Saturday, October 30, 2010

Stairway to Heaven


Hector the Framer has been busy building the staircase, and on Thursday I was able to walk on the stairs for the first time. That was a little sketchy because the framing wasn't complete and the landing didn't have any plywood on it, but it certainly was fun.


By Friday the framing was finished and now I have one good looking stairway and landing. There was also a new plywood wall nailed up between the garage and the basement, so the house interior is looking better and better by the day.


At the same time, the rest of the crew were working to build up the water channels on the roof using sloping 2x4s. Water will run down these channels to the downspouts, which still have to be built in the two rear corners of the house. The downspouts will be invisible from the outside, as they run inside the faux wall panels - at least until they reach the basement, when they will be on the outside.


After finishing building up the slope, the guys nailed another layer of plywood across the roof. There still a little more work to be done to complete the roof drainage, but that should happen early in the week so that we're ready for the sprayed foam roof to be installed by Wednesday or Thursday.


The guys from Crawford Satellite also spent some time working on the house, making two roof penetrations - one for a pipe which will soon hold the DirecTV satellite dish, and another for the pipe which will act as a conduit for all of the satellite's coax cables.


For once I was even able to help, getting up the ladder and using a ball peen hammer to knock out holes in the I-joists, and then feeding through the coaxial cable.


There's been a lot of rain around the past week or two, so we now have a big tarp over the roof. It hasn't been enough to stop the interior of the house from getting soaked, so by the end of the coming week I would like to see the OSB and Tyvek weatherproofing go on the exterior, I'd like to see the roof finished, and I'd like the windows and doors to be installed.

That would be a good week.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve,
Is there a way to e-mail you some questions? I am an architecture student doing research on the LV Homes... I'm wondering if I can use your budget numbers for a class case study. If so, do you mind sharing how much your design fees and initial LV kit cost? Thanks, Laura

Master Steve said...

Laura, yes, you can email me at steverapportATmac.com.

Cheers,

Steve

Unknown said...

I'm really glad to see that your house's construction is moving forward. It may be a bit slow, but at least it's getting somewhere. That's better than none, right?

Anyway, since your house is mostly metallic on the outside, I think metal spiral stairs are more suitable than the ordinary staircase. I've seen some modern houses before that used metal as the main material, and iron stairs worked perfectly. But it depends on how the inside looks, and there's nothing wrong with what's already been done there. I'm looking forward to seeing your house complete!