mechanical

so this is pretty much what makes the house live-able.  above you can see the domestic hot and cold water manifold on the left. (it's officially called a 'manibloc', i think that's a name brand and it's the black vertical thing with all the ports on both sides) it has an individual port for each fixture in the house instead of having a long run with legs coming off it.  this makes it easy to shut of the hot or cold water for a specific outlet and also reduces hot water usage as there is less water in the pipes to be purged when you turn it on.  as you can see, some of the hot water tubes have been hooked up, the others (which have not been hooked up) you can see to the right of the manibloc.
this is the heat system.  and it seems to be working quite well as of right now.  its an in-floor radiant heat system, meaning that there is a ton (maybe 3000 ft.) of the PEX plastic tubing running underneath the floor which you run hot water through to heat the floor.  the floor then heats up and is essentially the radiator for the entire house....it feels good on your feet.   i suppose another interesting point is that the water heater you see on the left is efficient enough to heat my house and provide my domestic hot water.  its called a Bradford White combi-core and is supposed to be something like 92% efficient.  not too bad.  now i just need to get a heat exchanger.... at least when i have an extra grand or so laying around, so not too soon.

range hood blower install. not fun for one.

once all the framing was complete it was (finally) time to start installing some of the more exciting mechanical aspects of the house. its pretty much impossible for me to say that i didn't got a bit, perhaps a lot, overboard on the kitchen, but... i do like to cook and it's one aspect of the house that i just couldn't cut any corners on.  so, i got a 42" stainless steel hood that needed some specific blocking in order to be hung properly and an 1100 CFM in-line blower that needed to be mounted in the attic before the drywall and insulation were started.  you can see it pictured above hanging from the roof rafters.  its hanging so that it won't vibrate the ceiling and cause unnecessary noise in the kitchen/great room.

here you can see it looking up from the soon to be kitchen area.  like i said, it was not fun for me to hang this thing....but it will be worth it someday.

no more scary stairs

just as a reminder, this is what the stairs used to look like... at least once i did a bit of tear out. 

the stairs were pretty much the last bit of tough framing that needed to be done before i could have the rough inspection done.  i, with my very limited knowledge about stair building (or construction in general), called in Blain (whose real good at this stuff) to do the work.  i must admit that i didn't really do much but cut the temporary treads, clean up, and hold stuff.  now the stairs are pretty sweet and look a whole lot better. (as you call can certainly see)

now my house looks like this.

needless to say, this is pretty much how my house is going to look from the exterior.  the siding is called harbor grey and is 4" wide.  the siding actually went on pretty fast since all the house was all tyveked and ready to go.  i have to admit i didn't do the work due to this thing called a broken ankle but the guys from Buchanan did a pretty sweet job i must say.  be sure to notice the new landscaping underneath the two horizontal windows on the left.  thanks to my father for those.   

unwrap/rewrap + window installation

once all the windows and interior walls were framed, it was time to deal with the exterior.  at first i wasn't planning on replacing the siding as it was in pretty decent condition, however it became clear that in order for the house to be properly water/wind proofed it was necessary to tear it off and wrap the house in tyvek and 'protecto' wrap all the windows. 

here you can pretty clearly see all the new rough openings for the new windows.  the place looked pretty trashy for a couple of days, even more so than normal, but as soon as the tyvek went on, it looked pretty sweet.  also in this pic you can see the new front porch roof, which made the place look nice and crisp.

ah, thats better....  windows are in, house is wrapped, water no longer is my enemy.  notice the first floor window on the left, we had to move in about a foot so the water from the roof didn't dump right down on it.  it think it was a pretty good choice.  oh, and thats the back window for one of the two guest bedrooms.
now the front.  all the windows are in and i must admit, it looks pretty good.  be sure to notice the post for the porch roof.  there's only one visible (on the right corner) as the other one is hid inside the wall on the left.  pretty cool idea, which i can't take credit for.  todd, the builder, thought that one up.  as for where all the windows go.  the two high horizontal ones on the first floor go the bedroom and bathroom.  the one of the left is bedroom and the one on the right is bathroom.  its right about the shower, which you'll get to see later.  above the porch roof, the two square ones on the right go into the master bathroom and the small horizontal on goes to the master closet.  the large one on the second floor goes into the master bedroom.  (its 4x6 so its pretty good size)  and as you can see, i am a supporter of mission lumber, the best lumber yard in central michigan as far as i'm concerned.  charlie and dave at the contractors desk have been a huge help all along the way.  (i don't know how many times i've walked in there with basically no idea what i'm doing and i've left with exactly what i need.)

