To Frame or Not To Frame: That is the Question

Week 6: Another rainy start to the week and a severe thunderstorm that had up to 80mph winds. A couple of tornadoes had touched down, and we had an extremely hard rain but no damage to the structure. Lost power at the rental house and most of La Grange lost power. More downed branches and trees out our way than at the house. I'm sure if we still had the two large maple trees in front that one would have fallen. We are happy that our architects have a sound structure with our walls being framed with 2x6 inch boards rather than 2x4's. As Mike stated to me, this will be the most well constructed house on the block. Mike has been scheduling around all the adverse weather and finally Joe, head of the framing crew, and his crew started this past week. They have framed the new addition's floor and all the external walls. They also put up the main laminated beam that will be the main structural support for the second floor in the new addition. The concrete company has broken out the slab and dug down to get the ceiling height clearance we so desire. As we expected, the slab was poured right over dirt and a portion was clay that had compressed so the house was sinking at one end. They have put installed the interior drain tile and puts crushed gravel down. The next portion of work for them is to put down visqueen (plastic wrap), mesh, and 2" rigid foam boards and then pour the new slab. Before they can do that though, we will have to have the plumber come out and get all the pipes set that will be going to the guest bathroom and to the sewer before they can pour the concrete over it. It has been a fun week to start seeing what the inside of the new addition will be like. We like the views we will have from the windows. Hopefully if the weather cooperates this week and it looks good from Tuesday on that they can make great progress. This week we are finalizing the windows and doors. Once that is done, then we can move on to the next decisions. I know we are going to have a tough time doing the light fixtures due to our budget. We can always change them out down the road.

Here is the slab. The first bit of good news is that there was a seam in between the foundation and the floor so they could just jackhammer it out rather than have to saw cut it. Came out easily.






Here is the black dirt that was under the slab. No crushed gravel for drainage.







there is a "Bobcat" in our house.








Here is a relative size view of Anne in the excavated house. Glorious head clearance. In the old house, she could touch the ceilings. We still hope to have at least 8 foot clearance in the old house.





Here is the start of the floor. We are using structured I-beams. Very strong structurally. Here they are securing the beams to teh structural steel beam. It has tongue and groove plywood nailed down to give additional strength.






Here is the crushed gravel to help with drainage.







This is a shot of the interior drain tile that is hooked up to the external system that eventually will connect to the sump pump in the basement. If you enlarge the picture, you will see the red line around the perimeter that will be the bottom of the floor once the mesh, visqueen, foam board and concrete are completed.




Here is the first wall that contains the dinning room window facing East.








Here is the South side that has more dinning room windows and the kitchen windows near the back.







Here is the interior view of the kitchen windows.







Interior shot of the dinning room windows on the left and kitchen windows on the right.







Here is a shot of where the mudroom will be off of the kitchen.








Here is the opening for the back door in the mudroom which will also have a fixed clear panel that will let it light. On the left is the opening for the sliding door to the future deck. It will have two fixed glass panels and either one or two sliding doors. Price will determine how many sliding doors.




Here is the laminated structural beam that will be holding up the second floor of the new addition. There will be two steel piers that will be located near the middle to solidify the structure.