Insulation, soffits & so much progress!

There has been lots of progress around the Harris Residence recently! Thursday, we put up the middle arch on the front porch beam. Friday, the vinyl soffits and insulation began . . . it was pretty busy.

The front porch arches are in place. Adam's truck is in front because we were using it as a ladder to finish putting all the screws in the pvc sheeting.

For insulation, we are using closed cell foam for most of the roof insulation and open cell foam for the areas that are first floor only. Both foams do not require the roof the be vented, but the closed cell is moisture proof. It's really great stuff and will keep our electricity bill low.

Here is the guy spraying the foam on the underside of the roof.

The bonus area on the 2nd floor.

The insulation around the dormers. They will be back on Monday to finish spraying the foam. The walls won't be insulated until after electrical is complete.

Soffits are almost complete.

The soffits are complete along the back of the house.

Here's a closer look of the overhang on the back porch.

The soffits along the front are complete except for the dormers. You can also see me putting the final coat of paint on the dormers.

The right side of the house is complete.

The left side of the house is done. There is an exhaust duct sticking through the soffit and the round grille is on the window ledge below.

A close of the left gable and porch corner.

Adam ran the wire to everything in the front porch and soffits - a flood light in the back, two outlets in the soffit for Christmas lights and the front porch lights.

Here's some of Adam's handywork.

Stacy paints the final coat of paint on the dormers.

Adam and his dad cut the last arch in the pvc sheet. This one goes on the inside of the middle arch on the front porch. It's in place now, but I forgot to get a picture.

The soffits and roof insulation should be finished on Monday. Ductwork will start in one week and will take about three weeks. The garage door and front door should be here in two weeks. The glass inserts on the three back porch doors will be installed tomorrow. After the main ductwork is in place, Adam will begin the electrical wiring. Things are really progressing and it's been a lot of fun to see everything fall into place.

Siding & Front Porch

Sorry it's been awhile since the last post . . . but we've been working away at the house.

We finished the siding on all the gable ends and the dormers.

In this picture you can see the finished gable end on the left side and the dormers. I still need to do a final coat of paint on the dormers, but other than that they're done.

The front door needs to be installed before we finish the siding on the front porch. It should be here in a couple weeks.

We have also been working on the front porch. The beam and arches had to be built out to fit the size we want. Here's some pictures of the process so far.

Here's the left side of the beam built out.

Adam is nailing in the wood for the boxes we built that will be on top of the double columns. PVC sheets were used to cover the wood for the finished beam. It is going to be a smooth finish that never has to be replaced.

We put up two of the arches on the front of the beam Sunday night.

Here's what it looked like a couple days ago, very nice. We put up the middle arch last night. I'll get pictures soon.

The vinyl soffits started going up today. We prepared for the soffits by adding additional flashing on the roof and putting the exhaust ducts in place. Insulation started today as well. The glass inserts arrived for the doors on the back porch yesterday and we will install them soon. I'll try and update with pictures of the soffits and insulation this weekend.

More Siding

We've been spending most of our time at the house putting up more siding. We are about half way done with the siding and are getting much faster with it. Check out our progress . . .

This is Adam finishing up the siding on the far left gable end. This was the largest gable and took a lot of time because we were constantly moving ladders.

Adam is painting the trim around the window white. We successfully protected out shingles with plastic.

Here's the finished look.

Then, we started on the far right gable end. We rigged up a ladder (it was tied to Adam's truck in the backyard), so we wouldn't have to balance on a 10/12 pitch - it worked great! Adam is painting the flashing black, because our roofers didn't.

Here's the finished right gable end - caulked and painted. You can see Adam and his Dad starting on the hight right gable.

Here's the trim (most of it) up on the high right gable. We finished putting up the lap siding today - but I forgot to get a picture. You know, you get pretty tired balancing on a ladder on a roof all day. It's really coming along now and we're getting faster with it. We had to order special curved trim for the dormer windows - so that should be in in a couple weeks. Siding isn't so hard once you try it - and it's even rewarding when get can make a lot of progress each day.

Clean out, Electrical, Siding . . .

Time to play some catch up:

Back on June 22nd, Adam dug down and added a clean out to the sewer line. It wasn't required by code, but the inspector wanted it . . . so we had to add it.

Adam dug down about 4 feet to put the clean out in. But, thanks to our many pictures, we dug in the right spot first try.

