| February 25, 2004 - Ground Breaking - ground frozen, couldn't even get the shovel in. |
| But one day later, the tractor had broken through it all and removed the top soil. |
| It took two days to dig the hole. |
| ...Even when taking time out for lunch. |
| Who would've thought holes in the ground could be so neat - and later, after some heavy rains, so muddy. |
| April 6 - Finally, the rain let up and we were able to have the foundation dug and poured. |
| The fox is very upset that we are disturbing his stalking ground, and runs away |
| The forms get delivered. They were stacked neatly, but the wind blew them around. It was so windy, the port-a-john was even moved around. More rain delays |
| April 19 - After letting the mud dry out for a few days, able to start putting up the basement walls. Two days and the wall is complete and ready for the concrete pour. |
| Though it looks disorganized, these guys are great - focused on doing a quality job and willing to explain how things work to the ignorant home owners. |
| April 30 - The basement walls are poured and left to set for a while. |
| May 5 - Next is to build the deck for the first floor. Another great crew provided by Commonwealth Housing. |
| But inside, it looks like a real mess. |
| Daughter asks - is this where my bedroom will be? |
| May 10 - Next step - plumbing that will be under the basement floor. |
| May 17 - Rory's back - Tara Inc. - Building the homes of the future ... today
Ready to start on framing the exterior walls for the next floor. |
| Waterproofing has been added and the next layer of blocks has been started. |
| May 22 - Everybody's helping, even our nephews (especially if they get to drive the tractor). |
| June 1 - Next floor is almost done - just one layer of block to go. |
| June 6 - The windows are well braced, and holes are cut in the bottom to allow concrete to be poured directly under the windows. |
| Bracing all around, especially on the chimney. |
| June 14 - Had to go out of town for a week. The next time we see the house, the walls are poured and the roof is on. This is a view we see coming to our house over our neighbor's indoor riding rink. |
| Approaching from across the field, the basement gets hidden from view. And we see that the roof has some nice gables in it. |
| Inside, we've found the framing has already been started. The pace is picking up - we'd better finish our kitchen planning. |
| Looking from daughter's bedroom into the great room gives us a feel for the windows that will let in all that light. |
| June 21 - We get to work cleaning up some of the debris around the house before they backfill and we have to dig it out to landscape |
| Young daughter has to make sure the location will be good for kite flying - a very important part of building a house. |
| Framing work has been done in the basement and the first set of doors has been delivered. |
| June 27 - Backfill gets done. Maybe we will get to plant some grass soon. |
| We meet with John of Ancon Mechanical Systems to discuss the installation of our geothermal HVAC system. |
| July 3 - Young daughter helps Grandmom check all the doors, openings, and halls for accessibility. |
| More deliveries (this time the tubs and showers) and the HVAC duct work is started. |
| July 10 - Roof shingles are on. JP gave us our first choice (thank you very much) with Certainteed Independence Shangles. Looks great. Plus, we see they have started the deck (aka deer stand). The HVAC folks had to borrow a truck from a friend to continue the duct work. |
| With the field finally bush-hogged, the house is no longer hidden by all the tall grass when driving up to it. Guess this means we are going to have to cut the grass more often (oh well). |
| July 17 - They have started on the windows and doors. The deck is done and they are starting on the trim framing. |
| The stone for our fireplace is delivered. |
| July 30 - Most of the windows are now in and the trim framing is done. . . |
| . . .and daughter is already enjoying the deck. |
| We are enjoying the deck already (this picture was taken by our 4-1/2 year old daughter on a Nikon 35mm camera). |
| The plumbing rough-in has been completed. Here we see the kitchen and laundry room. |
| Mid August - The deck ramp on the side of the house has been extended past the door. We are getting ready for siding. Electricians that were supposed to do the rough-in bailed out at the last moment - sigh. |
| The whole clan comes to check out our house. |
| Young daughter gets quite upset when her ball goes down the chimney flu and gets stuck. |
| End of August - The siding is done. |
| Young daughter takes a picture of her daddy starting to dig the hole for the propane tank. Too bad she wasn't around later -- a lot of tractor gets hidden when the hole is 5 feet deep. |
| The crew is here to put on the gutters. The builder has agreed to get some of the outside work done early, so we can grade those hills and get some grass growing before winter. |
| Got the hole dug out for the propane tank just before the hurricane passed through and filled it up with water. |
| We are trying to do the grading and get real top soil back around the house instead of the clay that is left from where they excavated. Dad and son excavated this entire area with the Kubota. After digging out 500+ lb rock and framing in walkway, they have been filling in with topsoil. A stone wall is going to be built up against the dirt embankment. |
| Our wonderful stone fireplace is done. Here it is, looking from the kitchen area. |
| Daddy and young daughter finish backfilling for the propane tank as the leaves start to turn. |
| Drywall is up - young daughter checks out her new bathtub. |
| She is getting just tall enough to peek over the island wall in the kitchen. |
| Young daughter's fireplace in her playroom in the basement. |
| Checking out the results of our wiring party we had in September. Over 1.5 miles of low voltage cable in the house. |
| October has arrived and with it the fall colors as we work on grading the yard. |
| November finally sees the electric company coming to put up poles so we can have electricity to the house. |
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We haven't kept our site up-to-date because we have been so busy working on the house ourselves and getting ready for the move. Now that we are almost done, we took a lot of pictures just after they cleaned the house.
