Insulation and drywall

It has been so exciting this last week. Our insulation was put in and the dry wall is being hung. As a group we also started a new chapter in working on the house and is always referred to as finish work. It doesn't mean we are super close to finishing but a lot closer than before. It so far is a good turn of pace. Sorry about the quality of the photos I took then when it was dark and we only have a few lights in there.

This is the living room. This insulation is really neat- it is blown in with water and adhesive and the actual insulation is recycled little pieces of newspaper. It is great energy efficient insulation.

Back of the garage, door on the right is the furnace/water heater, and the left door goes into our utility room and kitchen.
Main hallway with the drywall up. The door straight ahead is the main bathroom.

One of the bedrooms, looking into the closet.

Major inspection...

Progress and been going very quickly even though it is not progress we are doing but progress contractors have been making. In the last two weeks things that have be done are, the plumbing, the electrical, the insulation in the outside walls and dry wall on the celling. It also seems to get done quickly and without input really from us. We were just so happy to have it get done and be that much closer.
Things we have done on the houses are just a lot of little things that had to be done before the next stages. A few of them are:
- had to put in a few small walls in the bathroom next to the tubs
- add boards around the windows if the gap was wider than the wafer board (on Thursday I spent most of the evening finding the table saw and cutting the strips)
- getting backing done for dry wall
- painting the trim around the outside doors
- fixing a hole that was accidentally shingled over on our roof, that then had to be corrected when the plumbers come in(thanks Dad and Garth)
-sealing and masking the air duct work (it helps with the energy star rating that our home should get when it is done)
-adding a few things here and there, that got overlooked before
- and a lot of clean up.
I think that is everything but I could have missed something. It is great to be moving on to an other section of building. We will be starting finish work on the first couple of houses and it will all be inside, yeah for heat when it is getting so cold.

Rock conclusion

So this is the conclusion on the chapter of rock on the house. It has seemed to last forever and it has. Taking this long was not planed but with cold weather, and it getting dark at 5 it was hard to get a lot done. So it is up and the grout is in and it feels so nice to be done with it.

Doors

This week we had Doors put in. The first one that went in was our garage door and no we didn't have to install it. Second set was all our outside doors. I didn't help with this but it is hard to do it seems. A funny thing about our group and doors is that several of us all choose the same style of door, we must have similar taste.
The weather has been rough so we haven't been working out side as much these last two weeks. We did get a lot of the house prepared for installation and dry wall though. I have been working on a lot of backing which is putting pieces of wood on top of walls in between rafters so that when the dry wall is put in they have something to nail to, or a back support (backing). I didn't take any pictures because I think it is boring and it is hard to tell that anything has been done. Also we finally have our furnace installed. They were suppose to put it in weeks ago but got to it this Friday. We won't have it turned on just yet but as soon as the electrical and plumbing are done it can be turned on, heat inside on cold days, it will be so nice.

Ready for Rock

The last couple of weeks since the roofs have been finished it was time to move on to put on the rock fronts on the houses. When I refer to the rock it is a man made thin concrete that looks like real rock. It doesn't hold anything up like rock use to but it looks really nice and it is easier to work with than real rock and it gives a lot of choices. It takes a lot of prep work before a single rock is placed up. I was a slacker with pictures so I only have a picture of the scratch coating after it was all done. Last Saturday we got all of the houses scratch coated and started to put the rock up. It was been difficult and they learning carve steep, but now we have done it for about a week it is getting easier. The weather has also been prefect and I wish we could have about two more weeks of the warm weather.

We have also had some issues getting our rock. The company we were ordering from had a website to look at rock samples. We found a color they had on a house but it wasn't listed any other place. We ordered it and then when it didn't show up, the company said they didn't know what picture we were talking about and had changed it on their website. It was a little bit fishy and weird so we had to choose something different. We now have the second order but I was a little worried about it for the last two week. Our house is one of the easier houses so it is not the priority to get done right away so waiting was not a problem.

Other things that have happened on the house is the rest of our cement was put into place. That includes, back porch, side porch out of garage, front porch, driveway and then on a second day the sidewalk to the front porch and the approach to the drive way.

I just had to put our name in the cement. I put 2008 Little if you were wondering.

BabySitting

Part of Building our house for me is babysitting. Not only do I babysit half the time but Maleah also has to have a babysitter. This has not been an easy thing for me to do. I love to watch kids but it can be very challenging at times too. Every other day I watch two little girls age 7 and 3 and of coarse Maleah. Then on the other days their mom watches Maleah. On the days that are good weather we go to a park and play. It takes up a lot of time and they have fun. This week was Halloween and there is a Pumpkin walk in North Logan, and that is what we did for fun. There are displays of craved pumpkins and painted pumpkins. It is fun and elaborate what people come up with. At the very end they have cute cut outs that they kids put their faces in. Here are the two girls that I watch. Maleah hated it and I couldn't get a picture worth posting.

Shingles

The house is completely shingled. Thanks to Jermey and Kelly that come tons of extra hours this week because we would still be working on Saturday on it without them. They got so much done that on Thursday I only could help put the ridge cap on top because that was the only thing left to put on. Everyone worked so hard and it a relief to have it done before it gets any colder.