Construction Week 11, Days 52 and 53, May 23-24, 2011

Wow if things don't appear to be busy at 100 Yorktown things are popping behind the scenes with decisions piling up.  At the beginning of week 11, the largest one looming is the kitchen design as we have to nail that done to move into the rough ins for electrical, plumbing and mechanical.  More on that later.

@100 Yorktown, the roofers continued their work to get us in the dry while dogging raindrops.  On the interior Owen Lilly and the crew continued working to finish up the framing.  Their efforts included completing the ceiling framing and they have been working on filling in the roof gables.

The Open Floor Plan - Seeing the forest through the trees

Even though this home construction is our first rodeo, we have quickly learned that home building for the owner is a string of decisions that link together like a chain of events.  It reminds me in a way of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books I used to read as a kid.  Initial decisions set the wheels in motion on a progression of other decisions.  Sometimes it is easy to forget, that it is just as important to have in mind the beauty of the forest when we are among the trees.

Case in point, during his site visit, Brandon from Southgate Residential subtlety reminded me of the importance of remembering to keep in mind the open floor plan of the Frank Betz Appleton Chase as we work through individual choices and selection of interior finishes.  The following photos, while still in the framing stage show how the sightlines or vantage points from various parts of the house in this floor plan will show features of several different rooms within the same scene.  This is why choices in individual rooms have to be always placed in the context of the overall house.  See the photos below.

Vantage Point from the Foyer

The photo in the foyer shows a vantage point looking directly into the dining room in the photo foreground.  The open floor plan when finished also will showcase the decorative stairwell and even provide a background glimpse through line of sight into the kitchen furnishings and corner windows.

Vantage Point from Grand Room into Kitchen Area

This view from the grand room entry will provide a view into the kitchen furnishings even a view out onto the golf course through the keeping room.

Finding the Light - Paying attention to the light and shadows

As the roof continues to go on at 100 Yorktown, an initial verdict is starting to come in as to how natural light will illuminate the interior of the house.  The house fronts facing west and the rear faces east.  So as we picked a plan I tried to be aware of how and where natural sunlight would come into the house.

Obviously, over the course of the day and throughout the seaons of the year, 100 Yorktown will receive varying amounts of sunlight.  With the two covered porches, the downstairs windows will be shaded in the summer at midday and provide indirect light.  The photo below shows the afternoon (2 PM) sun shining through the lower portion of the Tyvek in the future dining room windows.  This shows what the covered porch will do with light.

Idea of future window light with a 2 o'clock sun

Now just above the dining room will be Camden's bedroom.  The room has two large windows and two smaller windows in the nook and bathroom portions of what we are starting to call the junior suite.  The photo below shows the same 2 o'clock sun.  Remember that the tyvek has already been removed from the upstairs window.

Upstairs notice the amount of light cast on the floor 

Construction - Week 10 Day 50 and 51, May 19-20, 2011

50 Days In 

View of rear of house with sheathing board - Photo taken Saturday, May 21, 2011

Day 50 came and went.  The roofers continued with the shingles.  The framers moved to sheathing the back of the house.  On Friday, it appears they had a short day after a long week on the top of 100 Yorktown.

The most exciting thing about Day 51 was Brandon Smith with Southgate Residential came to town.  We were able to walk him through the house and share our vision for our home with him.  We then made what was to be a quick trip to Lowes.  About 2.5 hours later, we left Lowes with a complete kitchen redesign and a bunch of our initial decisions made.

Construction - Week 10 Day 49 - May 18, 2011

@ 100 Yorktown Construction Continued on sheathing and shingling the roof.

We also met with Doug Lilly at Lowes to discuss our plumbing fixtures.  Karen was very excited to see the faucets, tubs, and toilets that Doug typically uses.  We think we know what our selections will be we just want to confirm with Brandon of Southgate Residential prior to finalization.  More on those selections later.

Here are today's photos:

Sheathing over top of the rear porch and master suite

Closeup of Shingles 

Sheathing on the Vaulted Ceiling of the Grand Room

Rain Day - Week 10 - Day 48 - May 17, 2011

Today it rained and rained and that made it very difficult to get anything done over at 100 Yorktown.  The roofers were pretty much rained out.  The framers were able to work under roof in the bonus roof and finish out the framing in that space.

