Architect sighting!

(Brendan)

Molly and I and kids were able to make a trip out to the house on Friday with my brother (also our architect) and his wife, who are in town for Thanksgiving, and also my sister and parents. It was great for my brother to see the physical manifestation of his design!

(Click any of the pictures to enlarge.)

The house was being wrapped in Tyvek when we visited, and since the windows and doors are not on site yet, all of the window openings were being covered as well to keep out the weather. The underlayment for the shingles was also being laid, and the shingles should go on the roof early this week.

It was awesome to see the garage roof trusses up and the full shape of the garage peaks. From an outside form perspective, the house is pretty much its full form now!

Close-up of the garage peaks.

Interior view of the garage roof trusses. Looks like we'll definitely have some room for some storage of boxes and other things up there.

View behind the garage, with the kitchen off to the left.

Rear view of the house.

Molly and my sister, Allison, in the doorway from the kitchen to the mud room.

The mechanical room is almost full framed in now.

My brother and his wife, with Clara, in the future family room.

Upstairs, looking towards the North wing.

The kids, near where the future rooms will be. My Dad is taking pictures looking out the window.

My brother, pontificating on the finer points of his design :-)

Standing in the future nursery in the South wing.

The master bedroom.

My brother and me and Molly. Molly's not really that short, she just looks even shorter since she was standing in a depression in the mud :-)

Another pic of the three of us. We were going to do one of those pretentious pictures where none of us smiles and we try to look serious, but in the end we decided to smile.

A first trip upstairs...

(Brendan)

Another trip to the house today, with the biggest highlight being a workable staircase that I could use to go upstairs for the very first time!

(Click any pictures to enlarge)

The home shape is really visible now with the addition of all of the roof trusses.

After the bidding process we changed the roof SIP's to roof trusses with spray foam insulation, which saved quite a bit of cost.

Framing of the garage has begun.

Inside the garage.

A look into the mechanical room, where the electrical box has been installed.

The staircase.

The bottom landing of the staircase. The original plan was to have two stairs from the landing to the floor, but this would have made the stairs too small and thrown the rest of the stairs off. The best solution was to have a single stair, which I still made sure to have continue along the wall a bit for a more interesting look.

The view up the stairs. There are only temporarly 2x4's on the stair treads currently, which makes them quite dangerous to walk on unless you are being very careful. There's lots of space to step through between stair treads.

Awesome! A first view of the North side, where the boys' room and girls' room are. It's a pretty cool look right now with the trusses filtering the light, but there's going to have to be a roof eventually. Too bad we couldn't do what these architects did with a roof :-).

A look down the future hallway towards the door of the girls' room.

The view from a window in the boys' room.

The view from the girls' room.

Looking from the girls' room back toward Mom and Dad's room.

The single step up towards the South side of the home, which has the master bedroom and nursery.

Looking toward the master bedroom.

The view from the windows that will be above the bed in the master bedroom.

Looking out a South window in the master bedroom.

Looking back toward the kids' rooms. I can already hear us yelling, "We can see your light on!"

Looking down the stairs, deceptively safe looking :-)

Behind the home (I had to try to shade the camera from the bright sun).

The door into the kitchen, with a window in the girls' room up above.

This is exactly the sign you want to see on your home building site! Chuba is doing a great job for us.

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.