We Have a Kitchen (Mostly)

Just 2 days after the tile was installed, the tile has now been grouted. Not only that, but all the trim work throughout the house has been completed, and all the cabinets, doors, shelves, etc. have been installed as well. On to the pictures. 

Here is what the kitchen looks like now.

Emily approves. 

Here is a view of the island from within the kitchen. You can also see the wood mantle in the background. 

The nice large pantry. All the doors in the house also match the door in this picture. 

This is the vanity in the master bathroom (extra tall). 

The 4th bedroom (master closet). 

Crown cap over the front door. 

Last but not least, cabinets in the laundry room.

Tile, More Cement

Q. How many men does it take to tile a bathroom?

A. Depends on how thinly you slice them. 

Ok, enough humor for today. They have mostly finished tiling the house today. There are still a few areas left to complete. They also still need to grout. Here are a few photos.

Looking toward the back of the house from just inside the front door.

This is a view from the back door. Well, technically the back door was locked, so I popped open a window on the back patio so Em could take this picture. Where the electrical cord is coming out of the floor is where the kitchen island/eating bar will be. Hope to see that by the end of the week. We'll see. 

Opened up another window on the back of the house to take this picture. Master bathroom - can can kind of see the tile in there. 

They also poured the driveway and porches, yesterday I'm assuming. Garage doors were also installed last week. We also have a huge mountain of dirt in the front yard, only partly visible in this photo. 

Back porch. We decided to add an additional 10' by 10' section of concrete to have a larger place for patio furniture, etc.

Daisy also enjoyed checking out the backyard today. 

Really. Dry. Walls. No, wait. I mean we have drywall.

The drywall was delivered to the house on Wednesday the 11th of August and mostly completed by Friday the 13th. All they lack is mud on some joints on the ceilings as well as putting mud over all the screws to hide them. 

So we went from the living room looking like this on Wednesday...

...to the living room looking like this on Friday. You can see the guy on stilts to the far right side of the picture. Emily and Daisy are also checking things out through the back windows.

Here is a view into the kitchen from the living room. That's the pantry there on the right. The kitchen sink will be directly underneath the window. 

This view is from just inside the front door looking toward the back of the house. Just to the right would be the dining room/office. The doorway on the left leads to the 2 guest bedrooms, guest bath, the laundry room and the garage. 

The dining room/office. You can see a bit of the archway.

This is the master bedroom. 

She's a Brick.....House!

That's right, as of Monday, the bricking of our house is now complete. Keep in mind that the following photos represent 25 days since footings for the house were poured. 

Overall view of the house. Lots of equipment, sand and extra bricks still in the way. They still have to brick around the wood supports on the front porch.

Close up view of the front porch. The 2 wood posts will be bricked about 40% of the way up.

Rear view of the house.

Side of the house. This is the best representation of what the brick color is like. It's meant to look like an antique/recycled brick.

Drinking on the Job

Pedro and his construction buddies apparently aren't afraid to throw back a few cold ones while in the process of building our house.

Count that as one very distinct advantage that a career in construction has over a career in banking (banker's typically will be required to leave the jobsite in order to grab a beer).

Let's just hope that whoever was drinking that beer wasn't part of the electrician crew that installed all the wiring in our house. I would think that sobriety would be an advantage when working with electricity. On the other hand, I would think alcohol on the job would almost be a requirement if one were a plumber (no offense to plumbers, its no wonder they charge so damn much). 

Anyhow, here are some pictures of the progress that has been made in the last week or so. The first picture is of the breaker box in the garage. You can see the yellow wiring leaving the box and heading out all over the house. 

This is the master shower. Emily declined to pose for this picture. 

Ductwork. We decided to go ahead and have air conditioning installed in the house, which seems like a wise decision, considering its been about 105 degrees here for the last several days.

Brick has been delivered. I expect within the next week the house will be fully bricked. Stay tuned. 

We also have a nice giant pile of sand in front of the house now. This will be for the masons (awesome vocabulary) to use when mixing the mortar. 

Lastly, we have Daisy checking out some leftover wire left by the electricians. 

Bring on the Rain, Filth & Cold

That's right. 

Because we now have a roof to keep us dry:

A shower in which to get clean (technically this is the shower in which our guests can get clean):

And a fireplace to keep us warm:

Daisy also thoroughly inspected everything today, and she approves. 

Framing Completed, Roof Decked & a Special Delivery

Lots of progress on the house since Monday. All the framing has now been completed, the last 2 windows have been installed (in the dormers over the front door/garage) and the roof is now completely decked. 

So now we have a house that looks like this:

Here is a view of the back, which is now a bit easier to comprehend with the roof decking completed. 

