Showing posts with label siding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label siding. Show all posts

Friday, May 16, 2014

Pre-Drywall Meeting - Part 1

The pre-drywall meeting is the home buyers chance to see the things behind the walls before it is closed up and have a walk through of the interior of the house where the you can ask questions to the project manager about the different elements of those behind the wall items.  In the walk through my wife and I took, I took a number of pictures so I am breaking down the posts into a couple different sections.  This first post will take a look at the progress on the outside of the house as well as some views of the yard.  In a subsequent post we will take at the rooms inside and then a post taking a closer look at the items in the walls, like electrical and plumbing.

Pre-Drywall - The House Outside

At the time the drywall is ready to go up the outside of the house itself is at a point where it is pretty much completed.  There is more exterior work to go but most of those things are the items which are held to the end so that the work is not destroyed as the workers move in and out of the house. 

Front View with Siding Up

The siding is mostly completed, and I initially thought it was left that way purposefully to allow the utilities to be added without damaging the siding, but as we talked with Bob he mentioned that the siding was not finalized because they didn't have enough to finish and would be getting more to finalize.

A little work left to do

We braved the unfinished hill to move around to the back of the house to get a look at that angle.  The basement in the back is pretty close to being fully exposed in the back.  This leaves a large drop off for the sliding doors exiting off the morning room, which can be seen in the following picture.  Additionally are the windows from the family room on the bottom, the master bedroom windows on top and a small square window in the master bathroom window on the upper side.

Back Side of House

Pre-Drywall - The Yard

The landscaping is not done yet, but the trees are starting to grow there leaves.  We purchased a premium lot, which has a large lot for the area and the back is wooded.  There will need to be some clearing to make the most of the large lot but its nice and secluded feeling.  Here is a look at the back yard from the ground.

The Yard - A Look from the Ground

Its hard to tell from the picture where the lot ends, especially since the survey stakes are not in, but it is 75 feet back from the corner of the morning room and closer to 90 feet back from the other corner of the house.  We have 25 feet of space on the left side of the house and 18 on the right.  This is a crazy compared to our current house as it feels like you can reach out the window and touch the neighbors.

The next view is from the master bedroom back windows, looking down on the yard.  Its tough to tell in the picture but its almost three stories up due to the high foundation in the back.  On the right side you can see the morning room roof.  You can't see in those morning room gutters there is already build up from the trees, gutter guards are going to be a must for us, especially before fall comes and the trees all shed the leaves.

The Yard - A Look from Above

In the next post we will be venturing inside the house and get a look at the rooms before the walls get closed up with drywall, and then an up close look at the wiring and plumbing behind the walls.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Catch up - Siding and More

My wife and I were away on vacation which is why there was a small hiatus in my postings. Our Sales Representative, Jackie, was nice enough to offer to take a few pictures of the progress while we were away. The nice part of this is she was able to capture pictures while the work was happening since she is in the area during the day, while the work is going on.

Right before we left the house was just about getting ready to be sided.  We selected Irish Thistle siding, with Berry shutters and a Black Fox door.  The Irish Thistle siding is a greenish grey color, depending on the light it will show more green than gray, in the pictures here its shows more on the gray side. The door color we picked was Black Fox as mentioned above but in the pictures the door is white. This is quite normal as all doors are delivered white and painted the selected color once installed.  The first picture Jackie took for us, is looking at the front of the house as the siding contractors are working.

Siding Going On Front View
As you can see they work with scaffolding around the side of the house without the garage roof.  The scaffolding is attached to the roof and braced on metal polls.  The next picture Jackie sent is a view from the other side of the house giving a look of the side wall and front of the house.

Siding Going on Side Angle View
If you look closely at the above two pictures you can see the trees have begun to sprout leaves, the back yard is mostly wooded and gives a nice back drop for house.  A few days after Jackie had sent over the first set of exterior photos she sent a few additional ones.  On the day of the second batch of pictures it was the day they were delivering the sheet rock for the house.   The sheet rock comes in large sheets looks like 12 foot by 4 foot sections, and bundled in 10 sheet sets.  These must weigh a ton so the delivery is assisted by a truck with built in crane.  In the first picture you will see the truck situated on the street approximately 25 feet from the front of the house.                    
Sheet Rock Delivery
A second view is a close up of the boom arm moving the sheet rock bundle through the upper window, which is situated at the top of the stairs.  As you can see from the picture they pulled out the window panes to allow a wide enough opening for the sheet rock to be delivered directly to the upstairs.  My guess is this was repeated a number of times with them also moving some through the front door in a similar manner, as well as some directly into the garage.


Sheet Rock Delivery
In the second picture you can see the shutters have been added and some borders around the front door and on top of the downstairs windows.  It was great of Jackie to take some pictures for my Wife and I, while we were away.  There was a bunch of progress which we would have missed out on had we not had these pictures.  Today was the pre-drywall walk through which I will be posting tomorrow.  Lots of pictures with that one!