Day 27 - Final Interior Walls on Main Floor, Joist Skirting & Keyway Prep

Did you miss me yesterday?  I warned you I may be late or non-existent in keeping you updated and I was right.  I actually went straight from the site to my niece's house to take her grad photos, raced home to shower and then off the church for her grad program.  She is one lovely young lady and it was so fun to see her beaming in her photos (I am sure the cute boy helped!).

First of all, we stood up the walls I framed yesterday.  We have not attached the top plates just because there were a few things we were not sure how to deal with.  Those plates can be attached tomorrow when: A) we have Mr.W's expertise to tell us how to do it right and
B) we have more 2x6's, of which we are out.

Door to the left is J's bathroom, door to the right is the laundry room.

However, we did secure the walls enough for the weekend so they should still be standing tomorrow!  Now you can see the final framing for our main floor, the laundry room and the "farm" bathroom, which in turn finishes off the walls for the mudroom.

Jay's bathroom (or the "farm" bathroom) so he can leave all the farm dirt and clothes here and come kiss me smelling lovely!  I have a sensitive nose!

Laundry room (yes, I get an entire room just for laundry - and it even has a window!!)

Mudroom (besides the kitchen, probably the most important room in the house - organization here creates peace and calm everywhere!).  The door to the right comes from the garage - on the left is the bathroom/laundry room.  This area is one step (8") lower than the rest of the main floor to help keep dirt from sliding along the floor into the rest of the house.  It will help reduce the dirt but not eliminate it.


Yesterday we did a couple of important prep things for tomorrow's work.  We will be starting on the second floor exterior walls and in order to do that, we attached the OSB to the outsides of the second floor joists.  It was a fairly quick and simple job to do thanks to Mr.B who cut all the pieces the correct width on Friday.  I held them in place while Jay nailed them in and around the house we went.  It was easier to do it from the second floor leaning over the edge slightly than to stand on a ladder so that is what we did.  Got a little suntanning done at the same time!

We also hope to start on the garage footing tomorrow so in order to do that, the Styrofoam had to be cut away from the concrete on the side of the house where the garage attaches.  Yes, all that Styrofoam that we took such care to line up so nicely was cut and chiseled away.  By removing it, we can tie the concrete from the garage directly into the concrete of the house. 

Jason also took some time, using a little garden tractor and blade, to level out the fill around the garage piles a bit.  Hopefully it is all good enough to start working on the garage tomorrow.

I also set up our little 8' round pool for the kids on Saturday.  The water was frigidly cold then but having sat in the sun all weekend should have warmed it up to a likeable temperature tomorrow.  Should give them many hours of enjoyment (or at least a few minutes!).

I am really looking forward to tomorrow to start framing on the second storey and to the end of this week to see how far we get.  I know the house will look completely different on Friday than it does right now!