We didn’t go over to see our house on Friday evening because it was raining cats and dogs outside. On Saturday morning around 11:00, we consulted the weather radar and realized that we had to either go RIGHT THEN or not at all, since another gigantic band of storms was bearing down on us. So off we went.
As soon as we turned the corner onto our future street, Jose said “I can see our roof framing!” I could hardly believe that we already had a roof framed, but it turns out that we did. In fact, it looked just like this.
I’m still stunned that we went from empty lot to this in only TWO WEEKS. Those construction guys are seriously fast. Of course, it probably helps that they’ve built this specific house about a dozen times already in the neighborhood.
Here’s the family room. The arch at the back leads to the master bedroom, and there are 3 big windows along the back wall. (You can see 1.5 of them in this photo.)
This is looking from the family room back towards the front of the house. You can see down the entry hallway to where the front door will be. The other arch opens into our dining room. The kitchen is to the left.
In the family room looking towards the dining room and entryway
Here I am sitting in the frame of the bay window in our master bedroom. The stupid grin is because I was still marvelling at the fact that our house already looks like a house.
And here’s the fireplace, in one corner of the family room. You can see Jose walking up the stairs, but of course there will be a wall there eventually.
We went upstairs to check out the bonus room, where the framing was about 95% complete. (It looks like they probably had to leave on Friday when it started raining.) We’re going to make sure to take a good look at that plywood flooring after all the rain to make sure it doesn’t warp.
Here’s the view from our bonus room. Apparently our friends John and Kelly, who live in this neighborhood behind us, can see into our bonus room. (I haven’t identified which house is theirs yet.) Obviously this means we either need to set up a tin can phone line or come up with some flashlight morse code. Too funny.
There are a lot more photos on Flickr if you are interested.
On Saturday afternoon, it absolutely DUMPED rain to the tune of 8-10 inches within about 2 hours. This was after it had already rained a few inches on Friday night including a short period of hail that was about twice the size of a pea. It was the worst storm I’ve seen outside of a tropical storm or hurricane. Neither the roads nor the ground could take that much water in that short amount of time, so there was street flooding all over the place. I also discovered how the apartment got damp from Hurricane Ike, since it quickly became apparent that one of the windows leaks quite badly — like a faucet left on at low level. Ah well, I’m only there for four more months.
Hopefully our frame survived the Saturday deluge.
You’ll want to plant a nice bushy tree in your backyard for privacy. That’s what those palm trees in my backyard were. I realized after I cut them down that my neighbors with two story houses now have a great view into my bedroom window. Though your house is a little better configured for privacy on that lot..
That’s one of the reasons we liked this lot — because no one backs up right into our house. Also the two lots that border us directly in the back have 1-story houses on them. I’m sure we’ll plant something back there, but fortunately I don’t think privacy is going to be a big issue.