Doors, Skylights and a New Bike!!

As promised, the doors and windows have been installed, as well as two skylights. I am impressed at how well each installation is planned. With the "pre-work" accomplished, the skylights, windows and doors just seem to slip into place. Here are Steve and Felix placing one of the two skylights. Skylight for the covered patio. We are so pleased with our main entrance which is a double sliding glass door spanning 12 feet. In the picture below, note the reflection of our current living quarters....Lewis, our RV! Next week on the job site will be the roofing completed. Stay tuned!

Roof, Doors and Windows

The roof is nearly completed, meaning that the infrastructure of beams, rafters, and joists is in place covered by sheathing and underlayment. (That's shop talk for plywood and tar paper, respectively.) I love this California life style...in Santa Cruz, if it rains, then work on the house stops. When the sun shines again, and all is warm and dry, then it is full speed ahead. Now that the house is covered and enclosed, the crew will begin putting in the doors and windows. Our main entrance is a double glass sliding door spanning 12 feet. Below is a picture of it being unloaded. Windows too! Stay tuned for more excitement with door and window installation!!

Big Cedar Beam

Today's big project  is the placement of a large cedar beam that will support the outer side of the roof over the covered patio. Our contractor, Joel has rented a Superlift machine to raise this super heavy beam into place. With the help of Felix and Steve, the process goes smoothly!

Success!!

Roofs and Beams

 This Monday morning started out with an early  delivery of lumber including roof beams for the garage and house.

Several of the big beams for the house roof weigh up to 400 pounds apiece.

The lower  photos show Felix and Steve placing the beams for the garage roof and then attaching the plywood.

The side bar shows a schematic of the garage interior showing car/bike parking area, bathroom and laundry/mancave. (note hot tub beside garage...yes!)

Unloading the heavy and long roof beams.
 
The garage roof beams being placed.         

Framed!

Now that the garage and house are framed in, we have a much better sense of our interior space.  With just 800 square feet of living space, ever little inch counts!  Of course, after living in our RV for the past three years, 800 square feet will feel palatial! 

The large opening is the front entrance which will have sliding glass doors. The smaller opening to the right of the entrance is another sliding door into the bedroom.
All the framing has been done by a crew of three men...Joel, our awesome contractor and his two crew guys, Felix and Steve.

Joel, on the ladder, and Steve.

Felix on the saw

First Wall Up!

An eventful week culminated in the raising of the first wall!  So gratifying to see this progress!

Here is a video of  this benchmark in our home, sweet home construction (although the wall is actually for the garage).

Foundation Day

Today is the perfect day for pouring the foundation for our new home.  Sunny, warm and dry! Setting the foundation is quite a benchmark in our building process!  The number of workmen on the site is up to 15 with one woman working the cement truck.  The big orange cement truck is spinning and spewing out yards of concrete.  Each truck carries about 9 yards of material.  Since our foundation requires  30 yards, we shall see nearly four truckloads on the site today.  Noisy, crowded, smelly (stinky exhaust of the operating cement truck)!

Men at Work













Woman at Work

Back to Building

Our two week hiatus away from building our home, sweet home,  was a study in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Those weeks included ten days on Maui...Bo passing a kidney stone...and a vigorous bout of 24 hour stomach flu.  So good to be back to building!

This morning Bo and I woke up to the arrival of 8 workmen, a large flatbed truck delivering rebar and lumber, and a dump truck with several loads of gravel, plus the ubiquitous bulldozer/back hoe. The day progresses with dust and noise...mainly the sounds of hammering and shoveling, but also the high pitched whine of power saws cutting lumber. When any of the above noises are not cutting the silence, there is still the continuous chirpy melody of the Mexican tunes on the radio. Ay ya ya yai!!

Front Door Delivery

Overview of the building site.

Living on the Edge

Living on the edge of a building site provides an education in many areas.  Learning about construction machinery is one of those areas.  The machines that have visited our job site so far have been uniformly noisy, dirty and smelly.  I have recognized the ubiquitous bull dozer, back hoe, wood chipper and today a new one,  the compactor.  This machine is used to compact the soil before the foundation is dug.

Unloading the compactor.
Of course it takes big trucks and trailers to take these machines to and from our site daily.  It all adds up to a lot of commotion.  I'm not complaining... just saying!
So how close are we to the job site.  Take a gander.

Living on the edge!!

The Boss

We are please to have the awesome contractor, Joel Boisvert, of JMB Construction to head our ADU project.  Here is a photo of  John and Joel clinching the deal.  Luckily, they both look very happy !

 

Joel has even considered hiring Bo to the work crew!  

 Straw Boss Bo!

Everything goes!

The first days of our home building project have been exciting and noisy with lots of coming and going of big trucks and bull dozers.  The first step is the demo (which is short for demolition).  Basically everything goes!  The yard is scrapped free of all vegetation, including trees. Goodbye pine tree.

We went from this RV site:

 to building site.

(My bird friends who come regularly to my feeder for breakfast must be wondering wtf!)

Ground Breaking

After many months and years of talking and planning, (and changing and replanning), we are ready this week for the ground breaking for our new home in Santa Cruz, CA. This is the BEFORE picture.

What started out as a simple 800 square foot home (technically an ADU) in the backyard of our daughter's house has become a major project with home, garage and full on landscaping including Hot Tub! 
Stay tuned for adventures in home building over the next months!

BEFORE!