Week #4 - Framing Well Underway

(February 8-12, 2010)

This week of work at Casa Roa did not disappoint in the progress department!

The framing crew put the first floor of the house together beginning with the exterior walls and then the interior framing for all rooms. The first wall went up on Monday and the rest followed with the exterior shell of the house being complete mid-week. The framers framed the various rooms (backframing) on the main floor bringing paper plans to reality. Very, very exciting.

The second floor building materials were delivered early Thursday morning. A crane was brought in to lift the floor joists on top of the main floor. Some of the joists were constructed in lengths that made it impossible to move them up by hand.

The second floor framing was well underway on Friday. The crew had all of the second floor joists installed and the floor sheeted (plywood nailed down) by the end of the day. Great stuff! They will start next week off with building and erecting the second floor exterior walls. With any luck, we'll have a roof on the house by the end of next week (week #5). The framer will continue to backframe the interior.

The pictures below show where the week started; the fourth picture shows the joists installed on the second floor.

Supports for Front Porch

Kieran was thrilled to see another 4-wheeled machine at the house this week! A bobcat was brought in (with some difficulties I might add - they built a ramp up the retaining wall to get it on the property) to auger holes for the 4 support posts that the front porch will be built on. They drilled down as 15ft to ensure a hard ground beneath each of the steel supports. Both the front porch and backyard deck are now ready for framers to work their magic. And yes, the bobcat made it safely back down the retaining wall!

Foundation Inspection

Finally, the city inspected the new foundation on Friday. I wasn't there when the inspector arrived but I'm going to assume that no news is good news. Assuming that we got a passing grade on the foundation, the remaining excavated ground around the new foundation will be backfilled during week #5.

It seems as though at the rate things have been going the past couple of weeks, we should be moving in by April! Haha! We might have some windows and doors installed before February is over but I know that there are many, many weeks of work to be done inside. I have a pile of library books on tile to get some ideas for the kitchen backsplash, tile floors and showers and whatever other surface is destined for tile. I better get to it!