Let The Framing Begin!

It's been about two weeks since I last posted and things moved along at a crawl for awhile.  We had some rain and our framing crew got behind on their other jobs.  In the meantime, Wonderful Hubby, also known as "J", (he's been reading my posts and has decided he'd rather I refer to him as "J"!) did the back filling between the concrete basement walls and the soil with rock. Here is a shot to show you what that looked like.

We had the concrete walls sprayed with waterproofing (the black paint).  J added a layer of plastic road sheeting between the soil and the rock.  Then he added tons and tons of rock.

The purpose of the rock barrier is to help keep the concrete foundation from moving and failing. Our part of Missouri has a lot of clay soil, or what is called 'expansive clay soil.'  During dry weather, the soil tends to contract and get very hard.  It pulls away from walls and foundations, leaving gaps sometimes an inch wide.  Water can seep into these gaps and sit near the bottom of foundations, creating leaks.  During very wet periods, the expansive clay will swell and put pressure on foundations and walls, causing them to bow in and ultimately fail.  In the last ten years, our area has seen many homes in need of foundation/basement repair due to this affect of hydraulic pressure.  Our current home was constructed and maintained properly and we've been lucky to not have this problem.  J was very determined to do what he could to be sure our new home was also worry-free.

After the rock was added, he topped it off with soil.  Topsoil will be added when construction is finished so we can grow shrubs and bushes.

It's been a muddy mess some days but oh, what a difference a few days makes!

Early last week I drove up and found the framers had arrived!  

By the next day we had the beginnings of a subfloor!

Here are the floor joists.  Some have been nailed into place.  Others are still laying down, ready to be added.  The concrete area on the lower left is our 'safe room' under the front porch. We live in Missouri and tornadoes are part of our weather.  Safe rooms have become fairly standard in  new construction.  It looks almost like a prison cell and I hope we don't spend much time in it!  :)

This is a shot of the back porch.  This little curved patio has turned into more of a project than I originally thought and I'll share more about it another time.  I think we'll like it when everything is all finished, though!

Here is the basement with the joists on top.  The area on the left will be J's lodge area.  The whole area in the far back will be storage.  Those two hoses sticking up out of the gravel in back are the pipes for the heat pump.  You can see the hole for the staircase in the upper right.

This shows the other side of the basement where Precious Daughter's and Favorite Son's rooms will be as well as a full bath.

By the end of the day on Saturday (and yes, the crew worked most of the day Saturday!) we had walls!

The kids were up for Mother's Day and had fun seeing the progress.

The garage walls went up yesterday.  We have an angled, front entrance garage.

And today, they started framing the interior walls!! 

Here's a quick tour.  Please use your imagination!

Great Room

Kitchen/Dining Room

The Craft Studio

Laundry Room

Master Bedroom

Master Closet

Half Bath

Mud Room and garage beyond

After planning and waiting so long, things are finally beginning to come together!  We can actually start to visualize what our new home will look like.  I'm not sure what will go up next, maybe the roof trusses, but I'll post another update next week.

Thanks for stopping by!  

Zenda

Linking to:

Amaze Me Monday
Metamorphosis Monday

Tuesdays At Our Home

Tuesdays With a Twist

The Scoop

Share Your Cup Thursday
Thoughts of Home on Thursday
Home Sweet Home
Foodie Friday and Everything Else