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| January brings snows and clear skies. From the view seen a few times above we can see that electrical final has been done - we have lights on the house. |
| In the view from the side, we can see we finally have electricity. The driveway has been graded and stone put down. The garage doors have been installed (one actually works). The front porch column now holds it up. We still need to get the downspout on the front porch to lead to our drainage system (another effort on our part that took lots of time). |
| From under the deck, you can see where we plan to put a brick patio under the deck and a walkway between the house and the driveway which extends to the back of the house. Unfortunately, you can also see the mud which has run down into the walkway. We will have to dig it out by hand come springtime. |
| In the laundry room, we still have some work to do to hook up the appliances. You can see the door to the outside and the shower, which will be so useful coming in from the farm all wet and muddy. |
| The view from the kitchen, over the island, toward the great room, shows the fireplace, the wood floors, and the view through the windows and doors of the great room. |
| Looking back the other way, we can see the kitchen. There is a wide, accessible aisle between the island and wall cabinets. We chose hickory cabinets, to which this photo doesn't do justice. |
| A view from another angle shows the window over the sink (a must-have). We have drawers on the base cabinets instead of doors. Don't you just hate having to root around in the back of cabinets to find things? |
| A view from the end of the great room farthest from the kitchen looking back to where we will put our dining room furniture (left of fireplace). |
| From the corner of the great room, looking back toward the entry foyer. On the left is the entrance to young daughter's bedroom. |
| This a view from the master bedroom door - down the wide hallway, into the great room. The door to young daughter's bathroom is on the left. |
| The mirror isn't up yet in the master bath. It will be the full width of this wall. We are finally getting the double vanity we've always wanted. |
| Thank you Uncle Ellis for helping us with the roll-in Master Shower. He suggested raising the header over the shower to help with ventilation. It turned out great. Looks even better with the frosted glass door which was added shortly after this picture. The tile goes all the way up to and across the ceiling. |
| The master bedroom has lots of windows where we can look out on this gorgeous view in the morning. Someone hinted that with this view, it will be hard to wake up grumpy in the morning. We agreed, he is always hard to wake up. |
| Turning around the other way in the master bedroom we can see his little closet and her walk-in closet beyond the dressing area. |
| JP did a great job on the stairs. This is a picture looking up from the basement. The original plans had the stairs closed all the way. JP came up with the idea of opening them up on one side - we think it looks great. The 48" width means two people can come down side-by-side. |
| Though unfinished for now, we plan on turning this area into a kitchenette for use in our office area downstairs. |
| Also unfinished is the downstairs playroom. However, we are sure young daughter will enjoy it just the same. This is HER fireplace. Mama and Daddy get the one upstairs. |
| Though it seemed to take forever, we finally got all 132 video, voice, and computer cables terminated into the rack. |
| This is one of our offices downstairs. This will also be our assembly area for building computer systems. We put the suspended ceiling in ourselves -- another time-consuming project that has prevented us from keeping this site updated. |
| Our utility room with the geothermal HVAC system. The two big black pipes run water down to a 600 foot well and bring back a constant 55 degrees as a heating and cooling source. We are hoping this will save significant money on our electric bills. |