All porch steel in.

Small update this time.  No cement poured in the house due to cold weather deciding to stick around.

Here's the beam for the rest of the front porch.  Now all the steel for the porch is in.  Nice little step.

Waiting for when we can get some bigger steps.

Spring Thaw

A few weeks has passed since my last posting and it seems like there are some signs of spring.  Although there hasn't been much physical progress on the house, some decisions and meetings have been made so things are brewing in the background.

 There's still ice on the lake but the snow has melted on the LiteDeck and surrounding land.  That doesn't mean that the night time temperatures allow for slab pouring though.  It's still too cold to do that.  Hopefully we'll get some warmer weather in here soon.  I ventured out onto the LiteDeck for this picture.  It shows where the wrap around porch will be.

 One issue that arose is that since we increased the basement height by 2 ft, to a 10ft depth, and we went with the LiteDeck system, the garage slab would require 4-5 steps into the house.  At this height differential, the easier solutions were to create a curb in the garage to break up the steps and offer a landing.  Another option was to construct the stairs from wood, and have a platform in front of the door.  The only problem with this is that there's another door closer to the front of the garage that access a storage space so there would have to be two stairs.  Another thought is that since this will be our primary egress, we'll have to go up and down those    5 steps every day for the rest  of our lives.  That doesn't sound like much now, but when we're older, it could be trouble.

The solution we decided upon is to raise the garage slab by one more course of ICF, or 12".  The height of the garage was already increased to keep the roof line with the front porch.   Instead of a thick header, the header will be thinner and we'll raise the slab and surrounding grade up.  Of course this means more money for fill in front, back and inside the garage.  Another repercussion is that a steel beam header will need to be installed where the ICF would have been across the large door.  The ICF can't structurally span that opening at the thickness we were reducing it to.  The header across all the other doors were fine.

Raising the garage slab height by 12" reduced the number of steps from 5 - 8" steps to 3-7.5" steps.  I'm sure it will be one of those things that we'll be glad we did.  This will also reduce the number of steps to the front and mudroom doors.

 Although the LiteDeck can support my weight, especially with the 2x6 joists, it's still scary for me to walk on.  My sense of scale is still messed up because standing on this, it doesn't feel like 2500 square feet.

 The last footing was poured for the portion of the wrap around deck next to the garage.  A beam will fit into that pocket in the garage wall and be supported by that footing.

 Long shot of the house from the future driveway.  Crisp clear spring day.

 Since we raised the garage slab by a foot, I'm pretty sure the window in the gable end will need to be raised up too. There's a nice little alcove we're thinking about tucking a potting bench into.  We can overwinter plants in there since it's ICF.  We're not planning on conditioning this space so delicate plants will still need to come inside.  It will make a great place for seeding greenhouses too.

 Back porch and gazebo.  Some of this dirt will be taken out, but not enough for tall storage. I might be able to store some long items in this area.

Here, I'm standing on the LiteDeck that will be our greatroom. Those three trees will probably be removed in the future since one is leaning and one is dead.  It will improve the view for the wall of windows we're going to have here.

 Back yard showing the greatroom on the right and the garage on the left.  Nothing exciting, but dreams are being made here.

We also had a walk around with a landscaping company so we can get a preliminary design.  It was a great experience and if we decide to go with them, I'll post more information.  They seem very high class and expensive.

Garage walls are up

The blocks for the garage walls are up and ready to pour but first I forgot to post some final pictures of what the basement looks like with all the subfloor LiteDeck in place.

 You can see the temporary supports holding up the 2x6 joists.  It's strong enough to walk on, but will need more bracing for the pour, whenever that happens.  It's now too cold to pour the floor since it's very difficult to keep ice from forming on such a broad surface.  Pouring walls in freezing temperatures is possible since you only have to protect the top.  The styrofoam insulates the already exothermic concrete curing process.

 Still getting used to the scale of the build.  Final square footage for the first and second floor is just under 5000 square feet so the basement is around 2500 square feet.  Larger than our current house, but standing in it, I can't tell.

 The full height of the garage walls is up.

 Here's what it looks like from the lower elevation.  We'll need some creative landscaping on that corner of the house to account for the elevation changes.  I see retaining walls in our future.

 Looking over the gazebo at the back of the garage.  You can fully see the rear garage door.  I think I'll be really glad we installed that.

 Here's the current state of the gazebo.  They backfilled one part of the rear porch.  I'm not sure why, but we'll still get some storage space out of the other part and we'll be able to take down some of the fill in the gazebo.

 I ventured out onto the LiteDeck to get an idea of what the view will be like from the great room.  Luckily, most of the opposite shoreline is a wildlife preserve, so we'll never be looking into someone else's house.

 Here's the back wall of the garage again.  The bucks are in for the garage doors.

 A nice shot of the length of the garage.  You can see the framing of the window.  It's a huge window.  I didn't expect it to be so large, but it will be nice for some light.

There's the garage.Not sure when the pour is going to happen.  I the garage might be the only place on the house we'll need a gutter.  The roof will have a gable end on the right so the roof pitch is forward and backwards.  There aren't any plans to have an extended overhand or anything, but we would like a decorative pergola trellis over each door. Copper gutter anyone?