The First Half of September 2024
🔨 📐 Roof Rafters! Yay! 📐 🔨
huge amounts of progress!
September 3rd, 2024
ROOF RAFTERS!
I find them really exciting, although it may not be the smae for you, perhaps? In any case, the roof rafters have really started to define the spaces and we can now start to feel the size and shape of the house.
This is the upper loft area and there's enough headroom there to make it a usable space. There will also be two dormers which will increase the head room as well. But, they're not quite there yet, just a space where they will be.
September 3rd, 2024
This picture is looking from the loft out along the catwalk to where the crow's nest lanai will be. The front wall still isn't fully framed since we're still organizing the final exact window sizes. There will be a window on either side of the door to the lanai and the door will have windows. So far that's the plan although there's still loads of details to figure out. We've been thinking of putting in "fixed glass" (non-opening) windows since it would be hard to reach them to open or close them. Hmm, unless we had the opener on the lanai side? That could be interesting. I wonder if it could be done? There wouldn't be any security issues since there's no way to get up to the lanai from the exterior of the house. Well, with that thought, there's now more things to think about.
A lot of house construction is that way. You start with the idea of something - such as these windows on either side of a door and then, when trying to sort out the details, new ideas pop up. In this case:"Would it be good if they could be opened from the lanai?" In this instance, they're windows in a somewhat difficult area to reach from the inside of the house. If they're "fixed glass", then all we have to worry about is cleaning them and a squeegee on a stick (similar to those found at a gas station) can easily be used to clean the inside. On the outside, they will be accessible from the lanai and can be easily cleaned as well as opened, if they were open-able windows! Ha!
However, these windows are facing the predominant wind and weather and will be very exposed to the elements. It might be best to stick to the original plan of fixed glass windows so there's less chance of leaks. Getting the door weather tight will probably require some thought, too. Oh well, that'll be a problem for later when the door is being installed.
September 3rd, 2024
Another thought while looking at the picture and considering windows is how far down should they be? We'd hoped for as big as possible, almost the size of the door, but if we do that, then the folks in the living room will be able to look at the rear ends of the folks sitting out on the crow's nest lanai? Would that be a problem? (Probably depends on who is sitting there) It might be taking the 'open concept' of house design a bit too far? I suppose we could add in some stained glass or a curtain right there if it becomes a problem.
September 3rd, 2024
This is the view from the catwalk down into the sun room. The catwalk is "only" eight feet up in the air, but it seems much higher when there's not any guard rails on it! Also, the big openings into the sun room and the dining area make it more spacious up at that level.
We're trying out the possible name of that room to be the 'sun room', although I don't know if that will be it's eventual name. I've been calling it the "living room extension", but that just sounds too office like or even industrial. So, we've changed it to 'sun room' and we will see if it sticks.
The two boards laying on the floor by the head of the ladder delineate the wall between the sun room and the library/middle bedroom or whatever that room is gonna be. I think it's called out as a bedroom on the plans. It will have a pair of moving bookcases in the front corner by the head of the ladder. Those will create an additional doorway when they're open and be an invisible doorway when they're shut.
September 3rd, 2024
This is from the door at the end of the front walkway (which isn't built yet) looking across the living room area towards the large hole where the dining area will be. The ladder going up to the loft is sort of where the stairway will be, but the stairs will be going in the other direction so they will meet up with the side of the catwalk.
September 3rd, 2024
Back in March and April, this was a four foot tall concrete wall without anything backfilled. (and a few months before that, it was a sheep pasture). We thought the four foot tall concrete foundation was pretty impressive but now - five or six months later, the same area is now level, has a carport slab and most of a house framed on it. Sometimes it's good to look back and see how far things have progressed instead of thinking how far it is to the finish. Other than it being an exciting picture because it is now filled in and level, it is exciting because we now have piles of ROOF RAFTERS! Woot!
September 3rd, 2024
The shape of the house is starting to appear. So far there's not anything there for the back carport roof, though. But, just imagine a carport roof above the concrete slab in the back of the house. While we're imagining, add in a dormer in the gap of rafters towards the back.
The lumber piles always seem to be in some sort of transition. Sometimes there's huge piles of lumber and then after a day or two, there's not much left except a few boards. Then, more HPM (our local hardware store) trucks appear with loads of more lumber and the cycle continues.
