The House Begins to Take Shape

Framing has started.  The framers said it would take about 2 1/2 weeks to get it dried in.  Hopefully, we have good weather until that is done.  It is exciting to see the house start to take shape.  

Here is a shot of the load bearing walls that were the first walls to be put up. (photo looking from the main floor into the basement)

Floor joists were laid over the foundation.

The framers have laid plywood over the joists and are working on the outer walls.  That is the kitchen that has the walls up.

The framers came in on Saturday to work.  Here is what it looked like after they left. (photo taken  from the garage)

This is the view outside of Sarah's window.

Here is the view out of Noah's room.

Here is the view from the corner bathtub in the Master Bath.

These will be the windows in our Master Bedroom.

This is the Family room.  In the middle will be a fireplace.  We had the builders add in these windows and this vault into the plans.  Rebecca likes a lot of natural light, so we will have two large windows next to the fireplace and three above with the vaulted ceiling.

Here is the nook in the eating area.  They haven't cut the windows out yet.  On the right in the nook is the back patio door.

This is the window over the sink.

Plumbing, Backfill and Floors

Soon, they had the rough plumbing in. Then, they put tar on the outside of the foundation, backfilled around the house, installed the window wells, put in the rock, and poured the floors and the garage.

Footings and Foundation

Rain, Rain, Go Away!!  As soon as the hole was dug, it rained straight for the rest of the week.  We were excited for our new hole in the ground, but we wanted something in it.  We got excited when it finally cleared up on the weekend. Monday came and we expected some footings to be poured.  Not so. Monday was Columbus Day and the city offices were closed, so the inspector couldn't be there to watch the footings get poured.  Finally, eight days after we got our hole dug, the footings were poured.  Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures.  We had to wait 3 days for the footings to cure.  Then, on Friday, they poured the foundation.  It was a surprise to us to see the foundation poured because the city inspector was off on Fridays, but he arranged with the contractor to still have it poured on Friday so it could cure over the weekend.  It was exciting to see to cement truck with the pump as we drove up.  Here are the pics. Date for foundation: October 14.

Digging the Hole

It seemed like it took forever for the hole to be dug.  We made changes to the original plans and it took a couple of tries for the architect to get the drawings done right.  Finally, after we signed off on the plans, it took about a week for the engineer to sign them and another week and a half for the city to sign off on them.  When Rebecca drove by and saw they were finally digging, she was so happy she took some pics from her phone and emailed them to me at work.  It was October 3, 2011.

The Lot

We thought long and hard about where we wanted to live.  We thought about Weber County, where lots were bigger and less expensive, and Davis County.  We knew that the services through the school district for Matthew would be better in Davis County.  We also were in love with Clinton.  We have lived here for 8+ years and really grown to enjoy the community.  We attended the Clinton Heritage Days Parade in July this year and noticed that a lot of kids and adults from school, the recreation department, Kid in the Park, etc. knew our kids and said "Hi" to them.  We knew then that we needed to stay in the city.  We found a lot that our builder, CastleCreek Homes, owned in the city and selected it.  Here are the pics of it.

The House Plan

This is the original house plan that we started with.  We made changes to it, which I will try to add later.

The Medallion House by Castlecreek