Days 9-16: The Mega Update

As I said earlier, I didn't get to update every day.  So here's a photographic summary.  Nearly every day there was a new key element in place for us to see!

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Day 9 saw things heating up!  The walls, the walls!

Day 9: Craning the first wall into place 

Day 9: We just gained a few meters overall height

Day 9: The big window door wall section

Day 9: From another angle

Day 9: More walls, and some upstairs walls getting ready to go up

Day 10 it was time for even more walls.  I'm sensing a theme here.

Day 10: OK fun little game, spot the difference between this and the previous picture.  There is a difference.  For real.  A big one.  You'll believe me when you see it.

Day 10: A view from the porch

Day 10: Ceiling beam with brackets for attic floor joists

Day 11 they kept trucking right along, getting things squared up and solidified.

Day 11: Posts!  I hear those are important

Day 11: From inside.  You can see the amount of sweet shade is increasing on the property already.  Goodbye, constant sunbrella management (well, soon)

Day 12 we saw some joists going up!

Day 12: Like I said, joists going up

Day 12: End of the day we were in pretty good shape

Day 14 was great.  There was a ladder and we could walk around upstairs.

Day 14: A ceiling! 

Day 14: It's dark inside now...

Day 15 was significant again, because suddenly there was a second story!

Day 15: Our house is now conspicuous

Day 15: The back of our conspicuous house

Day 16.  The roof!  The roof!

Day 16: The upstairs has some support

Day 16: Roof'd!

Day 16: Sunset from the front door

Day 8: First floor insulation!

Sorry for the long delay.  Things moved so fast we had trouble keeping up!  So here's what the eighth day of Christmas, er, construction looked like.  (It felt a bit like Christmas though, both in terms of a great gift and in terms of the kids joking about it "snowing" because of the cellulose wadding, as you'll see below.)

Cellulose wadding close up

Panels to cover the insulation

first few panels

1st floor is insulated!

Slow progress is still progress ;)

Since day one when the carpenter started (my last post on August 30) things have been progressing, however slower then expected... Every day of no progress I felt a bit discouraged and I didn't feel like blogging about it, I just wanted to not think about it and look forward to the progress days ;). And anyway it would have been quite repetitive and boring. Almost every other day was a no progress day...

So I am just making a little photographic summary up to today. The working flow should be getting a bit faster now, but I am a bit weary to make predictions...we will see...

Today the blowing machine to blow in the cellulose wadding insulation in the main floor was delivered, which is planned to happen tomorrow. 

Day 2 nailing brackets for the joist
(we got to help nailing them)

 

Day 3 more brackets and..

the joist for the porches on both sides!!!

Day 4 joist of the main part of the house!

(Day 5) A trench that I dug for the cables and tubes
 for the kitchen

Day 6 panels for the insulation of the first floor

Day 7 access tubes through the first floor for plumbing
and electricity

And today was the day...

The day the carpenters finally came and started the structure!!! 

It is difficult to see but there are screws on the foundations to fix the big joists.

The first layer is done!

Let tomorrow be the day...

Yesterday the flattening of the soil was completed and we helped to lay the tubes for the water and the cables, as well as to distribute the gravel. Unfortunately, there has been another tomorrow for the carpenter, because there was a thunderstorm with lots of rain last night and the soil was too soft for the crane to go on it today. So let be tomorrow be the day to start to build the wood structure!!

Keep fingers crossed

The digger came and the soil is flattened. Actually to be precise, no digger was available so our consultant/constructor is doing it! I am grateful for that. Yesterday he didn't manage to finish, and the flattening and gravel laying has to still be completed today, so no carpenter... but tomorrow, so that's why keep the fingers crossed, that there aren't other tomorrows. I have to say though, I am feeling quite confident at this point. 

Most of the tarrain is flattened except where the electricity
and the water will go though

The pear tree between our foundation pillars
had to move...

Hopefully it will thrive in its new spot,
unfortunately the timing is not the best.
So far it looks nevertheless promising.