Quick update

Just a quick one: The swamp cooler is in, and that wall is finished with framing.












The forms are off of the stem walls, and it is BEAUTIFUL. Big big kudos to Paul the contractor and Matt from A.V. Shortload, we're all really excited about the wall. Better pictures tomorrow, there was just too much to do today.

Roomy

We had the concrete guy come out today and pour the slab. Lots of pictures, not too much explanation needed.

This was 9:30PM last night...














And 6:30 this morning, 4.5 yards of concrete.




















We have a bedroom! The back stud wall is in place, and here are some benches laid out to the outer measurements of the bed. Pretty roomy, all told... (Here, you're looking in the front door, through the bathroom, and into the bedroom.

The view at the end of the bed currently contains quite a bit of construction detritus, and the migrating swamp cooler (it was 96 today..even working indoors, that was hard...of course, I'm still sick, so I luckily didn't need to experience this firsthand).

Spent lots of money today!

Alan hanging out with our new neighbors, the goats.




Today we had our only actual contractor come out, as he is the one doing the electrical and plumbing. He did work on the big house on the property, and is familiar with the layout of the utilities and things like that.

We had a not-brief moment where it was unknown if the gauge of wire we needed to run (6) for the 220 appliances would fit in the existing conduit. The run is going to be almost 180' in one direction, so there's no way we could go with smaller wire (you lose voltage over distance, and could end up shutting off your computer every time your fridge kicked on if you wired things poorly). What we're going to have to do is pull out the existing wire, then re-run the whole thing in order for it all to go. So, my advice...do this from scratch, or use 1" conduit everywhere instead of 3/4"!





Alan unveils one of our piers while standing in our utility trench.









All of our piers are poured, and conduit laid out. I made it a goal to have a different dog in every picture, so let's see if I can do it!














This is what we spent money on today. Top to bottom: Medicine cabinet/mirror, pocket door, pocket door frame, and shower pan. Back left is the wire (almost $300 by itself..), and a pipe for..some reason. We also picked up the vent fan for the bathroom and a light fixture. The budget in the sidebar has been updated! We're definitely going to go over the 4k mark, but it's not a matter of necessity. We're just making things a little nicer/over-engineered than we need to, and that's going to cost. Luckily, since it's going on Alan Sr. and Marie's property, they're helping us with the stuff that they're asking for (like a carport, and how we're doing the deck).






The door and window frames are tacked into place, and we're ready to start building up the bathroom tomorrow. We're having to wait on our welder to do a lot of things, unfortunately.






This is the end stud wall and the steel end cap wall (two 4'x10' sheets that will be welded together and trimmed). The stud wall isn't done yet, it still needs fireblocks. Alan built this buy himself, as I was very sick that day. To the right is some of the steel for the window frames.

It's a frame-up

All (mostly) of the windows and doors cut out. Bathroom window and the cutout for the swamp cooler are still to go.

Here's our window frames. Since we're cutting out a lot of the strength in the walls, we need to add it back in!
The rough-ins were plasma cut out, then we used an angle grinder on them to smooth out the cut edges and finish the sizing.

Then we hoisted the windows onto a rolling scaffold, then into the frames to test fit them.











































The next phase starts, which involved welding tabs to the interior wall for the studs, and a little bit of exterior cleanup.
















 




Here's how we're doing the wall studs:
They're then bolted to an angle piece welded to the container.








 


Once the studs went up...it started looking like a real house, really quick. Here's the start of the ceiling supports and the fire blocks. Tomorrow we're pouring more concrete, and on Tuesday we are building the end cap wall!