I've Been Framed!

I've been framed...but in the best possible sense of the word!!  It was beyond exciting to see the first wall go up!  Isn't it beautiful?

Ok, maybe it's not that beautiful but I've waited over a year to see that first wall go up!  And then another went up and another went up!

It took about a week to frame the main floor and another week to frame the upstairs.

Here's Todd and I standing in what will be the kitchen.  To our left will be a half bath, pantry, and master bath.  Behind us is the laundry room.  You can see little Tate running around in the back.  

This is another view of the main floor looking towards the front of the house.  The girls are running around in the kitchen.  The door on the left is the pantry door.

We used our children as slave labor to clean up the job site.  They were good sports about it!

Check out Todd on the floor of the upstairs without any walls.  I was too chicken to go up so I just took pictures!!  You can see where his hand is the eve has been cut off the roof.  This was done in order to connect the old home to the new addition.  Not important to note until the rain decided to come!

I thought the house looked pretty funky when the upstairs walls went up.  There will be a dormer window in the front so that looks a little weird right now.

I'm thinking it's looking like a house!

Foundation: Mid-April

The big day finally come to dig the foundation!!  It was fun to see the foundation of the house going in.  It took just a day to dig the hole.

We discovered just how rocky our soil is.  I'm not sure we'll ever get a garden to grow here.

During the week of digging the foundation and setting the forms for the footings and the walls there were so many vehicles here.  At one point I could hardly see the house from the road!

Can anyone see my house??

A couple days after the hole was dug the footings went in.

Then after that the forms went in and the walls were poured.

The forms came off and then it got back filled.  Then the floor joist went on.  You may notice in the above photo that there was originally a window poured in the far wall.  We had to change the design and eliminate that window because we needed to add a staircase to access this basement. In the original plan this basement would be accessed through the basement under the other side of the house.  Our contractor didn't feel good about cutting a doorway in the old rock foundation.  So, we added a stairway in the laundry/craft room to access the basement.  I wasn't happy about giving up so much space in my room but in the end it will work better and be nice that we won't have to pass through the old basement to get to the new one.  

We are now up to ground level and things are moving right along!