Friday, November 13, 2009

Second level floor is in

(Brendan)

The floor trusses and second level sub-floor have been installed, as well as some of the second level SIP's. Enjoy!

(Click any to enlarge them)

It was a dreary day today in the Twin Cities. Here's a pic of the front view of the house.

The view towards the kitchen, with second level floor trusses installed above.

Looking towards the school room, the mechanical room is starting to be framed in where Max is standing.

Looking back towards the kitchen, standing by the mechanical room.

The window wall. I should mention, the windows will actually be 1 foot taller than the way the openings are now. As they look above, the openings are 8 feet tall, but the window wall will be 9 feet tall in the finished home. Long story.

Looking through the family room to the library.

Looking up where the stairs to the second level will be. The window above will be a fixed window that brings light into the staircase.

This is on the far East side of the house (the future chapel will be right here on the bottom right). The window above is in the Master bedroom right above where our bed will go.

The second level takes shape. This is on the South side of the home. The bottom windows are in the family room (left side) and library (right side), while the upper windows are in the nursery (left side), master bathroom (middle), and master bedroom (right side).

Eleanor! :-)

South side of the home, where you can see the staircase window up above on the left.

6 comments:

John Curran said...

What a thrill to see these plans take form!

Hope you'll have time to post the story of the 9' windows...

Brendan Koop said...

It was just an oversight that we didn't take a look at this issue until it was time to order the SIP's, but my brother really wanted (from a design standpoint) to get the windows as close to flush with the ceiling as possible. Even though it was late in the game, I wanted to be thorough so I had our general contractor go back to the window manufacturer and get a quote on how much it would cost to increase the windows to 9' in total height, and that quote took a long time to get (at least a week). We didn't want to hold up the SIP's order, so it was better to order the SIP's with 8' openings knowing that the extra foot could get cut out later if necessary. It's much harder if we ordered them at 9' and then tried to go down to 8'. As it turns out (and I was surprised by this) once we got the window quote it actually was not that much cost impact to go to a 9' height even accounting for labor, so we went with it. We also had to figure out the door situation (the door on the left side of the window wall) because it's not like we wanted a 9' door (nor is one sold in that size). So we needed to go to a door that also had a custom transom window above it, and in order to make that work we had to go from a 8' door to a standard 7' door to have enough room to put a transom window above. Doing this also also meant that it made more sense to make the outside door in the kitchen a 7' door, and leave the front entry and the door opposite the entry at 8' doors. All in all, a better design, and all objectives met with not a lot of cost impact.

Now you know what I mean by "long story" ;-)

By the way, for anyone bothering to read this comment who wants to build a house in the future, a sequence of events just like those I recounted above happens 2 or 3 times per week. It's amazing that no matter how prepared you are, it's still a "fly by the seat of your pants" process, and it can get pretty crazy at times (especially if you are a perfectionist, and Molly and I both happen to be perfectionists -- a blessing and a curse).

John Curran said...

Glad I asked, Mr. Blandings!

gabrielle said...

It just keeps getting better and better....I love the pictures with the children's faces all aglow with joy in their new home...what fun they will have living there....Molly and Brendan, you bless us so by sharing this family adventure...thank you and blessings be with you all!

Stuart said...

Great to see your progress - congratulations!

I posted a very long time ago about my plans to instal a chapel at my house, over here in the UK. As I'm both in a different country and a different church (Church of England) what follows will not be directly relevant for you, but may have passing interest: I've been able to resolve how the chapel should be initiated, when complete. After a chat with the Ordinary, he's kindly agreed to dedicate and license the chapel, which is necessary here to allow the Eucharist to be celebrated - though that would only be occasionally in practice. Due to the odd nature of the CofE being the established church, going further and consecrating the chapel would create no end of problems: it would make it illegal to mortgage the property and I would become subject to ecclesiastical planning law - whilst also remaining subject to secular planning law for the rest of the property. Also, as consecration only additionally allows for the sacrament to be reserved and the dead to be buried at the site - neither of which I'd wish to do - it's unnecessary.

All that's still some way off - I'm puzzling over rerouting drains at present - but I'm glad to know the answer, anyway.

Best of luck as your project progresses!

Brendan Koop said...

Thanks for the information on your chapel Stuart, it's quite interesting!