And We Have a House

With progress moving so swiftly, we were in fact able to walk upstairs this week. Being inside of something we'd been experiencing in two dimensional paper plans was very cool. I've seen many construction and remodeling blogs where looking at interior pictures of just framing can be very confusing. We can visually imagine everything, but I'm guessing it might be hard for anyone else. So we tried to pick some pictures where you weren't looking through too many walls! 

Given that it's Thanksgiving, there will be no work done today. A little birdie told me that windows are now in, the house has been wrapped and roofing has started. We'll have to take a break from cooking and eating for a brief tour. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

View of the front, you can see the iron beam holding the cantilevered roof. The welder was working on it while we were there. He'll return later to install the iron work for the railing along the stairs and loft.

We're proud to say we haven't built a house with one side void of windows. Almost half of the windows you see here were custom.

The view from the alley where they have started to work on the roof.

Now for those confusing inside shots! This is looking into the kitchen (see the island framed in) from the living room (see the metal sheeting for behind the fireplace). 

After walking upstairs you come to a hall. At each end are bedrooms with the laundry in the middle. We love the large windows running along the side filling it with light.

The future site of the steam shower in the master bathroom. The bench will be covered  with counter top material and tile with it all being enclosed by glass walls and door. 

A neat modern feature is a triangle cut-out where you'll be able to look down from the loft (TV room) to the living room.  The orange spray paint signals where iron railing will go creating an open feeling to both rooms. 

This is the same triangle cut-out viewed from the living room. It makes my head go swirly with all the lines, but you can get the idea.

The artsy shot of the day. We found the architectural plans rolled up by the fireplace. 

Watch here for the next step! - Lynne

The Walls are Rising

While away on vacation for a week, we kept wondering, How does the house look now? Well, we came home to the framing well under way. We took some pictures on Friday as the sun was setting and Saturday morning during a snowfall. Both times, our lot was buzzing with activity as it seems it's always a race against Mother Nature this time of year.

The walls for the first floor are nearly complete and the second floor is about half done. I like how they cut out the window holes which really helps give us a sense of the place. I can already imagine Astrid staring out the front windows at the people walking by. 

Yesterday we went to a furniture auction at a nearby model home. It was kind of weird to see a perfectly decorated house be stripped, even down to the towels in the bathroom! We walked away with a teak bench that we plan to put on the front stoop. It's been fun to think about how we'll refresh our furnishings. Onto the pictures...enjoy!

View of the front of the house, the five windows that wrap around the corner will be the living room. The other front room is the study.

This was taken Friday night when they had just started the second floor.

A pile of wood and rebar used in the foundation process. Two other foundations were dug on the block during the last week.

Saturday brought snow, but by the time we came by at around 11am all this progress had been made from the night before. The room above the living room with the four wrap around windows is the family room. Finally no more TV in the living room!

These beams will installed under the front roof canopy on the exterior. Our neighbor that is always one-step ahead of us gives us clues that these will go in after the framing is finished.

This giant hole is where the stairs will go. Apparently they slide those in because there is no exterior wall framed in on this side.

The view from the stairway hole into the small room which will be the wine cellar, yes, Matthew is excited!

The view into the house across the dining room to the large cut-out for the patio door. That will face east and flood the kitchen with morning light. 

Looking forward to being able to walk inside and up the stairs. Maybe another week? Until the next step - Lynne

Fun with Foundations

I will be the first to admit that foundations and cement aren't something I spend much time thinking about. Of course, I realize just how important the foundation work is to the long, healthy future of our house. This past week the foundation went from footing to poured and back-filled. Progress indeed! We did have our first real snow on Wednesday which created some muddy conditions later in the week, but the weather should be back in the 70s this coming week.

The view from our neighbor's window across the street.

The wooden forms are put in place to make the basement walls.

The foundation walls are finished and they are taking down the wooden forms.

It looks funny to see a ladder leading into the basement.

A look into the basement with a dirt floor.

Spraying the sealer

The dirt has been back-filled along the foundation walls.

The bulldozer backed up to the house to level and pound in the fill.

 That's all for this week. With three more foundations to be dug on our block we'll see what progress is made next. Until the next step! -Lynne

The Big Dig

The sign says it all! After weeks of looking at a vacant lot we have action! 

On Monday we arrived to find that our lot had been excavated and the rough outline of our house is visible.

The pile of dirt created by digging out foundations for our house and our neighbor's is much larger than expected. The nice man at the construction site said they'll keep the pile next to our lot until the foundation is in place so they can back-fill around the walls.

The construction workers wasted no time string-lining off the area that would be our home in preparation for laying the footings.

On Wednesday they poured the footings. Somehow it looks smaller in pictures than in person.

Lynne, Astrid and I are very excited for the basement walls to be poured and the the house to start taking shape.

Until the next step,

Matthew

Baby Steps

It started so small, a tour on a whim, seeing the market overprice “tear-downs” in a neighborhood we loved and endless searching for a little bit of modern in this Western town. It’s in this way, with small steps like these, that our journey to build a house in Denver began.

We heard from people who have experience with this sort of thing that making all of the pre-construction decisions is the hardest part. We actually had no problem knowing what we wanted; it was finding room in the budget for what we wanted that was the problem! 

Now we are getting very close to the first day when our dusty lot will become a home. As the neighborhood sprouts up around us we also wanted to document what it looks like now. Kind of like those black and white pictures you see at the State Fair of old streetscapes from years back with trolley cars and women in long dresses.

See below for some vistas of our Stapleton neighborhood, Central Park West, before the masses arrive!

 Our block! Five houses will go in a tidy row, we are the second lot from the corner.

The view of our block from the west end. You can barely see the old control tower in the center distance from when this land was an airport.

 Our lot! There will be an alley between the garages you see and ours.

 The corner intersection. Google Maps actually calls it 32nd Avenue Parkway so we'll have to figure that out.

The next block down, also yet to be filled with homes. 

 

The panorama from the nearby Central Park (New Yorkers: don't laugh!)

So here you can see the control tower and the parkway on the right side of the picture leads to our block. In the background is downtown Denver with a lovely mountain backdrop.

 Another nearby park which we'll walk along to reach the shops and restaurants nearby.

  Of course Astrid joined us for the photo tour and we couldn't resist including this snap!

Finally, the end goal! This is our neighbor's house which ours will look like.

Signing off until the next step...