Framing the first floor

And now, an update on the first full week of framing! So darn much progress despite rainy weather and freezing temperatures. Matt and Chris kicked serious butt. 

When we last left our intrepid duo (that would be Chris and I), they (we) had reached the East wall of the house. They (okay, I'll stop now)...

At the end of the first weekend

Replace me with my brother, Matt, and much more gets done, much more quickly. This is what they had done by the end of their first day of work.

North wall up; part of East wall too

Yup, that's still water on the slab. We keep squeegeeing it off (can you believe that passed spellcheck?!?) but it just keeps raining. Argh.

The entire East wall

For Rita's benefit...

How do people frame without a tractor?

Back door, door to garage, utilities looking strange

Looking into the kitchen

The kitchen windows are very high to accommodate my antique sink which has a 10 inch backsplash. I wanted all the windows the same height over the counters. This way I'll have room to store stuff on the counter without interfering with the windows. That's the idea anyway, we'll see how it actually works once everything is in place.

Chris and Matt - safety first!

Second to last wall. Woo-hoo!

Ominous sky and the mighty sledgehammer. Thor, where are you?

A rare moment of sunshine

What, you don't park your tractor on the porch?

The tractor came in handy several times. It kept a wall from tilting, it pushed walls to level them, and it made it's way into pictures that you just wouldn't expect to see a tractor in (look up at the kitchen picture - yup, that's the tractor peeking through the door).

The shower stall windows

Now that we've got the walls up I'm starting to be able to "see" my design in real life and I'm wildly excited about how it's turning out. Some things are just as I imagined, some are taking me by surprise (I have a 4 1/2 foot wide closet for heaven's sake - how did that happen??), and I'm loving the reveal. I can hardly wait to get the interior walls up.

Bundled up and ready to build

Frozen water. 24 degrees this morning

It got really cold by the weekend. Low 40 degree temps with a high wind on Friday made things a bit uncomfortable for working. Lots of hot liquid and food was needed to keep energy levels up. Nothing like a grilled buffalo chicken wrap to raise the internal temperature. Fortunately the wind died down Saturday as the temps dropped to 24 overnight. Some much missed sunshine helped make the day pleasant.

So much progress!

By noon Saturday the first floor walls were up, secured, and waiting for the last bits of sheathing. The garage door openings are huge and I'll finally be able to park the truck inside (our current garage door is too short - that what happens when you live in a 1930 house). Hmm, park inside during the winter, a very nice thought for upstate NY!