First dinner in the new house

Pizza on the roof! We make pizza as a family every Friday night, and then most Fridays we watch an episode of Monk. Yesterday was a special night, the first pizza in the new house!

Dad and Jonny set up a table in the master bedroom and we enjoyed our pizza way up in the air!

The table as seen from across the backyards of our neighbors.

Also, stair progress. They have the openings correct and boxed out.

Here you can see how the stairs to the basement will have that slope to create headroom.

Walking on the second floor

Expect more pictures soon, there are lots of guys working in the front yard today. They're building stairs, finishing putting plywood on the second floor, and getting ready for concrete in the walls. The paper today said this is the second hottest July on record. We already guessed it based on the amount of gatorade the workers are drinking!

Standing in the kitchen looking at the dinning room. Having a ceiling makes it feel like a house!

Jonathan stands in the dinning room, Jeff walks in the kitchen and Sandy looks at the stairs.

Jonathan starts the climb to the upstairs.

Jeff explains where the closet walls meet the roof.

Our first family portrait in the new house. We're standing in Jeff's office on the second floor.

Heat and Tobacco Worms

Last week here in Urbana was literally too hot to work. Aside from a little work Monday morning, the house was quiet all week. But inside, we were working hard to order windows, plan out the second floor trusses and line out all the contractors. This week, the guys are again making progress.

In fact, later today you should be able to walk on our second floor!

Here are some pictures from last night.

The hangers for the trusses to be put in today.

The big beam with hangers on both sides.

Jeff, the super tall man, has his head among the beams.

Sarah uses a palm nailer to nail in truss hangers.

Jonathan removes the safety boards covering up the door so we can move stuff in.

The view from the foyer. Even with the huge fan, the workers told me our thermometer sometimes shows over 120 degrees in the house!

Jonathan and Jeff have a tradition of hitting a couple buckets of wiffle-ball on each floor of the house. 

There was a lot of ducking going on as the balls bounced of the walls!

A Tobacco worm. We found five of these suckers (they are about four inches long!) on our tomato plants last night. They are huge and squishy and strong and just really really gross. We didn't know what to do with them, until our neighbor said his chickens would eat them. So I guess they're filling up some chicken's belly today. Yuck!

Round Two of the Silly Dance Contest

Or rather, the second big beam swings into place! With our open floor plan and no load bearing walls on the first floor, most of the weight of our house falls on two huge beams that span from the front of the house to the back. Yesterday the guys set the second of these beams, this one is the core of the second floor truss system. Check out the pictures and imagine what it was like at our house yesterday.

We couldn't put in the frame for the big living room window until after this beam came through the opening.

The beam is quite long and very heavy.

Watch out camera man, it is coming for you!

Checking to see if it is straight and in the right place.

It took the big High Hoe to lift the beam onto the house.

This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon around here!

A Smorgasbord of Recent Pictures

Late night visitors from Nebraska check out the basement!

The black stuff is called Dimpleboard (funny name huh?). It drains the water that gets in next to the wall down to the drains in the basement.

Funny story. So we had to get the bathtub for the basement early before the first floor walls were up and drop it down the hole to the basement. So here the guys are, lifting the tub from the trailer in the street and swinging it over the house (below). So just in case you wanted to know, our bathtub can fly.

A fairly recent picture of our house. You can see the first floor windows have been cut out already.

Looking from the study/ family room at the kitchen.

An impossible view once the walls are up, but you can see the front door in the center.

Getting our bikes to the back of the garage is a workout in itself. Over obstacles, steel, wood, cords, piles... it is a wonder we still ride!

Backfilling the basement! No more big hole!

Catching up!

The new Hard Drive came for my computer so we're back in business with the blog! When I look at these pictures it seems like forever ago that the house looked like this. These are from almost two weeks ago!

Jeff pinning up the windows as we mock up the living room in the basement to check the window spacing.

Pouring concrete into the basement walls, it came via a conveyor belt then down the black tube.

The whole concrete operation. Two concrete trucks and one conveyor belt truck filled the street for the morning.

We currently have about 60 cubic yards of concrete in our house and still two more pours to go!

Another view of the conveyor belt through the front door.

Checking as the concrete rises in the basement.

What an ICF form looks like with concrete poured down it.

Aiming the concrete down into the walls was a tricky job.

Jeff screws down the bottom boards of the window bucks.

The front door with conveyor belt overhead.

Jonathan with his pet project, the garage floor. Every time we pour, the leftovers go into the garage to change the dirt floor to concrete. Jonny is where his next pour will go.

Inside the New House (Sort of)

Sandy, Sarah and Jonny wave from the living room.

Sandy and Sarah in the basement where the ping pong table goes!

The basement, mocked up like the living room above it. We were trying to determine if the windows (newspapers) should be closer together.

The basement, still mocked up as a living room, from the other side.

A view of the basement. If you were on the first floor you would be right inside the front door looking at the living room and dinning room.

Standing in the dinning room for real!

Standing in the dinning room. Notice the front door on the left and stairway in the center.