Sunday, July 20, 2008

The Basement Framing

The front of the basement stays quite light, even in the afternoon. But on the North wall, away from any of the egress windows... that's a different story. We've planned our utility room and food pantry for that section of the house. Given the lack of natural light in this area, sometimes we work by flashlight.

And sometimes we work by lantern.
This is how the basement will be insulated. We will continue to trim the pieces to fit the beams. The plumbing and electric systems will use the small area behind the top of the foam sheets as a chase. Since the insulation on the outside of the wall extends to the sill plate, there is about 10" of overlap between the 2" of pink foam and the 4" of yellow foam. Time will tell, but we're looking forward to a nice warm space.
This is the boy's room, looking North toward the pantry. The boy's room is almost all framed in now, and their bathroom is about done, too.
I think this is called point of convergence, but in any case it's a neat shot of the hallway in the basement.
It was a busy week, and since Mindy and the boys had things to do at their apartment on Saturday, I don't have any pictures of them helping in the basement. I found some pictures from Christmas of last year when they were helping out in the basement, though, so hopefully that will appease those of you clamoring for their pictures. :)
Mindy was taking off the metal spikes from the forms in this photo. The forms are stacked in the cage to her right.
Benson took care of a lot of the spikes as well - the sledge was handy for this, and despite the cold weather, he was quickly working without a hat or gloves, and his cheeks are all rosy.
Ok, back to warmer weather. Karen and Chris painted about 40 more boards with the final coat.
All laid out to dry. We had several staging areas set up, with boards at varying levels of completeness. Karen and Mindy have a good system of organization with the paint, and it's a comfort to know we won't need to paint from the ladder.
We agreed on an electrician this week, Chris met with the power company to establish pole locations, and the well company came out to finalize their work.

The power company will return this coming week to begin setting poles, the excavator will return to finish up the bridge, driveway and septic system, and we'll all be back to paint, sand, and frame some more.

4 comments:

Hannah said...

Another great blog! We especially loved the picture of Karen!

Anonymous said...

Hope that you guys make the septic larger than you think you will actually need it.

The Wests. said...

Thank you, Hannah!

And yes, the septic system is sized for growth, not today's head count.

Chad and Oléa Gough Family said...

Everything is looking so good! Love the pictures of Karen! LOVE the hat! :)