Check out the Big Bonus Space

The Sandbox

While much has been written about the construction at 100 Yorktown.  Sometimes we overlook the little memories we are creating along the way.  Sometimes it seems that there is little Camden can do to occupy his time or help out on our daily trips over to the lot.  So he has done what all 5 year olds do.  He found his own fun in the makeshift sandbox he has created in front of the house.  He builds his own pint sized house on this spot of the lot a few times a week.

We have shingles - Week 10 - Day 47 - May 16, 2011

At the start of our 10th week of construction, we were excited to have shingles going on at 100 Yorktown.  It will be a relief to get the house dried in.  We really like the Owens Corning Estate Gray shingle color.  Today the roofers got most of the bonus room complete and a portion of the front porch.  The porch threw us a little bit of a scare as we thought the porch would have standing seam metal roof as is in the plans.  This was an item that the builder did not include to meet our budget.

After looking at the porch roof from the several different vantage points on the street and in the yard, we have determined it is very hard to even see the roof, so it probably doesn't make sense to put the money in upgrading the roof.  

Shingles installed first  over the bonus room

View of the Garage and Bonus Room

View of Front Elevation with Shingles on Porch

View of front of house from Yorktown

Closeup of Owens Corning Estate Gray Shingles

Zoom In View of Front Porch - It will be very difficult to notice this roof from  roadway

View of Roof from Camden's Bathroom Window

A Final View from the Road - 1st Day Shingles Went Down

Week 9, Days 45-46, May 12 and 13, 2011

The Roof Sheathing begins and here come the decisions


I received an early phone call from Doug on Thursday, May 12 after playing phone tag for two days.   After we went through each other's list, I regret not talking earlier in the week.  The lull in house making decisions is coming to an end and it sounds like the next few weeks will be busy.

Next week we will be doing our electrical and plumbing walk through for rough ins.  We also need to finalize decisions on the mechanical systems.  With the plumbing decision, we have to pick out our tub colors and shower hardware and sink faucets.  We will meet next week at Lowe's to do some of that.  Dad will come up as planned over the weekend to help us start thinking of where to put receptacles, switches, etc.

We are excited Brandon from Southgate Residential will be coming up next weekend to meet with us next weekend and start the process of our interior design.  Brandon is an old friend from high school and has brought lots of good ideas to the table.

The photos show how much progresss the framers made on the roof sheathing on Thursday.

Construction - Week 9 Days 43-44, May 10-11

The framing crew finished up the covered porch framing, fascia board around the house.  I met with Owen early on Tuesday the 10th.  Roof sheathing is supposed to start going on later in the week.

Construction - Week 9, Days 42 - May 9, 2011

Looking out on the top of the rear covered porch

 The final bit of the rear roof was started today along the covered porch.  This porch is the point where three different roof pitches come together and transition into another pitch.  To further complicate things the great room dormer comes into the roof in this area.

View of the Great Room Dormer 

The dormer framing was continued with the porch framing work

Rear Porch from Keeping Room

Ceiling rafters of the Covered Porch

View of the Bonus Room Dormer

Construction - Week 8 - Days 37-40 May 2-5, 2011

100 Yorktown Begins To Show Its Roof Line Personality

The most notable observation this week is the framers have begun to work on the finer details of the Appleton Chase roof.  On Monday and Tuesday of this week, they worked building the roofline of the covered front porch.  Rafters were placed to finish out the roof over the right half of the house.  They also put the rafters in above the keeping room.  Next came the gabled dormer in the bonus room above the garage.  We received more rain for the later half of Wednesday.   The gabled dormer above the great room was completed on Thursday.  

About the only major portion of roof not completed yet is the roof over the covered porch.  

The visit late Thursday showed that a next stage is soon to start based on the stack of sheathing board they have staged upstairs.  More sheathing board also was delivered to the site.  

Gabled Dormer from within the Great Room

View of Framed Gabled Dormer Above the Great Room

View of Great Room Gabled Dormer from 2nd Story Balcony

Gabled Dormer from below in the Great Room

Construction - Week 7 - Days 35 and 36 - April 28 and 29, 2011

The last two days have seen the framing crew fill in a significant number of the roof rafters.  Hopefully, they can finish this in Week 8.