The Second Half of November 2024
🔨 📐 Framing Continues!Yay! 📐 🔨
Getting towards the end of framing
November 15th, 2024
Becoming very house like
We still haven't achieved waterproof, but the house shape is becoming very defined now. I don't know how much more framing there is, but the majority of it has been done now.
There is still a window between the corner of the house and the back bedroom door (the one behind the "artist's easel" where Nick stages roof lumber) which needs to be cut out. Some eave trim boards, too. But the basic shape of the house is very much there now.
Flat, Level, No Rain!
(it will be a joyful carport)
This is Hawaii. This is a hillside. Being able to park in a dry place and move stuff in and out of the house - people, groceries, etc., - will be a wonder indeed! That's what I see in the picture, although I'm sure other folks will see absolutely differnt things.
On a construction site, the piles of lumber seem to swell, diminish, migrate and mutate. We don't really have an actual dry spot yet but the carport is at least flat and concrete so a lot of the wood piles seem to congregate there.
Dining room as seen from the back of the lanai
still no flooring
Going to the other end of the carport and looking alongside the Waipio side of the house, the half circle of framing for the dining room has been installed and Nick has put the siding boards on it. Obviously, the windows and louvers still need to be cut out of the siding but until that happens it is a somewhat bizarre thing.
Eventually, it will segment the lanai into the "front" and "back" which will be good, I think, otherwise it would seem like a long runway sort of a lanai. It will also block the wind, which can be a problem due to the ocean exposure of this house.
Oh, those diagonal 2x4s are just temporary braces, they'll be removed pretty soon. They're actually not needed anymore now that the roof is on and the whole house is solid, it's just that they've not been in the way yet so nobody has bothered to remove them.
A bit closer now
(beginning to be much more of a bump out)
It's be nice if we had a lanai floor, but that's still an upcoming project. We have some of the boards painted with primer, but it'd be nice to get them prepainted before installing them. Even without the flooring, the dining room half circle is a definite structure now, especially with it entirely boarded up.
A Big Half Circle
(looks quite odd, actually, doesn't it?)
With the boards on it, it looks very much like some sort of missle silo or some other odd structure? Grain silo? It's fourteen feet across and very round.
Nick is an extremely accomplished carpenter. He didn't even flinch at building this. It's a half circle meeting a slanted roof. Didn't ask for more drawings, didn't ask for construction details, just built it. He did the same with the dormers. There wasn't a very detailed framing plan for that, just a plan view and he just built them with some very intricate construction.
Oh, again, those diagonal boards are just braces and will be removed pretty soon.
The Dining Area Half Circle
(from the other side)
The boarding has made it much more defined, although kinda dark and gloomy. That'll be fixed, though, once the window rough openings are cut out.
The exciting part of this picture, though, is the stair stringers - those notched boards leaning on the left side of the picture. Yay! (Okay, so I get excited about weird things). Having the interior stairs going up to the loft will be a glorious thing! So far the loft has only been accessible by ladder. Not optimum! Being able to zip up and down the stairs will be a really good thing.
Intricate Carpentry
(two sets of stair stringers)
The longer stringers are for the first set of stairs which go up to the landing. The second shorter set go from the landing to the catwalk.
The shorter board leaning in the background had been meant to be one of the shorter stringers, but it has a split in it that Nick doesn't approve, so it didn't "make the cut" as it were. He is a very solid builder, I'm really glad that he's framing the house.
It's pretty much been just him working solo for the past month or more. Takes a bit longer, but I think we end up with a better project since he's very precise and an extremely competent builder. He gets an amazing amount of work done, even by himself. (FWIW, he's more than "just" a pig hunter, he's also a cowboy. He came in limping day before yesterday because he'd been gored by a bull (!!!) while branding on the weekend. Yikes!)
