Our House

[miramadar]

Standing the first wall!!

 

[miramadar]

Interior walls in the basement complete. I had to use some I beams to span 2 wide areas down there.

 

[miramadar]

Then, on Dec. 18, we had a huge snow storm. Most everyone in the region (eastern KY and southwest VA) were without power for at least a couple days. We were without power for 4 days. Some went as long as 2 weeks. We were lucky I guess. It was a very wet, heavy snow that snapped trees like twigs and downed countless power lines. We had electrical crews from all over the eastern part of the U.S. here trying to restore power. A big THANK YOU goes out to those guys. They worked their hind-ends off. :thumbsup:

But my good ol' Canadian builder was right back at it as soon as the power was back on.

 

[miramadar]

With the basement walls up and the joists in, it's time to start laying the plywood flooring. We used 3/4" Advantec. That's some good stuff! Been wet as Brazil (without the heat!) here this winter and it's held up very well.

 

[miramadar]

Exterior walls upstairs going up...

 

[miramadar]

Jan. 5. Interior walls are going up. Yes, it's snowing...again. Just one of many snows we got this year. From Dec. 5 to about March 1 there has been at least some snow on the ground. My little girl liked it though! :laughing:

 

[miramadar]

On Jan. 14 it finally warmed up enough to paint the basement walls with the waterproofer (Ames Blue Max). It got up to 50 degrees that day! (After a 10-day stretch of never getting above freezing...a new record for this area). We put 2 coats of Blue Max on, 2 layers of 6 mil plastic, and 1/4" extruded styrofoam protection board. Better not leak!!!

 

[dcyrilc]

The final blocks are laid...

This was on Dec. 5, 2009. As you can see, it was snowing pretty hard. And the weathe just got worse and worse as the winter wore on. This has been the worst winter to try to build. If there wasn't a foot of snow on the ground, it was so muddy you needed webbed feet to move around. But I take my hat off to my builders. They came snow or shine. He's originally from Canada, so I guess he's used to it.

My only concern would be the morter possibly freezing and not curing properly. Even so, there are ways to do it and he very well may have done what was needed to protect it.

 

[miramadar]

Next, we started the backfill. We had to do the front of the house first since there will be a porch there...and the porch was next in the construction process.

 

[miramadar]

The trusses arrive. We went with attic trusses over about half of the house. We ended up with a 14'x27' attic room. The trusses, which are 8/12 pitch, were too tall to be transported whole. So, the truss manufacturer sent the bases and the tops that we assembled on-site.