Day 30 & 31: Front roof added, appliance and garage door search continues

The front roof was framed and it really starts to show the shape of the front of the house. Very exciting.

Shopping for a garage door is an absolute pain in the ass. Our door will be 9' wide and 8' tall (see Day 23 for more on that...) and for some reason all of the garage door manufacturers have decided that the same size windows at the top of the door will work for any size door, so the windows look great and proportionate for an 8' door, but look like the clothes on a kid in the middle of a growth spurt for the 9' door - just a little too small.

Mike send us the "have this thing by this time" list today. Cheryl and I will be discussing and debating the merits of gas vs. electric, 30" range vs. 36", 5' window vs. 6' window, over-the-range microwave vs. drawer microwave vs. over the counter microwave, and fiberglass faux-wood front door ($750) vs. wood front door ($1300) vs. Marvin® Wood front door ($3700). It looks like getting gas into the house is a $1300 expense, so electric is looking better all the time. If we could find a 5-burner electric range with 5 real burners in a 30" size that'd be perfect, but they don't seem to make that, only with a "warming zone", which means you can melt butter on it. We'll figure it all out sooner or later...

More Day 30 pictures
More Day 31 pictures

Day 29: Framing the Roof

The roof rafters were added today. A few shots...

More Day 29 pictures

Bryan indicated that we'll break into the upstairs bedroom and downstairs bathroom in the next two weeks.

Day 28: 2nd Floor Walls

The walls went up today.

More day 28 pictures

Day 27: We've got a second floor

The deck for the second floor was installed today and the 4 25-foot LVL's were raised into place. The LVLs are the same ones that were going to be installed in the way of the garage door opening, but are raised up now to be out of the way of the door. Bryan says that the big challenge is that the gable-end wall now needs to be built in place rather than being built on the desk and raised. Nonetheless, he says that walls should be going up on the second floor tomorrow.

Here's an action shot of Robert, doing, um, something on the new deck.

And here's a shot of the 4 LVL's that will be the base of the front wall of the upstairs

Cheryl and I are still grappling with kitchen design questions (e.g. 36" range or 30" range? 6' window or 5' window?). We also had questions on whether we wanted a 2x2 or 3x2 grid for a couple of windows, and what we wanted to do about the roof overhang for the addition. Both helpful questions since the plans specify things but Mike and Bryan correctly questioned the wisdom of these so we're reconsidering.

More Day 27 pictures.