The landing
(but still a tease, no stairs yet)
I've been waiting for the stairway. Getting up to the loft via ladder just isn't the same as a stairway. It will be so lovely to have stairs. I can almost see them, but! Still no stairs. (sigh!)
Nick built the landing first, that gives him the exact dimensions for each set of stringers. Stairs are pretty exact, there's a lot of rules regarding their construction and they have to be built to some pretty specific dimensions. Maximum riser height, miniumum tread depth, amount of headroom, etc. Nick is spot on with his framing and the stairs will be perfect, I'm sure.
November 19th, 2024
Stringers Installed
(but still no steps yet)
The stairway is beginning to take shape. The lower run of steps will eventually be behind the living room wall so they won't be visible when the wall is finished. But it's even more of a tease now, I can see where the steps will be but still no steps yet and I still can't walk up to the loft. Ladder climbing just isn't the same.
The living room from the front door
(no door yet, though)
This is the view from the front door, although everything is still in rough framing. It's kinda interesting the way the catwalk almost looks like some sort of jet airplane at this point and from this vantage point.
The table has moved out from the dining half circle so it's now sitting in the middle of the living room. The ladder by the far door is by the kitchen door with the carport beyond and you can't see into the dining area half circle from this vantage.
November 20th, 2024
Dining Area Windows
(just the rough openings)
The rough openings for the dining area are being cut out and that makes a huge change in the feel of the space. No more underwater enclosed tank sorta feel, now it's becoming almost part of the outdoors.
All the Dining Area Windows
(still just the rough openings)
It's a half circle with a fourteen foot diameter so it's a reasonable sized dining area. Since there's no real walls between it and the living room/ hallway area, it can expand towards those areas if it is necessary for larger gatherings.
Those are seven large openings, made in a half circle going up to meet a slanted ceiling and there is less than 1/4" variance between the largest to the smallest opening. Straight, level and plumb. Nick is astonishingly skilled and very competent. And he just does these impressive sorts of things with zero fanfare or drama! (Well, other than limping from weekend cowboy activities)
Dining Area Test
(just outdoor furniture)
Since the walls and ceiling are now framed in the dining area, of course we have to see how furniture will fit in there. Not that it's high end dining room furniture, but it does help us get a feel for how the space will be once it will get it's furniture.
The whole house has been getting smaller and smaller as the walls get framed in. It felt ginormous when there weren't many walls, but now with all the areas segmented out into their various areas, it's shrunk down to a normal sized, if not even all the way down to a smallish house. Big enough to entertain groups of folks, but small enough to be an easy keeper. That's the hope, anyway.
Dining Area from the Loft
There will be railings on the catwalk (right now, we're just looking over the edge of the loft floor), but I think we will still be able to see over them and look down into the dining area. From this angle, it's easier to see how the furniture fits into the space. I think there will be room enough for a slightly larger round table and six chairs and still have room to move behind folks seated at the table.
I think we will put a solid railing here to create a bit of separate area feeling for the loft. At the moment, it's very open to each other, probably a bit too open.
November 21st, 2024
Waipio Side
(from the Avocado Plateau)
There is still a 2x4 diagonal brace across the dining area and it will be removed soon, but the final shape of the house is beginning to show up.
This is the view of the new house from the Avocado Plateau and there will eventually be a set of small steps up from the driveway to the plateau. This will hopefully sort of be an extension to the living room. The 'front' lawn (err, well, it's actually on the side of the house so technically it is a 'side' lawn, but since it is the lawn area in front of the 'front' door, even though that is also on the side, too, I call it a 'front' lawn even though it's not) anyway, the 'front' lawn will be leveled up to the edge of the lanai so we will be able to walk across the lanai and onto the 'front' lawn without any stairs involved.
Waipio Side
(from behind the workshop)
Now that the dining area windows are cut out, it's easy to see how many windows the house will have. It looks like we will be able to see right through it in many places. Hopefully it will be light and airy and yet sheltered from too much sun and too much wind.
