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Week 7: This week saw more weather ups and downs. Joe the carpenter made good progress in getting the first floor new addition exterior walls and floor completed and the floor upstairs. They have gotten a couple walls built but not raised yet. They would have been raised on Friday, if Joe's assistant did not decide to take a 4 day holiday at the last minute. Friday was to have been a miserable summer day here: high 90's with lots of humidity. Would have felt like in the low 100's, but it held off until Saturday so Friday would have been a perfect day. So, the week started off with Jay's plumbing prepping the first floor plumbing in the old house under the crushed gravel where the guest bathroom will be. It took a day and we passed the inspection. Yeah!! The upcoming week looks like the second floor should be completed and then they probably will start on the roof over the new addition. The concrete hopefully will be poured for the new slab. Before they can pour it, they will have to prep it by laying out a mesh screen and covering it with a plastic sheet and the foam insulation boards. Then they will pour the slab and the crawlspace. It will be nice once the slab is poured. All in all it is getting more exciting seeing the progress and visualizing the space now that the walls are going up. It is also nice to see the proper structure and bracing going in. The house will be the best constructed on the block. The exterior walls are being built with 2x6's rather than 2x4's for additional strength. Seeing all the I-beams and laminated beams with the joist hangers gives a good feeling of how well constructed it will be. We completed the exterior windows and doors order and will be finalizing the plumbing fixtures this week. We picked our new tankless hot water heater and are looking forward to the saving it will bring.


Jay's Plumbing doing the rough ins for the new guest bathroom.







Here are the pipes for the guest bathroom. The black box is where the shower will go and each drain pipe has a proper vent pipe so that air will be behind water and vented properly.







Another angle of the rough ins, which are properly glued and pitched on a downward slope.








Here is the injector pit in the basement for the new sump pump. We will have to move the sump pit to the back of the house due to village code mandating that it be pumped out the back of the house.




Here is where we will be moving the sump pump pit.








Here is Joe working on the second floor in the new addition.









Here is a shot of the I beams.







Here are the joist hangers before they added the other beams to complete the floor.








This section will be the deck off the master bedroom. Since it is a step down from the bedroom, they had to build up the floor around it.






Here is the stairway entrance up to the master bedroom. Here they also have connected the framing to the old house. The opening at the left will be the start of the stairs up to the master bedroom.





Another shot of the stairway entrance. Now that the floor is completed, there is some nice shade.







Here is a straight on shot of the new stairway entrance to the old house.







Here is a close up of the laminated beam with the joist hangers. They put up the beams pretty quickly and then go back later and add nails to all the nail holes in the braces to make it structurally sound.





Here is a close up of a brace that has all the nails in it since it is one of the bigger and heavier beams. There is about 10 or so nails on each side.