Part 11 - Soffit and Stuff

Progress continues as we now have a completed roof and most of the soffit in place. The windows will be here soon which should keep out the cold a bit better than the plastic that's covering the openings right now. Here are some updated photos:

The crawl space is insulated. It should be nice and warm for the furnace guy to run the duct work.

The photo above is a shot of the entry way leading into the mud room. A few more walls and we'll be ready for the sheetrock between the garage and the house.

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Part 10 - The roof is on (mostly)

Last weekend my brother and I got educated in working outdoors in Minnesota in December. On Saturday morning it was -2 degrees when we headed out to work on the house. Despite the cold, we were able to get a lot accomplished. By Monday evening we had the roof sheeted on the house, and the garage walls and the trusses were in place.

I'm really happy with the final interior layout. The vaulted ceiling in the living room really opens it up. My dad made some last minute adjustments to the bathroom layout and it turned out great. Considering the size of the house, the rooms are large and there's a lot of closet space. The garage door and windows are on order, so it won't be long because we can seal it up.

In the pictures below you can see that the garage trusses are in place. We still need to tie the garage roof into the main house.

The living room window isn't visible in the picture below because it's still covered with oxboard.

This is a view from the living room toward the back bedrooms. The bathroom is the first door on the left.

In this picture you can see the vaulted ceiling. The window on the right is in the dining room. The window on the left is one of the two windows in the living room. The door in the front entry to the house.

Part 9 - Exterior Walls

During the holiday break we were able to finalize a few design decisions. After looking at a couple of model homes, we finally made our siding and window color selections. We will be using JamesHardi HardiPlank fiber cement siding on the exterior of the home. To give the building some contrast we'll be using HardiShingle on the gable ends. We opted for a lighter siding color

(Khaki Brown) with darker gables (Timber Bark). The trim will be an off white color (Navajo Beige). We'll be using Pella clad windows, and the window color should match the trim nicely.

We also went back and forth about the fireplace location in the living room. After much debate, we settled on the original plan of a corner fireplace. The corner fireplace allows us to keep our preferred window locations and it doesn't take up too much precious living space.

After Thanksgivings, Doug and Dad were back to work. The weather was in the mid twenties, and the forecast calls for low twenties and snow the rest of the week. The goal is to have the roof on by the end of the weekend. I'm sure they will appreciate being able to work inside.

Since the last post, the foundation was backfilled and two small retaining walls were installed around the entry to the crawl space. The exterior walls were framed and sheeted, and they started laying out the interior walls.

Here are some updated photos:

In the photo above, Dad is laying out the interior walls. The view is from the back bedroom looking toward the dining room. The door on the right has been framed in for the future master bedroom. Initially this will get framed over since we aren't doing the master suite right away. For now it makes a nice door to the side of the house. You can also see the kitchen and bathroom windows in the right side of the shot.

Here's a view of the dining room from the side of the house. This doorway will get closed off eventually.

This is a view of the back of the house. What looks like a doorway is actually the guest bedroom window. The bottom of the window isn't framed in right now because it makes a nice door to the back of the house. You can see the retaining walls that lead to the crawl space. With the sandy soil the crawl space will be nice and dry all year round. It will make an excellent place for extra storage.

This is a view of the front entry to the house. There will be a small deck leading to the front door.