Framing is finished!

Last night Greg and I went out to the site to take a look at the house. If you remember from my previous post, there were several framing issues that I was really upset about and so was Greg. Well last Friday we met with the builder at the site and he put our fears to rest :) He explained that he had just missed the items we wanted addressed and that he would make sure the framing crew fixed them this week. So last night when we arrived all of the mistakes were fixed! Yay! We are so happy! The house is looking crazy good! It is going to have just the feel I was shooting for and be so open on the first floor! From working with the kitchen designer I know my kitchen is going to be huge, but last night I really "saw" it for the first time. Talk about quite the wonderful upgrade from our kitchen now. Our kitchen now could fit twice into my new kitchen!

Now that the framing issues have been fixed and most of the support beams are out of the way, it is much easier to see what everything is. So here is more pictures than I am sure you care to see of our framed in house!

Front of the House. Windows covered in the paper still are in the garage. Then left to right on the first floor: Dining room window, front door, and master sitting area. Top floor windows left to right: bonus room, a guest bedroom and the two story foyer. I have an awesome light for the two story foyer that is shaped like an orb/globe. It is gonna look so awesome from the street!

 

 This picture doesn't do it justice, but this is my huge open kitchen. Original plan called for partial wall between the kitchen and living and we made it completely open. Going to be so nice for entertaining! In order to open it up they had to put in a giant 24in header, but luckily they could recess it a bit when they put it in so the ceiling right there is still over 8 feet.

 

Here is another view with the support beam out of the way. This space will be the kitchen and living room and will be 26 ft by 17ft. That's huge!

 

 

This is the back of the house. On the left the window with the board is in the living room and so is the next window. The rounded or jutting out area is the eat in area in the kitchen and the huge window on the right is my office!

 

 

Side profile of the house. Garage bay all the way to the right!

 

 

 

Silly I know, but look at all of the pallets of shingles this house needs! 





The lovely view from the formal dining room. This will also be the view from the bedroom directly above the dining room and the master! This will be so amazing to wake up to every day!

 Master bedroom sitting area. Going to be my reading nook!

 

Partial view of the master bath from second floor.

Master bath tub and shower. The tub looks so small there but that is probably because that shower is huge! It's 8 ft by 4 ft!

 

 Bonus room starting to go up. This room has a sloped ceiling but it is still really high.

More second floor framing getting under way.

 

Media room on the second floor. Originally the plans called for the living room to have a vaulted ceiling but we thought it was a waste of space so we are getting this man cave area for Greg!

We are so excited and feeling so blessed to be building this lovely home! We have been here so much already and are so involved in every choice for it, that I already feel so connected to this house. I just can't wait to see everything come together. We are building the dream!



 

We have a basement and first floor framing!

It's been a busy few weeks and I have not been as good as I hoped updating this blog :( Sorry!
However, the basement was poured and the basement slab was finished earlier this week. On Wednesday the lumber package was delivered and the framing crew was able to get started. Talk about fast work! They had the basement walls all framed out by 3 pm on Wednesday and the lumber package had gotten delivered that day. Yes, you read that right, a WHOLE basement framed out in just a few hours! It is finally getting real. Silly, I know, but until you start to see the bones of the house coming together, it is still just a concept. Wednesday when we arrived at the site really seemed like this "concept" was quickly becoming a reality. I got butterflies in my stomach just approaching the site but they were the good kind :)

We have floor joists and a lumber package!

Greg and I walked in through the basement garage door and were impressed to see they had the garage bay, the bathroom and main living area all framed in correctly. However, we had asked for another area in the basement to be open concept with a large beam and this section was not done right. Talk about angry. Greg was super upset! Our real estate agent was with us and she told us to just keep calling our builder to get the issue addressed. Finally, Greg also went and talked with the crew leader and told him what we wanted. He said it would be no problem to address this and he would order the beam and have it next week to install. Whew! Crisis averted :)

 

 Open concept living room in the basement.

 

 Above is the part that was supposed to be open as well. New beam coming this week :)

Future basement bathroom. This is gonna be huge. One day I will get my huge soaking tub!

Greg and I did not go out on Thursday since it rained a bit and they could not work. Then on Friday we had to go out of town with a group of his friends/co-workers. So we went to the site on Saturday evening on our way back into Knoxville. Boy were we surprised! They had accomplished tons but to our chagrin there were several mistakes! Isn't the reason we have a general contractor, so that mistakes are kept to a minimum? Especially considering he gave us plans last week and asked us to put all of our framing changes etc. on the plans and then get them back to him. We did just that and it was like he didn't even look at them or come out and let the framers know. No fault of the framers, they are just going off the original plans and the house they just did for our builder on Wallace Rd. A blessing and a curse that is turning out to be for us. Blessing because we got to see their build pretty much start to finish but a curse because we have made changes and it seems our builder has not told his subs yet. Well that sucks for him, because they sure will have to fix it. Some of the changes are actually contractual and others are what he actually bid on when he quoted us for the house. Greg was beyond angry when he saw the mistakes. Mainly the mistakes were in the kitchen and the laundry room. However, they were big mistakes and we did let the builder know that we needed to meet with him this week to address these. We knew there would arise some issues, but we didn't expect them right out the gate. So fingers crossed we can get them fixed this week. Otherwise I am going to have one upset hubby on my hands! I have faith though, its all going to work out just fine. Sometimes in order to know how lucky you are, you do have to have a few problems. The problems let you appreciate how truly fortunate you are. I am going to see these problems as a reminder to be grateful. We after all are building the dream and should be reminded of that :)