Eventually, there will at least be a gravel drive between the concrete driveway and the carport, which in this picture, is the area on the lower right. It will probably become concrete at some point, but not sure when.
End of day, September 3rd, 2024
End of day, September 3rd, 2024
September 4th, 2024
September 4th, 2024
The beginnings of our new lawn? I'm not exactly sure what type of grass it is, it's from a snippet of park grass from Queen Lilioukalani Park in Hilo. There was a bit of grass trying to send a runner across a sidewalk, so we brought it home and got it rooted somewhere it won't get stepped on. It got big enough to be planted outside so now it will hopefully spread and become a nice short grassy lawn that won't need a lot of maintenance. The grass in the park was nice and short and in a high traffic area, so this should be a sturdy grass. We will see how it does. Anything has got to be better than Guinea grass!
It was planted in the area around the lower foundation where we put some sheets of culvert metal and backfilled it. That culvert metal has been keeping the soil around the foundation very well, but the top of it will be a hard area to mow if we need to try to get a mower in there. Hopefully this will be a short maintenance free grass. There's also some wax beans and sweet potatoes planted in that area. Probably once the beans have put nitrogen into the soil and improved it, then some sweet potatoes can be planted along the edges so their vines can grow over the edge and cover the metal.
September 4th, 2024
the 'culvert corner'
This is the 'culvert corner' where the new 'lawn' was installed. The sheets of plywood siding go up past the lower ends of the windows, so they won't end up being as tall as they are now. Looks rather fortress like with those vertical wood walls.
The 'tin' is heavy galvanized metal made for highway culverts, so it's pretty substantial stuff. Hopefully it will last a few decades or more. The galvanized metal posts will probably all be trimmed level with the top edge. Either that or made level and used for a short fence of some sort? These sorts of things will get sorted out once the project is more complete.
September 4th, 2024
A picture from a bit further away helps show why the metal culvert is useful. There will be a lot of fill brought in to fill up the area by at least several feet but we aren't sure quite how many loads will be necessary yet. Mostly just keep bringing in fill until it looks right. Hopefully there will be some level areas when we're done.
September 4th, 2024
This is looking from the dining area entrance across the living room towards the sun room where there's some rafters staged for installation the next day.
We're not quite sure what will be done with the bottom of the catwalk. Probably some sort of lights will be installed there. Maybe hang the TV on a track under there that can run from one side of the living room to the other? In case we wanted to watch from a different direction? There's still loads of possibilities at this stage.
September 4th, 2024
The 'hole' in the foreground of the picture is the end of the hallway that goes to the bedrooms. There's a doorway facing the ocean (makai) which goes to the middle bedroom and one which faces the mountains (mauka) that goes to the main bedroom. There's closets between the end of the hallway and the exterior wall on the right side of the picture so they will have high slanted ceilings, too. This 'hole' will give us an opportunity to have a skylight at the end of the hallway.
September 4th, 2024
the view under the 'hole'in the previous picture
Most of the hallway has an eight foot ceiling, however once it gets out from under the loft area, it goes out into the area of slanted ceiling. It comes out at the tall side of the slanted ceiling so it goes from an eight foot ceiling to twelve foot six feet high ceiling.
This may be a good spot for a skylight of some type. Also some sort of upper closet above the end of the hallway closet? It has some interesting possibilities.
September 4th, 2024
Other than the interesting ceiling change in the hallway, another interesting 'bonus' - which wasn't really on the plans but has appeared - is the area under the lanai. I had thought it was going to be a crawlspace when I was drawing up the plans, but now that it is built, it has enough height to be used for something. It can be a lawnmower parking spot, as well as some space for bicycles and motorcycles, too. The lanai will be covered so this will be a pretty dry area even with a lanai floor that isn't waterproof. I think the water heater may end up down here, too. It can be put central to the house so it wouldn't take long for the hot water to get to the sinks.
When the house was being designed, the project site was covered in Guinea grass which is an exceedingly tall grass. I once measured one stem of Guinea grass at fourteen feet. It wasn't one specifically chosen for excessive length, either, just one laying flat enough to be measured. This insanely tall grass hid the exact topography and the slope varies from about 5% up to about 9%. This variable slope added to the challenge of designing the foundation, although it has also allowed for the nice surprise of the extra height under the lanai now that it is built. Had this been a typical build on a flat lot, there'd be a lot less scope for these delightful surprises. It is, however, this particular house a more complicated design than is typical for many 'contractor' or 'kit house' type of designs and that's before adding in the sloped project site.
