Approval!

This is Alex and Tommy with the approval stickers for our inspections!

Wow! A lot has happened since Alex last updated. I went away last week and came back to a real house. The drywall was done last week. Alex and Tom finished as much siding as they could and also built the deck. The rest of the siding can't be done until the driveway and porch are poured. We are waiting for our sidewalk to be surveyed so that the driveway can be done.
We got our last big delivery from Home Depot. It's so exciting to see everything finally come together.
Tom, Alex and I painted all day Friday. We should finish painting on Monday and then Tommy will start to work on the floor Tuesday. We are putting hardwoods in most of the house. Alex will continue to work on the electric.
School starts in three weeks. We probably won't be all moved in but hope to have the big things done so we can work on getting some things to the new house before we go back to work.
Things have been going smoothly and we hope the next three weeks go the same way. I'm very excited to get our things moved in.

Getting closer...

Well we're getting closer to being finished. Finally all inspections are done and we were approved on all of them. The electrical inspector only found a couple minor things wrong, so I was happy about that. Tommy, Christy, and I started to work on the insulation today, we should be done by tomorrow thankfully. All of the windows and exterior doors are in, and the house is almost half sided. The drywall arrives Thursday, and the hangers will start Friday hopefully. I decided to contract out all of the drywall, and as it turns out we're still within the bounds of our budget. Amazing! I don't know if we'll be done by the time school starts, but we'll be close! I'll try to post some pictures soon. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the Summer!

Happy 4th!

We've made some progress on the house. Most of the plumbing HVAC, and electrical are done. We should be ready for some inspections this week. The fireplace is in, the stairs down to the basement are done and we should be ready to insulate soon. We took most of last week off for the Fourth of July and it was very nice. We went to Charlevoix and spent some time cleaning up the beach house and hanging out with family. We celebrated our 2nd year anniversary in Petoskey and had dinner in Charlevoix. Summer is almost half over for us, which is very sad. Hope everyone is doing well, we'll update with some pictures later.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I last posted. We've been working pretty hard and finally have the roof sheeted and part of it shingled. The plumber is almost done, and I am almost done installing the meter socket for the electrical service. I'm going to start pulling wire soon, most of the boxes are where they're suppose to be, and Home depot has delivered most of the stuff we need to complete our project. I'll post some more pics in a bit. Thanks to everyone who has helped out, especially to Christy and Zachi! You guys have been awsome!

Roof

We managed to borrow a skytrak from the builders down the street. Man, that was a blessing, it only cost me 20 bucks and saved us a whole day of humping 3 pallets of 90lb. bundles of shingles to the top of the roof.



Christy was so pumped about the skytrak she even let loose a boohyah! (ok fine, she didn't, that was me)




Sheeting the roof went pretty smoothly, except for the fact that we had to build the valley trusses. That took a couple days, to build and sheet them. A little longer than I expected.

trusses

We set the trusses last week, on Tuesday the 13th. It was a pretty intense day. The crane came early, and Zach, Christy, Tommy, and I were all scrambling to get ready. The garage header wasn't up yet, so we had to get that done quickly. Getting started on the first gable end was rough, because it was set 2 inches off, so we had to redo it. Once we got started though, things went more smoothly, and 3 and a half hours later the trusses were up.

Interior/exterior walls

The Black Balla watches over the site with menacing authority!



We finished up most of the walls last week Monday (June 12), and started sheeting the gabled ends, building the rakes, and putting the tyvec on.

Busy...

We don't have high speed internet at home so we're not able to publish pictures very often...sorry. Well, we've made pretty good progress on the house. Last week we got the beams in, and the floor down. This week, we sheathed and put up the exterior walls, and just finished the interior walls today. It's beginning to look like a house (hizzle), finally. My brother Zachi has been helping, and it's made things go more quickly. Here are a few pictures, I'll try to get more on here soon.

More Action

Sunday, May 28th
We only worked a half day today, but managed to frame in the basement walls. The weather has been pretty hot, so we needed a break from the furnace we call the basement.

Alex playing with the nail gun.

Jer took a break from guarding his house to come help lift the wall. I think while he was away, someone broke in and jacked the Cat's flatscreen. They didn't take Roseplant though...too bad.

First Wall

Saturday, May 27th

Matt came out to help frame the first wall.

Done with the wall, 54' across with two 6' windows. It took us half the day to frame it, mostly because we had to get our bearings after the lumber was delivered in the morning.

We dominate! Especially Matt, with his 2x4.

For those of you that are wondering, the Balla is working fabulously. It's made it back and forth to the job sight multiple times, and it even transports our tools and supplies. I've had several offers from passersby to buy it, but the Balla aint for sale, so those chumps can step off!

....Ok, no one has tried to purchase the Balla, but it still runs like a hoss!

Delivery

We got most of our lumber from Home Depot on Saturday. The truck had to stop in the middle of Shaffer and bring it all in on a lift. It took him a good 2 hours to do 2 loads, but he managed.

backfill

They backfilled on May 24th. This is a view looking at the lot from the Southwest. the excavators ended up having to drop in around 150 yds. of sand, since their is so much clay.

A view from the East, the driveway will have a steep grade, but there's not much we can do about it now.

A view from Mesa Verde Ct.

Looking at the back side of the house...the house across the street is pretty nice with a couple exceptions. They have a huge fense running their entire backyard, and a "beware of dog" sign resting in their front window. Classy. I thought we were moving away from the hood.

basement plumbing and floor

May 23, pouring the basement floor.

Rough in plumbing completed Saturday, the 20th

Walls!

Last Friday the forms were stripped and the walls sprayed with water proofing. We're on schedule to start framing on Friday. Man, between school and this project, the last few weeks have flown by! The plumber got in and did his work on Saturday, and the inspection for that should take place today or tomorrow. The tile and stone guys came in today, and tomorrow the floor should be poured. Wednesday, the excavators should be there to backfill, and the lumber should be delivered on friday morning. Things are looking up, now I get to sit back and wait for the bills to come in.

forms being stripped

Witness this, Lebron!

I want to introduce to everyone the Black Balla. I happened across the Balla a couple of months ago, and picked it up at a phat discount. I'm sure the guy I bought it from is regretting he ever sold it because it's a crazy tricked out machine! Let me tell you a little about it.

The Balla is really a 1985 Dodge Ram Royale 250 SE (3/4 ton). Under the hood it has a 150 untamed stallions with a 5.2 liter V8. It has a full 8 foot bed, and a practiacally new Delta tool box complete with a key lock to keep fools from stealing my product. The cab consists of a customized gun storage area behind the seat where I can keep plenty of rifles and ammo, and a radio that works in both FM and AM. The seat cover is a blanket with some colorful (but not immasculine) pheasant images. There are two switches in the front, one for heat, and one for some killa fog lights! Some other pimp features are cruise control (although I've never used it), windshield wipers, two sun visors, and an automatic transmission.

You may ask, "does the Balla even run???'"

My answer...
"No."

"The Balla sprints. It roars down the road!"

Making Progress

The weather cleared up this week and the concrete guys were able to pour the footings on Tuesday. Wednesday the forms were put up and they poured the walls. Today they're going to strip the walls, and hopefully the excavators can hook in to the sewer, water, and storm water drain. The problem we had in the last day or so was that the sewer was at a seperate location than the water and storm drain. So now the excavators have to dig two trenches, which sucks, because that probably means more money. Oh well, it's to be expected. They're supposed to spray the walls today, and if they can get in and lay the tile, sump crock, and sling the stone, the plumber can plumb the basement. It's a lot for one day, so the chances of us being able to pour the basement floor Saturday are minimal. If not we'll have the floor poured early next week.