Day 24: Framing continues

It is starting to get a sense of the spaces now that the framing of the second floor floors is underway. Very cool. Cheryl and the kids are enjoying looking around, as am I.

The garage door issue seems to be resolving itself. A way to allow us to have 8-foot garage doors was found, unfortunately the framers had already done some of the work to make the doors 7'6", so there is a bit of rework. Bryan and Mike have been great with this issue, I'm glad we've got them working on this project - I'm sure some of the builders we've spoken to over the months and years would have handled the situation less competently.

Tonight, Cheryl and I are working to finalize out kitchen layout and plans.

More Day 24 pictures.

Day 23: Who designed this thing?

More lumber arrived today, but that wasn't the most significant event of the day.

Cheryl and I poured over a new version of the plans that our architect delivered Tuesday. There are some odd changes and inaccuracies, but nothing that can't be corrected. The builders have been frustrated by the lack of information in our plans, or, as in the case of today, problems.

Problem #1

Mike called this morning and said that there was a problem with the plans in that they call for an 8' tall garage door in each bay, but they also call for 4 25-foot LVL beams to support the second floor and for these beams to hang down into the garage space far enough so that the 8' garage door wouldn't be able to open. Brilliant.

So we've gone back and forth with the structural engineer and architect multiple times today, trying to resolve a problem that should have been handled in the plans correctly the first time.

No, I don't want to put a post in the garage so we can have a smaller beam, thus giving up what we asked for in our design to compensate for incorrect design.

No, I don't want to pay my builder more to do more complicated work that he figured on based on our incorrect plans.

No, I don't want my builder to shoulder the cost.

I want plans that are correct, without dumb mistakes. Too late for that... at least they were expensive.

Problem #2

Another issue that I inquired about today relates to our second floor, where there is a reflected ceiling for the master bedroom and study, but they only way you'd know that is to look at the page titled "Electrical plan - Reflected ceiling plan". Yep, the reflected ceiling information is in there, but not in the structural plans to specify what the framing for the non-reflected ceiling is, not in the second floor plan, just in the "electrical and reflected ceiling plan". Have I asked who eats the up charge for lousy plans?

Problem #3

I also found out that the structural plans say that the large window in our room can have a box header, but Bryan, not trusting that asked the structural guy who agreed that this is a problem, but we can just replace the box header with LVL's. LVL's are expensive and weren't budgeted for so based on not being called for in the plans and will cost more. Again, if there is an error in the plans, do we eat it?

Pissed.

Day 22: More Framing

More framing today. We needed to decide on the garage door from the mudroom since it is not consistently sized in the plans, so that was a small problem. We also decided to change the front door from being a front door with two sidelights to a front door with a narrow window on each side of it so that we can more easily provide ventilation to the room without opening the door wide and allowing bugs in.

More Day 22 pictures

Day 21: Framing the mudroom deck and garage walls

The framers were back to continue the framing. They completed the mudroom and entry deck and got two walls up.

The builders are using 2x6 construction and OVE (Optimum Value Engineering) framing techniques, which generally results in less wood and more insulation. Mike has been happy to do OVE framing, but is skeptical of the benefits, which is fair enough, but we are hoping that it makes our house greener. You can see how a window in the garage is framed above - a lot less wood than in conventional framing.

More Day 21 pictures

Day 20: The framing starts

The framers arrived at 7:15 and there really wasn't much doubt that they had. The Sawzall made quick work of removing the ant-chewed sill and before the kids got on the bus at 8:15 the sill was replaced with wood that stood a chance of holding a nail.

The framers put down a foam layer to seal between the treated lumber sill and the foundation, and then a second untreated layer on top of the treated layer. Bolts were fastened and ground flush. The mudroom floor is now framed and tomorrow there's lots more framing to do.

More day 20 pictures

Days 16, 17, 18: Lumber arrives

Day 16: Cheryl and I discussed details about windows and doors with Mike and the window/door guy. We'd like to have a big window in the kitchen, but in order to do so we need to finalize our cabinet design and appliance locations.

Day 17: I managed to match the roof shingle from 2 years ago that we had installed over the mudroom. Timberline, Pewter Grey, as it turns out. I didn't think that there were blue colored stones in our shingles, but there are.

Day 18: Lumber was delivered bright and early Saturday morning (8am-ish), waking our neighbor with the beep...beep..beep... that trucks backing up make. Sorry! I'm sure that the incessant hammering that will start Monday with the start of framing will be better.

Pictures from days 16-19