Windows and Doors

In addition to the roofing work last week, most of the windows and external doors were installed by the carpenters.

Carpenters Installing the Back Patio Door

View From My Office 

A Roof Over Our Head

The roofers showed up last week and did their work.  We put a new roof on our house on Beaver Dam Road before we sold it.  Bo liked those shingles so much that we used the same ones on this house.

Roofing The Back of the House

 

Almost Finished

The Roofer's Truck.  Lots of Miles, Lots of Character

Drilling For Gas

Last week Laclede Gas tapped into the main gas line in that runs under the street and put in the lateral gas line to the house.  They used a machine that drills a pipe under the ground, horizontally from the house to the main rather than having to dig it with a backhoe or shovel.  I was there for only a short time, but one of the men from the gas company told me that when the pipe would break through into the hole where the main line was that they would be within five inches of either side of the tap.

Main Gas Line Under the Street With Tap Installed

Drilling the Lateral Line

Gas Line At  The House Ready For the Meter

Basement Stairs

Terry came by this morning and built the temporarily permanent stairs down into the basement.  He is a friend of Chris' and has been building stairs for a bit over 40 years for the same company.  He said he took vocational education in high school and that is where he learned the basics of stair building.  Today's work was a side job for him.  He told me that the reason he loves doing this work is because no two sets of stairs are the same unless you are working for a builder who is building a lot of similar houses.  According to him, some customers want stairs in really odd places and configurations.  At times, he says, it's a challenge to figure out what's going to hold them up and keep them from falling.

Cutting the Stringers

No more Ladders

Please Use The Hand Rail

Making Sure It's Done Right

Does your builder do this?

There's A Carpenter On The Other Side Of That Ridge.

Subterranean Workers

The basement floor was poured and finished yesterday.  It was hot, dirty work.  I did not get many pictures because there were four different crews working all at the same time and I was in the way.

Basement Concrete Guys Tend To Be ... Free Spirits

Ready For Steps To Be Installed

A Different Season: Another House

Fourty-two years ago Bo and I built a house in Spring, Texas near Houston.  Yesterday I was scanning some old 35 mm slides into my computer and ran across the pictures of that project.  I hope you enjoy looking at them.  Pay especially close attention to the last picture.

A Slab In The Woods

Sticks And...

More Sticks

Looking More Like a House

My Parents, John and Maggie Hanley, their good friends, Windell and Mabel Teegarden  (red outfit and waving) along with Bo and me (taking the picture) making an inspection.

Before the days of pallets.  These bricks were loaded and then unloaded by hand. They came from Mexico.

The entire house was brick.

Brick for the chimney.

Finished !!!

Who is this young guy?

My BEAUTIFUL Texas Wife !!!  Okay, it has nothing to do with the house.  I'm just braggin'.

Peak Performance From Fearless Carpenters

The three carpenters who are building this house are amazing workers.  As the house goes up, they go up with it.  One of them is constantly feeding the other two lumber.  Much of it has to be cut to the proper size before he lifts it up to the other two and it seems like they are never waiting for material.  It's a constant flow.  Try standing on open trusses, pulling up 4'x8' sheets of plywood and setting them in place, two plus stories high.  No thanks!

On The Ridge

Putting On Bo's Front Porch

Gravel

The plumbers have finished installing the plumbing in the basement floor and tomorrow the concrete floor will be poured.  Getting ready for that, the crew who will do it spent the day putting a thick layer of gravel down as a base.  They built a chute and dropped the gravel from a front end loader, down the chute into to the basement and into wheelbarrows to be spread.

Gravel Going Down The Chute

Filling The Wheelbarrow

Truss Day

The trusses were set in place today.  Click on any picture for a better view.  Also, there are a couple of videos at the bottom.  Blogger degraded them during the upload, I assume for storage reasons, sorry for that.

The Flying Truck

Wow!

Garage Trusses In Place

Setting The Final Back Porch Truss

Back Porch

Looks Complicated ! ! !

Looks Easy

There is a lot going on at the work site: Plumbers have started their work, carpenters are there every day, the trusses have been delivered and are now being prepared and materials are constantly being delivered.  Our builder Chris Unland keeps things moving.  So far there has been no down time waiting for people or supplies.  That requires a lot of planning and coordination with multiple people.

The Truss Plans

Trusses Ready to Go Up

Building The Garage

Plumbing 

More Stuff Being Delivered

The Daily Ritual

Every day most of us go by the house for an inspection. Today after Ellie's volleyball game and Ricky's baseball game we all went.

Ellie Hanging Out in Her Room

Ricky Hanging Out in His Room

Behind The Scenes

Mark the plumber showed up this week and started work in the basement setting the basement bathroom plumbing as well as the exit plumbing for the rest of the house.  Probably not as exciting as the carpentry work, but just as necessary.

Who Wants To Certify That This Stuff Is All In the Right Place?

Bathroom Plumbing

Second Floor

The manufactured joists for the second floor have been delivered and installed and the second floor walls of the main part of the house built.  It's beginning to look more and more like a house.

Second Floor Manufactured Joists

Second Floor Joists Installed

Second Floor Work

Garage and Drive Way

Front Yard Grading. It's Going To Look Big, Up On That Hill!