Thursday, January 31, 2013

Day 17 - It's In The Bag

It was another day of very hard physical work by the crew at the job site today.  Every day the site looks different as the incremental steps to building the foundation are accomplished.





Bags and Trenches
 The crew loaded bag after bag of the fill material and stacked them up around the pipes that have been set.   Open spaces that look like trenches are where the beams giving strength to the foundation are placed.

In addition to the hand work, a Bobcat was used to bring some of the tons of material to the right spots on the work site.  It is a lot of fun to watch the Bobcat scoot around and make turns and "twirls."

                                            
Piles of fill material and one interested onlooker

In addition to the house building work, Bruce is constantly taking care of the trees that get branches broken by the construction trucks or otherwise need attention.

Bruce Sealing Tree Cut


Furry Friend of the Day

Today's furry friend is Brownie.  She is a gracious hostess to the many visitors to her beautiful ranch which she shares with her family.  And she loves going on long walks in the neighborhood.

Brownie




  

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Day 16 - In The Dumps (+ a special feature)

Today our great plumbing crew continued the job of filling in the drain pipe trenches.....these guys are really working hard.

Adrian and Romero hard at work


Guest room Bath

It is going to take lots of fill for this project.  Today we watched truck after truck dump loads of the fill. Too bad we didn't have any 5 year old boys with us.  They would have loved the dump truck action!!!!!

Dumping Sequence
That's a Lot of Fill Dirt!!!
The fill will first be moved by wheelbarrow to do detail work by hand.  Then a Bobcat will be used to spread the majority of the fill.  The finishing touches will be done by hand.  It is so much fun to watch the different steps in preparing the site to pour the foundation.

Furry Friend of the Day

I thought you might enjoy meeting some of our four legged friends helping us with our project.

Today's friend is Lulu - she helped us when we were working on our house plans.  She lives at Bridlewood Ranches with two humans who are her dedicated staff.

Lulu












Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Day 15 - Roughing It Again

Today the plumbers continued their work on roughing in the plumbing.  To fill in the trenches, a couple of loads of road base type material was delivered.
Fill Material

Here are several shots of the piping, trenching, and filling activity that went on today.

Master Suite
Note the water tank in the background of the picture below.  At the end of the workday the plumbers pumped water into the entire network of piping.  They will check all joints for leaks tomorrow.


Kitchen Area with Powder room to the Left - tank in background

The early stages of the trench for septic line running to the septic field southwest of the house have been dug.

Septic Tank Trench
Here's a shot looking from the mudroom to the front of the house.

More trenching to be filled

Most of the pipes were temporarily capped as part of the process.


Bruce decided to take his business outside today and set up a temporary office watching the guys doing their rough in work.

Office hours at the Ranch
We will be out again tomorrow to check the progress.  It's movin' right along.




Monday, January 28, 2013

Day 14 - Roughing It

We've hit a couple of milestones since the post about the meeting of the Dream Team.

A crew came out to survey the foundation forms. Unfortunately, we weren't there to see how the survey was performed since it would have been fun to watch.  The outcome was positive based on this stake in the middle of the building envelope.


Since the foundation form had been OK'd, it was time for the plumbers to "rough in" in the plumbing.  I had no idea what "roughing in" plumbing meant and was anxious to see the action.

This morning, our neighborhood "spy" called to say there were people on the build site.  So we drove out and were excited to see a crew hard at work.

Lee (foreground) and Adrian (background)
The guys are working the master suite area laying out the piping for the bathroom and laundry room.




Romero
Here's what that area looked like when we came out later in the day. 

Master suite plumbing
There was some excavation done to place lines, especially the septic line. 


It's fun to be able to look at the equipment and materials that the crews use to do their jobs.






Here are views of the rough plumbing on Monday afternoon after the guys left for the day.

Kitchen looking toward master suite

Kitchen and guest suite area
It will be fun to watch the progress made on "roughing it" out over the next few days.








































Its really starting to like the house construction sites we are all used to seeing - with trucks, equipment, and materials.










Thursday, January 24, 2013

Day 10/11 - Mulling Over the Dream Team

On Wednesday, we met our builders, Casey and Keith, at the build site for the first of many, many discussions about all sorts of topics related to building the house.
Our Office
One of the things we discussed was the need to remove a few more trees.  We don't like losing them, but these trees are just way too close to where the house will sit.  Here's Keith marking one of the trees for the "axe."


The Mark of Death
Bruce and I also received a tutorial on the construction of a foundation and the proper height/grading to provide the right drainage.  After living on the Texas Gulf Coast for years, we are very interested in keeping water away from our house.

Casey measuring form height

We are very lucky to be working with such great guys who listen to our never ending questions and give us good answers.  When you add Bruce to make a trio, you have what I consider to be "The Dream Team."

The Dream Team - Casey, Bruce, Keith
Do you know what it means for windows to be "mulled?"  I didn't have a clue even though the term is on our house plans and I have been seeing it for months.  There have been so many new house terms to learn that this term just slipped right by me.  

We met our window expert, Stoney, for the first time on Thursday and he explained the term to us.  Mulled windows are separate window units placed side to side or stacked on each other without any wall in between them.  We had a great time with Stoney selecting windows and deciding on all of the details that go along with windows - such as mulled or not mulled.  Stoney gave us some great ideas as we were picking out windows.  I'll try to snap a picture of Stoney later so you can meet this new member of our team!