Second Floor Coming Up

This is the period that I'm pretty sure I will enjoy the most. Everything changes so fast - the house is basically growing in broad brush-strokes. Each day the difference is visible, and even during a visit, things change.

Today being a company holiday, I had my first opportunity to be there while they're building. These guys work hard: not even the cookies we brought distracted them from the work. We watched as they set a beam in place. The deer watched, too. Four or five white-tail deer stood just off the property line and checked everything out, not put off by the boom-box Christmas carols or the growling compressor. The deer are so relaxed that they're probably partying in the house at night when nobody's around.

In the photo above, the media room (ground level) and office and guest room (upper level) are in the foreground. The living room is in the middle - with the upper beams highlighting how open it will be with the double-height room. The kitchen juts out, and the dining room, mud room, and utility/garage lie beyond that. For the most part, what's open (no walls) on the ground level will be windows or full-glass doors.

When it's finished, a lot of the wood will be exposed, including many of the posts and most of the beams. The wood is gorgeous - and much brighter than the posts and beams in the prior house. Here's how posts and beams come together, in a photo from earlier this week. Looking at this gives a lot of confidence that the house is really solid. Today we also saw how supports are put in the ceiling/floor area between ground and upper levels to support the posts on the second floor. Without that, the weight of the posts and beams could lead to sagging - and worse.

When we first reviewed the contract with our builder, there was one item that I wanted more explanation for: the "Lull Charge." Being aware of construction delays, I couldn't stop myself from asking if this had something to do with downtime. After he had quite a good laugh, our builder did eventually explain it. Of course, he now tells everyone in the trade about the lull charge question, and they all get a kick out of it, too.

Here's a lull in the action today - the lull is lifting a beam up and into place. To me, this piece of equipment is worth every penny, since it gets things where they need to be, and fast.





When they lift up a beam, they also use a guide nailed into one end of the beam to keep it from swaying around and causing damage.

So, the house is taking shape! In a week, we'll need to make decisions about where any wall or ceiling mounted lights will need to go. This will be the first of a dizzying array of decisions that we'll have to make. The difficulty in this one is that we'll have to imagine how we'll use the rooms, where the seating areas will be, and how we want them lit.

In honor of Christmas and 2 floors, maybe we should have a topping off party and put a Christmas tree on top.