wall & window framing: 2

so here it is.  round II of the reframing of the window rough openings and the walls for the downstairs bedroom(s) and bathroom.  the bedrooms and bathrooms are in the area below the upper level on the left of the house.  this area used to be some sort of family room and a bedroom off the back of that.  didn't really make a lot of sense to me in terms of floor layout (but that shouldn't really be surprising as most of this place really didn't make sense), so it needed to be changed...

here's the ultimate construction worker dealing with the new rough opening in the front of the house.  it really wasn't as bad as i thought it might be.  we pretty much just cut a hole in the side of the house with the sawzall and pushed the piece out.  its was the reframing that was more of a chore since each piece had to be cut specifically to match the existing studs and what not.  

here's the downstairs bedrooms and bathroom framed in.  the bathroom door is on the left of the picture and the bedrooms are on the front left corner and the back right corner.  neither bedroom is all that large, but they're plenty big for a office or guest room, each one is about 150 square feet.  the really nice thing is that they have 9 ft. ceilings and huge windows for bedrooms of that size.  

wall & window framing: 1

once all the tubing was run under the first floor, it became obvious that the most pressing issue was window and interior framing.  the entire floor plan is being changed and most of the widows are also changing in both size and location, hence, lots of framing needed to be done before the trades (electrical and plumbing) could go in.  

here's tom taking out the old row of windows in the kitchen to make space for the pantry as well as the new widow opening.  i'm actually making the window quite a bit smaller to accommodate the walk in pantry. (which will be on the right side of that gaping hole)

here goes nothing.  now i have never framed a window or a wall, but i did read a book about it...it's actually not all that hard as long as you can read a tape measure and cut wood to a desired length, a job which tom proved quite adept at.

here's the pantry framed it.  its about 6' deep by 4' wide, not huge, but plenty big for what i need.  the door for the pantry is going to be a sliding door which will hang from some sort of industrial metal track, at least that's the current plan...

PEX wrestling: round 1

by this time all the new subfloors have been put in and so it was on to the heating system...i am going to be putting in a in-floor radiant heat systems as opposed to the more traditional forced air system.  a lot of the time these type of heating systems are cast into a concrete floor, but it's also possible to tack the PEX tubing the the underside of the subfloor with aluminum 'fins' (which transfer the heat).  i got the system from a company called Radiantec, which does the design as well as the fabrication of all the complex manifold components.  It states that it can be installed by a 'reasonably competent handyman', which i assume myself to be, but this, as with everything has been more difficult than expected....big surprise.

don't we look excited to get this underway.

here's tom pulling some of the PEX tubing in the basement.  i suppose the most difficult thing about this process is working with such long lengths of tubes.  it came from Radiantec in 250' sections, so that's what we generally started with.  the other factor is the rigidity of this stuff... it was described by tom as a 'tornado', which really is pretty accurate. 

not all the house has a walkable basement, this part was the least fun...

true construction hero: tom.

now this guy knows how to get things done... this is my brother, normally all the work his tender little hands get is some keyboard pounding so this really put him to the test.  it took him some time to learn to read a tape measure in less that 2 min, but he picked it up pretty quick and i certainly wouldn't be as far along as i am right now if he hadn't been here working with me for a month.  thank tom.

may this be my last time ...

once the addition and roof were complete and there was no longer and flooding happening in the house it was time for the final floor tearout/rebuild.  removing the original planks from the floor was a quite a bit of work as they pretty much splintered when pried upon, but the joists cut out pretty easy with the sawzall.  please notice the sweet blue paint on the basement walls, again confirming the fact that bad taste truly did live here...

installing the joists went pretty well, but they did need to be notched in a couple of places so they would match up with the other new joists as well as produce a level floor.  since the span is pretty much the same as the great room, 2x10's were used and were set on the sill plate and tacked to the side of the previously installed joists.

i hate blocking.

there is truly nothing better than a nail gun for installing subfloor.  however, hitting the joists is more difficult than it may seem, at least for a novice like myself.    

overall, the subfloor in the entire house turned out pretty well.  they certainly improved as i went along and this one was probably the best.