Home Building: Pictures of Progress

I had a request to show y'all some pictures of how the house is going, but first let me warn you: I do not have a wide angle lens, and so all of my pictures are only snippets of the big picture. In fact, I have hesitated to put the pictures up here before now because it is really hard to tell what you are seeing.

Our house is down a long, wooded driveway, and once you get to the end, there is a small clearing where the house sits. Brad and I differ in opinion about how big the clearing should be -- he wants more of a wooded site, and I want more of a yard. So far he is winning because he is the one taking out trees. But, that is part of the reason that I can't get a really good picture -- I can't get back far enough to get the whole house in a shot (and I don't have the right lens).

Anyway....

Beginning of January, 2011:

They dug the trenches for the footers (I am not even sure if I am using proper terminology -- I am just learning all this house-building lingo!):

January 21, 2011:

Duke came out with us to see what was happening out in the woods:

They poured the concrete! As you can see, they also have rebar sticking up all over the place -- there is usually rebar in foundation, I believe, but we have a ton of rebar. Our foundation is not going anywhere, thanks to our building inspectors...

February 21, 2011:

They have been working on the brick part of our foundation for a while now, but I finally got around to taking pictures yesterday. This is looking at the kids "wing" from the courtyard/carport side of the house. Our house is a backward shaped L so this would be on the inside of the L:

This is taken standing in the same spot, but looking more towards the main part of the house. This view is toward the kids' den, dining room, and guest room:

This is taken just a little farther than the last picture -- more towards the dining room, guest room, and living room:

That forklift is in my kitchen. Tyler is standing in front of the little back stoop, and directly behind that will be the laundry room. This picture is still taken from the carport/courtyard side:

This is the view of the kitchen from the other side of the house, the yard side (the long side of the L). You can sort of tell from the picture, but that concrete wall is the foundation for what is going to be a curve in our kitchen wall. It will be glass and will lead out to the back porch. It is one of my favorite parts of the house:

This is a view of the master bedroom & bath (that little bump-out on the far left is my closet!!!!) from the carport/courtyard side:

And this is a too-close view of my bedroom from the yard side -- and of course, two little posing girls:

I couldn't get any pictures from the viewpoint of the front of the house yesterday because I would have been looking directly into the sun.

So, that is where we stand right now. I feel like all of the cold, rainy weather we have had this winter has really held us back, but these warmer days should hopefully really get the ball rolling.

I will also make 2 observations about the brick wall foundation:

1. I would not have chosen a solid brick wall. (I tried to find a picture of something that was more along the lines of what I had in mind, but I couldn't find anything tonight -- but I didn't look all that hard.) We didn't have much choice in the foundation; we wanted brick covering the concrete pillars and then something like lattice brickwork in between, but that was a no-go with our building inspector. He said that would let in too much moisture -- which is interesting because I am from the coast and everyone has foundations with some sort of board or lattice in between the brick or stucco pillars. So, we get what we get. I am just hoping it won't stand out quite so much when it's all said and done.

2. I wanted more of a white-washed brick, but I was told the one that I chose was "too white" and we would need a special mortar that would, of course, cost more. So, Brad picked this one. We will see what it looks like later on and may ending up doing some whitewash on it.