Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Man, this is dragging on

Here we are almost finished with the 8th house and everyone is all but burned out!  We are all starting to hate each other and are getting sick, which you can imagine doesn't make for much of a working environment.  Today is the first snow of the season, which normally might have been fun, but for all of us it is a huge obstacle to finish the last two houses.  The 7th house still needs shingles and doors and windows, and probably some other things inside too.  The 8th house is almost ready for trusses.  Our supervisor wants us to have it ready by tomorrow, but with the snow I think it would be a miracle.  I'm sick as well, so I can't go out and help.  Our supervisor has put us on a schedule so that we can be in by Christmas.  Its pretty tight, and I still have hope that we can get it done.  I am begging at this point for volunteers!  Please, we need you now more than ever!  I promise you don't even have to use power tools.  You can help us put rock on the houses, which isn't hard, it just takes a long time.  Help us get in before Christmas!
Here's a few pictures of our house with the stucco on.  As of yesterday they put in all our light fixtures too!
Those boxes are our rock
This is from the south side.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

its amazing how drywall makes your house look more like a home


As soon as we finished building our house the subcontractors came in to start working.  So far the drywall is on, taped, and mudded, and I think they have even textured it by now.  Last time I was at the site they were prepping for stucco!  I am really excited to see all the colors I picked for our house come together.  Here's a few pictures of the house with drywall.

In our living room looking at the plant shelf over the hallway to the bedrooms

The arches in our bedroom.  I love how the different heights make them look.  This is my favorite part of the house.  This is the only thing that I built on the house that you can see.

And this is from the hall way looking over the stairs into the dining room and living room.  To the left is the door.

We are almost finished with house #6!  #7 is almost ready for its roof, and #8's lumber should be delivered today!  We are all so anxious to be finished.  Its starting to get really cold!  My next task will be to start the rock work for the houses, and in the next week they are going to start putting in cabinets.

Although I was hoping to be in by Christmas I am starting to loose hope.  Our supervisor told us if we wanted to be in by Christmas we would have to be done the first week of December so they could inspect it and have the open house before we move in.  In the beginning we were really productive, but as of lately people are leaving when it gets dark(7:30) instead of staying until 9.  People are getting sick, people are tired, and some have just gotten lazy since their houses have been finished.  We need to hurry up and finish before we start hating each other!  No, I love our group, but its like family.  You know everyone so well, its a love/hate kinda thing.

That's it for now.  Could still use volunteers!  We are pretty burnt out, so we could use all the help we can get.

Lyndsey

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Building update

I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought I would update everyone with whats going on.  We FINALLY finished framing and shingling our house.  It went up really fast, but then we started another house and most everyone left to work on it.  So Aaron and I have pretty much been finishing it ourselves. 
Here it is!  Our house was house #5 and now we are ready for insulation, then drywall, then stucco, then soffit and fascia!  It took us a surprisingly long time to finish the shingles.  First, whoever did the front was pretty careless and made them crooked, so we had to try and fix it.  Then, you see the ledge over the windows on the right, and the two little ledges over the windows on the left?  Those took FOREVER!  We had to keep getting up and down the ladder and cut shingles to get it done.  It pretty much sucked!  But I love how it looks, and I LOVE the shingle color!
Here is a shot of the inside.  I didn't take very many because from an outsider this probably looks like a bunch of wood, but in fact this is our living room and that triangle is our plant shelf.  To the left is the start of our insulation.
This is a shot of the archways that I built in our bedroom.  You are looking into our bathroom/closet area.  I am so proud of these.  They were fun to make.

Here is the progress of all the other houses.  Here is house #2.(I didn't take a picture of house #1 because it pretty much looks like #2 and I didn't want to drive to Payson.)
This house is getting ready to be painted, then it will get underlayment for the linoleum and fixtures(door knobs, etc) and cabinets.

Here's house #3(Jason and Lisa's house)
This house has been painted and is getting underlayment right now.

Here is house #4
This house is getting ready for stucco.  Their drywall has been hung and just needs to be mudded and then it can be painted.

House number 5 you already saw(ours).

House number #6
This house is ready for shingles and will hopefully be done this week.

House #7

 
We just started this one.  These people are actually right across the street from us.  They have almost all the exterior walls up and some of the interiors up.  Hopefully we can fly trusses before Saturday.

House #8 (a.k.a. the last house!)
I didn't want to get out of the car to actually take a picture of the footings, but that's what's been done.  The walls will be poured on Monday and hopefully the lumber will be delivered on Saturday!