Our House Building Adventure

We bought 3 acres of raw land in Wyoming... started clearing it... dug the basement... poured cement... and started framing!

This blog details our house building adventure... building our new home... ourselves!

Friday, September 30, 2005

Floor joists for 2nd floor all done!

Rich finished putting up the floor joists for the 2nd floor today and is beginning to put the subfloor down.

Here's some new pictures:


Floor joists are up for the 2nd floor.


1st floor all framed in! No floor joists.


Floor joists all up!!! Rich is hauling the subfloor around.


Before floor joists.

I arrived at the house to see Rich on the 2nd floor! He was moving the subfloor around.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Some pictures...

The back of the house, facing West.
The front of the house, blinded by sunlight!
The front door.
This is the daylight basement entrance. Above that is the Breakfast room. A beautiful window looks out to the west. It is going to be the center piece of the back of the house with a large eclipse(half circle) window with 6x5 window beneath. It's going to be a breathtaking view of the country side and sunsets!

Who's building this house?

A gentleman came by this afternoon looking for a local builder. He asked, "Who's building this house?"

Now... at the time, Rich was on a ladder and I was on the scaffolding measuring for the floor joists...

Rich replied... I'm building this house. Rich and I were just chuckling over this all afternoon.

The builder that he was looking for is building a house several blocks away from us.

Anyway, so we've got the measuring all done for the floor joists which will support the 2nd floor. Rich is cutting the joists... NOW!

We hope to be all done putting the joists this week.

Sorry I don't have more pictures... forgot to take my camera with me today. I promise more pictures soon!

Thursday, September 22, 2005

All the 1st floor walls are up!!

Just back from helping Rich put up the remaining wall in the breakfast room. Watch for pictures. Tomorrow I'll take some.

The breakfast room has a massive window with a domed top overlooking the west. It's going to be just beautiful!

A couple more cap plates then we're on to floor joists!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Almost done with 1st floor walls...



Rich is almost done framing the first floor... Today we pushed up the closet wall in my office. Every day at lunch we push up a couple more walls. Cap plates are also going up as he goes along.

Soon the floor joists will go up for the 2nd floor.

Oh.. I have wonderful news!!! My parents have decided to join us in Wyoming and will be putting up a house on our land just south of us!!!

Power Poles go up!



We're building on the outskirts of the town... but still within town limits for city water/sewer. But in order to get electricity... 3 poles and a transformer have to be installed.

So far 2 poles have been installed...

The gas company has been notified and soon the gas line will be dug.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Rained out...



Well, we were planning on raising the south wall on Saturday... but we got rained out. Then we thought that we'd get it raised up on Monday... and it rained and the wind blew....

Today was a beautiful sunny day... but the wall still isn't raised... BUT... the interior 1st floor walls are taking shape.

Soon the South wall will be raised... then lots of interior walls... then the sheathing will hold it all firmly in place.

Friday, September 09, 2005

1st Floor wall raising

It took quite a while to get the floor joists and subfloor done for the 1st floor.

I'm surprised how fast the framing goes! Last evening with a crew of 10... we pushed up the long West and East walls. That was so exciting! It now looks like a house!!!

Today, Rich and I chalked out the floor plan. And now he's onto building the North and South walls. Hope to have them done by Saturday evening so that we can tie the walls together for better strength against any strong Wyoming winds.

Here's some pictures.









The above picture shows the back of the house with the day light basement which faces the West. The part the juts out will be our breakfast room on the 1st floor.