because Thursday is suppose to have rain all day. So that means Friday is going to be quite the exciting day at the site. We will have the framers start, Tylutki backfilling and now Cooks/Willbee concrete filling the basement floor.

We did get a little action today though. While I was out there checking, I was pulling out and saw this large truck starting to back up into the drive. So I got out of his way, let him back up the drive and thought I would stick around to see how in the work these materials would be getting off this flat bed.

He even made a slick move of getting in between the left over foam sheets and the treeline. --Oh note to self, or self builders out there... Don't count your walkout basement wall in your total linear footage when figuring out how many sheets you need. We totally counted that whole wall and then was over by 14 sheets. Thankfully Chelsea Lumber is making a delivery tomorrow and can return these for us.

So here he is all set, and getting ready to unload these!

A video posted by LeeAnn Howard (@froggyleggs) on Jun 24, 2015 at 10:59am PDT

Day 20 | Foam board insulation and grading pea stone

House Day: 20
Loan Day: 37

We called early Monday morning to get a Plumbing inspection appt for that day, but he was booked up and couldn't do it until Tuesday at noon. So Tuesday we met for that and it took a whole 5 minutes really. After we left there, we headed to Chelsea Lumber to pick up the 2" x 4' x 8' foam insulation boards so we could put them around the outside of the basement walls. This is per code, to put them on the exterior or interior. We've read its better in the northern states to lay it on the exterior, and easiest right after waterproofing. It should stick right up against the tar. Cooks had come around 1:00 and was still working on grading the pea stone in the basement floor and would be waterproofing (spraying the tar) on the exterior walls (below grade) before leaving. So we loaded up the trailer and headed to the property to drop it off. 

We came back later in the day when they were done, to un-bundle the foam sheets and lay them up against the freshly tarred exterior. It wasn't as messy as I had thought, but I did wear scrap clothing and shoes just in case. Tony (and the boys) would bring the pieces to me and I would stick them to the walls, one by one. They stuck pretty good for the most part, some we anchored with sticks. When the dirt is backfilled and the final grading is done, then we can cut off the remaining foam that sticks up above ground. 

Now that the pea stone is all graded, the sump crock is in, then Cooks can come out and pour the basement floor. They say we are on the schedule for this Wednesday or Thursday. They better hope so! James will be bringing his crew to start framing on FRIDAY!