July 4th, we put up the trim around the garage door opening.

We used screws to attached the painted 2x10 boards.

We finished putting all the electrical boxes in, including those in the ceiling. We also mounted all the recessed can lights.

Here are the can lights in the kitchen.

This is what the fan-rated boxes look like. They're really compact and mount right under a truss.

Our next door neighbors had a wedding back in July, so we moved the dumpster around to the side and cleaned up the front yard.

Adam put the bricks on a plank and tied it to his truck to tote to the back yard. It was really helpful to have the truck haul the load.

Here's our cleaned up yard.

Philip and Amanda visited our house on July 10th - thanks for stopping by, it was fun to have you!

Adam ran all the low voltage wire (TV, internet, phone, speakers).

Here's the wires going through the trusses.

Here's the coax and cat-5 wires going to the outlets above the fireplace for our future tv.

On July 14th, we put the disconnects in for the condensing units. Adam also drove the copper grounding rods into the ground - you can see one sticking about a foot out of the ground here.

On July 21st, Adam started putting the hardie board siding on the back porch.

Here you can see the trim around the windows.

Last week, Adam just about finished the siding on the back porch. Like the color?

This is hardie board. It is a fiber cement prodect. It is great on the exterior of a house because it doesn't hold moisture or attached termites (like wood). We bought the primed boards and painted it ourselves.

Another view of the back porch. It sure is going to be cozy!

So, there you have it. That catches you up on the Harris Residence. Next up: garage door, insulation and ductwork.

Trenches, Shower & Soffit

This week at the Harris Residence, we've been up to a few things. Adam added a shower pan membrane to the master shower and tested it for leaks. It passed, so we are ready for tile (that'll still be awhile).

Here it is. We stapled it to the blocking at the top. Tile backer will cover at least six inches of the menbrane down the wall. We also had to double up the membrane and cut a hole for the drain.

Adam and Brian put in a soffit in the garage for the dryer exhaust. Now, the exhaust duct has a direct route out of the house, which is good for the dryer.

Here it is in the back of the garage.

Another view of the soffit. It's not very deep.

Earlier, Adam dug out the 4" sewer pipe from all the dirt that had washed in during the rain. He made the connection for our house to the sewer line.

The connected sewer line.

Yesterday, I helped Adam fill the trench back in (and by "helped" I mean I shoveled a little bit then got tired in the heat. So I took the wimpy job of spraying down the dirt with water to make sure the pipe is packed down tight.)

We put a yellow caution line in about a foot below the line, for future digging. This way, no one cuts through the pipe accidentally (hopefully).

And here it is all filled in. We'll make it perfectly level with we grade the yard.

Adam is set to pick up the electrical stuff tomorrow and we should be wiring the house this week.

Plumbing Top-Out: done.

We passed our plumbing top-out inspection on Friday, June 5th. Here’s some of the things we completed in order to pass:

We had to insulate the supply lines going to the future bathroom upstairs.

We had to fill the pipes and bath tubs with water to test for leaks. The wet-vac was hooked up to suck the water out of the pipes.

Adam had to get the hose on the roof to fill the sanitary line through the vent.

Here’s the completed bathroom upstairs. It’s gonna stay like this for a few years, before we build it out.

Other than plumbing . . .

We also got the correct front put on our fireplace.

Adam’s Aunt Alice & Uncle Stan cut our weeds for us – THANK YOU!! You can see the difference in height in this picture. This is not all of ours – the property line is to the right of the white pipe sticking out of the ground to about 10 feet to the left of the fence corner.

Can’t wait to have a backyard!

We had to uninstall the whirlpool tub, so some people could come out and fix the leaks. It is now fixed and reinstalled.

We’ve been installing electrical boxes (they’re blue)

More blue boxes.

We framed the opening for the medicine cabinet – you can see the cabinet up-side-down on the floor.

We sheathed this wall because it is a shear wall. This is where the tv will go.

Yesterday, Adam mixed concrete for the master shower, to create the right slope for the shower pan.

Doesn’t it look good!? Also, notice the blocking put up around the edges. There will be a rubber membrane that will wrap up the sides of the shower, to make it completely water-proof.

So, that’s what we’ve been up to on the house. Adam is ordering the rest of the electrical material today. We need to add a clean-out to the sewer line by the road, in order to pass our water and sewer inspection – we’ll probably do that this week. Things are coming together.