Dining Area
(from the mauka end of the lanai)
This is the dining room half circle as seen from the mauka (mountain) end of the lanai. (Those diagonal boards are just temporary braces so ignore them.) I hope the dining area doesn't feel like a fishbowl when it's finished, there's quite a few windows. But they should also be gloriously open and airy when it's finished. There will be plate glass in the large upper areas and there will be louvers for ventilation below. All the living room, sun room, library and bedroom windows will be the same plate glass above with louvers below type of windows. They all reach to within a few inches of the oak flooring, too, so it becomes a wall of windows instead of windows up in a wall.
The cool lower winds come in the louvers and when the air in the house heats up, it goes up to the upper ceiling area and out the louvers at the back of the loft. We shouldn't have any trouble with hot summer weather, if anything we may want some sort of heat for the winters. The walls - what there is of them, anyway- will be insulated as well as the roof, so it will hopefully be a comfortable house.
Front Door Opening
That's the rough opening for the front door, it's over there past the edge of the dining area half circle. It's not exactly the best placement for the front door, since it's technically on the side of the house and it's sorta around the bump out of the dining area. For folks to visit us, they will have to either come across the lawn and onto the lanai and across to the front door. Or start out at the mauka end of the lanai go down the length of it and around the dining area half circle to find the front door. I suspect we will use the kitchen door much more often than the official front door. But the official front door will be a lovely access to the lanai if nothing else.
November 22nd - 26th, 2024
Mark Mendes & his truck
(he's an excellent driver)
When we had to level behind the concrete back wall (that four foot tall concrete wall that needed to be backfilled last April & May), to make a level spot for the carport we had loads of rock brought in. Then we had to level around the edges of that and we brought up soil from in front of the house. Which then, of course, made a huge hole in front of the house. So, now we're filling in that hole and Mark is bringing us loads of soil and loads of rocks with soil. Mark also does a lot of excavating as well as hauling. Should you need either, his phone number is (808) 960-1060
Mark has manuevered that ginormous truck into some pretty tight spaces without hitting anything, he's an excellent driver. Over the past few days he's brought us lots of soil as well as soil mixed with rocks.
New driveway
(it used to be a hole)
A lot of the corregated culvert tin has now been covered up and now there's no longer a big hole here.
New driveway
Mark drops the truck load of soil & rocks over on the concrete driveway side of the new house and then we move it around after that. At the moment, it's being used to make a roadway across the front of the house. It's put flat and the extra is then going over the edge to create a fairly steep slope. We will need to do something with that slope at some point, but we aren't sure quite what just yet.
New driveway
(looking up from below)
This picture is a day later than the one above. There still needs to be several loads of soil/gravel/rocks along the Hilo side (the right side in this picture) to level out the access along this side of the house. That'll be at least two, maybe more loads of rock and soil.
I think the bit of culvert tin in the lower right corner of the picture will have to be removed and reset. It's looking quite stressed. But, with the excavator, that won't be a very long project. It's really lovely to have heavy equipment!
This new driveway is pretty much right where the 'apocalypse' garden used to be. That was the raised bed garden that was built at the beginning of Covid. It was a sweet potato patch before it was dug up and some of them have been replanted up in the new "culvert corner".
New driveway
We hope to have a drive way across the front of the house so we will be able to access it from either side of the house below. This will probably be a grass driveway growing over a gravel base.
Looking up from the new driveway
(walkway and crow's nest lanai above it)
The lower walkway in the picture connects the big lanai to the sun room. It also lets us wash the windows, too. The little lanai up above the walkway is the Crow's Nest lanai. One can get vertigo by looking over the edge up there. Nick, however, just wanders around out there with a hammer and some boards and doesn't seem to notice how far the ground is below.
Mauka Hilo corner
(last picture for November)
This is the back corner of the house on a nice sunny day. We then ran off to Oahu for Thanksgiving so there aren't any more November pictures.
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