Roof, walls, and turret

   I got a chance to visit the site on a sunny Easter day and was greeted with more steady progress and some surprises. The entire garage roof is now sheeted in and the structure for the fascia is in place so we can see where the front porch roofline will meet up.  More decking was installed on the second floor in the front of the house, but the connector trusses have yet to be created.  The interior kitchen wall stud was erected so we could get the cabinet designer out to measure the space for final ordering.  The surprise is that they also erected the stud walls on the first floor between the study and guest room.  

   Here’s the state of the house from the front.  You can see that the garage is sheeted up to the house, the roof on the front of the house is almost completely sheeted, and the windows on the turret have been corrected.  It’s a huge difference for the turret, as the windows are lower to the floor, down from about two and a half feet to two feet, and the top is corrected so the entire height of the opening is seven feet.  

   The windows of the turret take up seven of the ten feet in height, giving two feet under the window as per code, and one foot above.  You can see the exterior is covered in plywood, which was slotted from behind to allow it to curve.  The height of the turret is visibly above the height of the ICF wall next to it.  The truss interface between the turret and house plane will be interesting to see.  We’re hunting for a nice finial (thingy that goes at the peak of the turret) so if you have any good ideas, leave a comment!   

   The garage roof is now connected to the master closet since the entire garage roof decking is completed.  The truss structure that was above the double garage door is now obscured, and you wouldn’t know that special engineering was required to create that plane.  The little space around the master closet is enclosed and it’s a pretty awesome space.  More pictures on that later.  The very peak of the roof decking doesn't meet since there will probably be a ridge vent up there.

   Here’s the awesome space that’s created from the Lite Deck that supports the master closet, and the space under the garage trusses.  I don’t think any other structure will be put in here, but I could see the possibility of more supporting 2x4 being installed.  Maybe the roof pitch and proximity to the structural master closet wall is enough to support the static weight of the roof and any snow that might accumulate on it.  The space is pretty large and the roof is high enough to stand under for most of the space.  There’s a little bit on the other side of the master closet corner.  As I mentioned before, I’m not sure about the safety of creating access from the master closet but we’ll at least be able to have access from a hatch in the garage ceiling.  Good place to hide presents.

   Here’s what the kitchen looks like with the side wall installed.  I verified the wall length measurements just in case so it looks like we’re ready to order cabinets.  The right corner of the kitchen from the door towards the back will be for the double wall oven and some cabinets.  From the door forward, we’ll have the fridge and freezer columns.  There’s just over five feet on that wall so we might be able to squeeze a 36” fridge and 24” freezer, or a 30” fridge and 30” freezer in there.  We also have to account for the space that door molding and side panels will take up on that wall.  The opening between the wall and elevator is the doorway for the butlers pantry.   With the fridge/freezer being on the left of the door to the mudroom  and the double oven being housed in a cabinet to the right of the door, we weren’t sure where a light switch could go.  Turns out, with structured wiring lighting control, you can get away with a ¾”-1” depth box, so it can be mounted in the oven cabinet.

   Here’s what the turret looks like now.  Huge difference between the first iteration.  Small piece of advice to everyone out there building a house: Always double check the work!  The windows are ordered so while correction wouldn’t have been too bad since it’s all just wood construction, it’s still money lost from wasted materials and time.  The windows themselves will be a 2’x5’ casement topped by a 2’x2’ static window.  My only worry is how cold this area will be during the winter.  Hopefully, between the high efficiency, low air infiltration windows we bought and proper insulation/air sealing of the studs, it won’t be too cold.

   Here's the panorama of the turret view with the new window openings.  The windows are so tall, I couldn't capture the entire height.

   Here’s the progress of the roof decking on the second floor.  Most of the front of the house is covered with roof plane interfaces needing attention.  The back half of the house will needs the truss interface between the main part and the greatroom, so that will need to be constructed before the decking can go on.  Also, the turret and turret trusses needs to be completed since it will probably intersect the main house plane. 

   This one was a pleasant surprise.  This is the doorway from the guest room into the guest room bathroom.  It’s only five feet wide, but it will be enough for a bathroom with a shower.  We’re planning on also having a no threshold shower in this bathroom since our guests won’t need a tub.  Just on the other side of this wall is the study.  The window in this room is a static oval window.  The plan right now is to have the toilet below the window and the vanity next to the door with the shower on the far wall.

   Here’s the guest room doorway to the walk in closet.  I know there’s really no reason to have a walk in closet for the guest room, but there wasn’t a great way to expand the bathroom into this space so we left it like this.  I think the wall will stay curved inside this space so it will have a neat look to it.  It’s only just over 4 feet wide and part of the depth is taken up by an alcove from the study.  

   Here’s the wall from the study side.  You can see the alcove that will house some kind of countertop built-in for charging devices or holding shared printers.  We currently both have our own desk spaces and computers so we’ll want to have something functional in here.  We’re having some difficulty figuring out how we’ll configure this space for our work spaces since the large windows are only two feet off the floor and it might look ugly having a desk in front of the window.  I think the best use of space would be having two corner desks with a low bench connecting the two that runs under the window.  The downside is that we'll be facing away from each other into the corners.  We have Margaret thinking up some good ideas.

   One last parting shot of the house from standing on top of the concrete retaining wall.  Eventually the front porch roof will intersect with the garage roof where the long fascia support is.  It's getting really exciting to see so much progress each week.

   This week, our kitchen designer, Eric Johnson from Cobblestone Cabinets will be visiting the build to take measurements for cabinet ordering.  We're hoping that we can get the order in before the expected price increase later this month.  Being one of the most expensive items in the house, it would be great to save a few thousand dollars on cabinets.