September 4th, 2024
Same area as the previous picture, but looking up now. What isn't in the picture is the front walkway. there's a four foot wide walkway across the front of the house between the end of the lanai and the doorway into the sun roon.
Most of the roof beams sticking out from the front of the house are the ends of roof beams, however two of them are for the crow's nest lanai. Those are the two coming out from the end of the catwalk.
September 4th, 2024
End of the day, looking at the house from the avocado plateau. More rafters are the most obvious progress, but there's a lot that doesn't show in the picture.
September 5th, 2024
September 5th, 2024
This area will be the dining area, it's not really a room since it's more of a half circle of windows than anything with flat walls so it's a 'dining area' instead of an official 'dining room'. So far there's not much there to show where it will be other than a large hole and empty space for it to show up in later.
September 5th, 2024
Same area as in the previous picture, except from further away to show more of the living room. The big hole on the right side will be the front door, a large wood framed glass double door. Then the half circle of windows for the dining area.
September 5th, 2024
Same viewpoint as the previous two pictures although again, further away. This picture was taken from the far corner of the sun room looking across the living room towards where the dining area will be some day.
Eventually, there will be a wall between the sun room and the middle bedroom so the area on the left side of the picture will be smaller than we now see.
September 5th, 2024
This is the kitchen end of the lanai, looking towards the ocean. The kitchen extends two feet into the lanai so it's narrower at this end than the ocean end. There's also the dining area 'bump out' which will be in the middle and extend out to about four feet from the edge of the lanai so that will eventually block the view from here, too.
September 5th, 2024
The end of the day picture from the avocado plateau. More rafters, more blocking, the beginnings of the dormers.
September 6th, 2024
September 5th, 2024
Upper rafters almost all the way to the front, although there's still more to be installed. The lower rafters are on, although they're not really visible in the picutre.
September 6th, 2024
The dormer on the left is the Waipio Dormer, overlooking the greem roof of the workshop and the Avocado Plateau with it's big avo tree. Mostly from this dormer, it's a view of the avo tree. The dormer on the right is the Hilo Dormer, overlooking our neighbor's ginormous bamboo plant. Basically this dormer has a big view of greenery, pretty much the same view as the other dormer.
September 5th, 2024
At some point, I should probably do a slideshow of the 'culvert corner'. Now it has some rafters although it will still get more rafters as well as a center beam. We're also waiting for some fill to appear, we're on the list for some to show up, but not quite sure when. It'll appear, though. We hope to fill in about half way up the wall as well as fill in the big 'gulch' in front of the culvert. We created that gulch when backfilling the culvert but we wanted to get that corner reinforced before any soil washed away from rain. It's not quite rainy season, but we've had two big rainstorms already so we want to be prepared for rain at any time.
September 5th, 2024
Looking up at the front of the new house. Lots more rafters! The sheets of plywood laying on the lanai floor joists make interesting shadow areas, unless maybe that is areas that didn't get painted? Have to go look, although it's just the first primer coat.
September 5th, 2024
End of day picture from the avocado plateau. Big changes in the past several days, although soon the project will switch from the addition of large rafters to the much smaller changes of adding blocking.
September 10th, 12th & 13th, 2024
September 10th, 2024
This back mauka side of the project now has rafters all the way across. Which means we can now see the final roof shape. Well, there will also be a flat carport roof extending out from the back wall, but that won't impact the upper roof shape.
The lanai is on the left and that is pretty much as open as it will be. There will be some sort of fill in above the two foot kitchen extension into the lanai area. That's going to probably be a storage area in the loft, but at the moment it's being left open until it is closed in and we can figure out it's best use.
There had been a change from the original design that had the kitchen wall ending at the lanai. We needed more room in the main bath for a bigger tub. That shifted bath #2 over and then the one kitchen wall was shifted over as well. When that wall shifted, the kitchen became too narrow so now the kitchen is two feet into the lanai area, but since the lanai is dead flat level to the interior of the house, that's not a problem.
