House Project - Day 45: Framing

After a lull of about 2-3 weeks during which weather and delayed town inspections resulted in a slow-down of work, things have finally picked back up. Since the last blog entry on April 9, the foundation floors have been poured, and the foundation backfilled. The excess dirt that was excavated was then used to grade-off the backyard.

The delay by the town in the inspection of the foundation work resulted in the framing crew being reassigned to another job. When they finally finished with that job, the weather then conspired to delay them even more. However, they were finally able to start framing this past Monday. We've been told that this portion of the project goes relatively fast, and by Wednesday they had finished framing the first floor. And as of today, a portion of the second floor has also been framed.

From what they've done so far, we're able to get a sense of the rear exterior elevation for the first time. We can also start to get a sense of the interior of the new space: views from the kitchen sink, as well as across the new family room. One interesting view that I've always wanted to see was from the family room back towards the kitchen area, because of the fact that we designed the family room to have 9 foot ceilings, with a drop back down to 8 feet for the kitchen area.

That design choice also means that there will be a couple of steps up to the new master bedroom on the second floor, which in turn should afford some nice views of the wetlands/Ash Creek behind our property, as well as Long Island Sound beyond.

And at long last, we've reached a point where we can finally start to get a sense of the proportion of the addition as it relates to the old house, especially when seen from the road. We had been mildly concerned that the addition would loom gigantic, but thankfully that appears not to be the case. From the north west vista, the addition actually appears quite small, given that it is set in from the west side of the old house. From the north east side, the addition does appear larger, but the road is more even with the level of the house instead of being below the house as from the northwest, so the effect is diminished.