Here is a close-up view of the back porch (concrete for the porch has not been poured yet). I can already picture sitting here at the end of a long day. We also decided just today to add an extra 10 feet of concrete out past the the portion of the porch that is covered. That should provide a nice area for some patio furniture. 

It is quite amazing how much space is in the attic of this house. It seems much larger up there than the actual living space of the house. Some might say that "You could stack a heck of a lot of hay up there". Actually, I think my dad is the only person that would say that, but it is funny that I thought of him saying that once I saw the huge attic space. Standing on the floor, it looks like the top of the roof is 50 feet away - you can sort of comprehend that from this picture.

You can start to see the definition of the rooms better now that the roof decking is completed - it feels more like actually being inside a house now. This picture is standing in the living room looking back toward where the kitchen will be. That smaller window will be directly above the sink. 

Right after we got out to the house today, the guys showed up to deliver the shingles...

They had a pretty amazing contraption to help get the shingles up onto the roof....I guess its a crane/conveyor belt. We watched the guy ride it all the way up, then the other guy started sending up the shingles to get stacked up on the roof. Suddenly all the other guys in the neighborhood with mere ladders felt inadequate. 

Emily got very concerned when they were backing this truck up to the house, because though you can't tell from this picture, the truck is about 2 inches from the house. But, I am guessing they have done this before. 

I am assuming the roof will be finished up by the end of the week. We went by another house in the neighborhood tonight that got started about 2 weeks before ours. All the rough plumbing and electrical is finished, the house has been completely bricked, and all the drywall has been installed. I am starting to see how ours could definitely be completed by the end of September. 

Framing: Days 2, 3 and 4

After much progress on the first day of framing (Friday), it would appear to have slowed down a bit, but progress has still been substantial. In the photos below, you will notice that all of the roof structure is now completed, and the plywood decking is now partially completed. They have also completed all the trim work around the eves, and also installed all the windows and doors (except for the 2 windows in the dormers on the front of the house). 

You will also notice that the jungle gym of random boards has been removed from the garage and other areas of the house has been removed, and the house is now standing on its own 2 feet (or however many feet a house has). 

Windows and door and plywood - oh my!

Note to mother Carol - the back porch would be on the left in this picture (notice the back door). The 4 windows in the center are the back of the living room, windows on the right are the master bedroom. 

View from the kitchen into the living room. The frame for the fireplace has now been completed. To the right will be the "breakfast nook", and out through the door is the back porch. Where the conduit (hollow metal pipe thingy) is sticking out of the floor at the bottom of the photo is where the kitchen island/eating bar will be. 

The Bathroom is Down the Hall, On the Right

While Emily and I are fairly simple folks, we did decide that when building our new house, there were a few extravagances that we absolutely had to splurge on. I'd encourage you kind folks not to judge us when I tell you that our new house, gulp, will have 2 full bathrooms. Yes you read that correctly. Not one, but two FULL bathrooms - the plumbing for which was roughed in today (that means they installed the pipes that will be imbedded in the cement slab underneath the house). 

I am sure all the people who enjoy coming to Tulsa to visit Emily and I will be super glad (disappointed?) that they won't have to (get to?) shower with me due to the lack of additional bathing facilities.  You can thank me later. 

Anyhow, on to some pictures. As you can see below, the plumbing has been roughed in, the wooden forms are in place, and all we need to be done now before the slab can be poured is for the massive amount of dirt on the lot to be spread back out to cover the plumbing. We are hoping to have a slab in place and be ready for framing by the end of the week. 

Overall view of the lot with plumbing in place and wood forms ready for cement. 

They dug underneath the footers in order to bring the main water line in from the street.

Here is the plumbing for the 2 bathrooms, master on the left (No, you may not take a bath in the big tub.), guest bathroom on the right. 

Here is the area where the water heater will be hooked up (on the left, actually will be in the garage) and also where the washer and dryer will be hooked up (on the right). Feel free to come over and do our laundry any time you wish. 

CAUTION: Wet Cement!

Yes, you read the title correctly. As of this afternoon, Casa de la Wanzor is officially "Under Construction". Em and I went out to the lot (I am going to have to come up with a new name now that it is officially more than just a lot) after work today and found that the footings had been poured sometime today. 

Trivia question for the day:

Q: How fast does concrete dry when its 143 degrees outside. 

A: Fast. 

From what we have been told, from this point to closing should be approximately 70 day, which would put us into our new house sometime around the end of September. We'll keep an eye on that target as we move along. 

Next steps: From here, the plumbing and electrical will be ran to the build site, the wood forms will be constructed and then the slab will be poured. 

Check out the pictures below for today's progress.