The interior flooring is 3/4" subfloor with 3/4" solid oak for a finish floor. The exterior lanai flooring is 2" thick decking, except in the world of lumber 2" thick decking is actually 1-1/2" so it will be the same thickness as the interior floor. Construction dimensions are odd like that, pretty much throughout the entire build. To begin with, we're dealing with feet and inches which is essentially a base twelve sort of math. It would be nice if we were used to the metric system, but I don't have an instinctive estimation of distances in metric and if I wrote them on the plans, the carpenters wouldn't be thrilled. So, we do a lot of swapping between base ten and base twelve and then add in the variables of actual dimansions as opposed to the called out dimensions. It all eventually works out.
September 10th, 2024
Guess not a lot of pictures worthy of posting online were taken on September 10th since there's just two of them. I'll add in the picture from the 12th and the one picture from September 13th so there are more than just two pictures in this section.
September 12th, 2024
This is the lanai with the roof decking on it. This is also from the two foot narrower kitchen end so it will widen out as it gets to the other end. What isn't shown, though, is the dining room 'bump out' which will take up a lot of the center area. That will be all glass windows, though, so we should be able to see through some of it.
September 13th, 2024
This is the end of day picture taken from the avocado plateau on September 13th. Some of the roof decking is beginning to appear, although now Nick is pretty much working by himself so that slows the work down. It still gets done, though, even with just himself. I think he prefers to work alone, it's probably a lot less complicated that way. In this picture he has the roof decking staged to where he can grab the sheets while he's on the roof and that saves a lot of going up and down the ladder. To put on the fascia board, he made a small bracket out of a scrap of plywood and nailed that temporarily to a rafter. He set one end of the fascia in the bracket and then nailed up the other end.
September 15th, 2024
September 15th, 2024
The dormers have their side framing now so their view is becoming more defined. It's kinda nice to be able to see through walls, but they aren't particularly weatherproof that way so the view will get smaller and smaller as the walls emerge. We still have the views of the bamboo and avocado tree, though. Pretty green views from either window.
September 15th, 2024
Garden chairs have been migrating into the project. It's kinda nice to sit there and feel the house shape. We're also making a few decisions while sitting there while things are still at the adjustable stage. Usually not anything big, just a minor adjustment here or there.
September 15th, 2024
The chairs seem to like being under the catwalk, it gives a smaller more protected feel to that area of the living room. Once the rest of the furniture is in the room and the walls have their sheathing, then the room will feel a lot smaller. I think the porportions of the room won't be overwhelming once it's finished.
September 15th, 2024
The kitchen is going to feel small, since it has an eight foot ceiling and is coming in from twelve foot or higher ceiling areas. It is a straight galley kitchen. I didn't want an 'eat in' kitchen since there was already a nicer dining area and an eat in kitchen would be duplicating the 'eating area' square footage. I also didn't want any corner cabinets since the back of those are always hard to access. This should be an efficient kitchen and it is close to the eating area with a pass through between the two areas. That's the large opening on the right side of the kitchen entryway.
On the right side of the kitchen facing the lanai will be a big kitchen sink. It's a stainless steel double bowl with big drainboards on either side. Five feet of sink area so that's a large 'wet zone'. There will be cabinets below it but not any above it since that's mostly a big fixed glass window (no screen to mess up the view) with louvers on the side for ventilation.
On the left side of the kitchen there will be the refrigerator by the back kitchen door, it's set a foot into the wall so the face will be level with the cabinets. There will also be a floor and exterior wall vent to let hot air out from behind the 'frige. Ventilation keeps them running more efficiently and uses less electricity. Then three feet of counter with cabinet below, then the stove, then another foot and a half of counter with cabinet below. A line of upper cabinets as well as the stove vent.
Not a 'gourmet' or 'fancy' kitchen, but it should be efficient and able to have several folks using it at the same time. There's a pantry area just at the beginning of the hallway to the bedrooms and more storage in the hall closet next to it if necessary.
September 15th, 2024
At the moment, we only have a portion of the front living room wall framed in. It is the center section which supports the main ridge beam and the catwalk, but we still need to figure out the exact framing for the rest of the front living room wall. We should have the final window dimensions today or tomorrow and then those dimensions will let the rest of the wall be framed.
This has gotten us up to the middle of the month of September, 2024 and this is probably enough picture for one web page so I'll continue on with the next construction project webpage at the end of the month.
🔨 📐 It's looking more houselike every day! 📐 🔨
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