working on framing and another material auction

This little guy has been keeping us busy! We got a new bottle calf and taking care of him keeps us busy.

Chris has been working on the ceiling joists on the North grain bin. They are spaced on 16 inch centers at the wall and then taper up to be side by side at the top. We ended up buying all the 2x4's for the joists at a lumber yard that has a 20% off sale on the holidays.

What it looks like at the top of the ceiling. The ridge that holds all the panels of the roof together is helping support the joists. The joists are notched and then tied to the ridge and then nailed to the wall studs and screwed to the metal at the top of the circle. The walls on this side of the grain bin will not go all the way to the top. We wanted it open even though there are two bedrooms on this side. There is a loft area above the bathroom and it will have partial walls. We are thinking that the top grain door will have a skylight in it.

We went to a building material auction last weekend. We were able to get our kitchen cabinets. I wanted them to be quite plain because I want the old tin ceiling to really be the focal point.  We ended up getting 5 lower cabinets, 5 upper cabinets and the small 2 that go over the stove and over the fridge, for $1600. The only other thing that we bought that day, 3444 foot of cedar decking to finish the front porch and to build a back deck. We paid .65 cents a foot for it. Then we ended up having to order the rest of the flooring that we needed for the South grain bin upstairs. We are still waiting for it to come in. It cost us $12 a board and we needed 25 to finish out the floor where we ran short.

This weekend Chris and I were able to get one of the windows in on the south grain bin, the walls and  the ceiling half way framed. We can't do much else in there until we get the flooring and it is supposed to be here this week. We do have an electrician coming tomorrow to look at the house and figure out what he needs. He is a friend of the family and is coming from a long way away to do this for us. 

Finished up the roof and framing upstairs.

 This weekend was a bit longer than most. Two days worth of weekend for Chris to work on the house. He was able to get all of the back roof on. Thankfully, there will be no more shop vacuuming water out of the house! Chris started the framing of the outside of the upstairs and cutting the windows in. He was able to finish most of the framing, the ceiling and the loft area above the bathroom are what is left for this grain bin.

There is a window at the top of the stairs.

These are the windows in the front of the house. There is one in each of the bedrooms with a wall that splits them.

There is another window in the North bedroom. We were not able to put more than one in the South half of this grain bin because of the roof line. We are looking into skylights to put in the circle that are already in the roof.

The window at the top of the stairs.

The window in the North bedroom.

The front view. The other  grain bin will have the same windows in the front.
We did have to break down and buy a window, for the top of the stairs, from a store. It cost us $100...which is now the most expensive window in the house.

The work never seems to end

Before grout

For Mother's day my mom and I spent the day weedeating the lawn, pulling weeds out of flower beds, seeding the lawn and grouting the rock on the front of the house. Chris spent the day fixing a lawn mower and building walls in the upstairs for the girls' rooms.

After grout. I don't see a whole lot of difference.

Upstairs on the far side of what will be the hall looking toward the stairs.

Abi's room facing the closet door because it is tough to take pictures in a circular room.

Hannah's door way is not up yet but this is her room. Between the two bedrooms will be their shared bathroom.

The front with grouted stone. We are closer to paint now but Chris is also closer to his job deadline at work and only getting busier!!!! That means less time for our house.

Working on the roof

The last few weeks the weather has not cooperated very much. All last weekend the weather was horribly stormy. So bad, that a tornado was spotted less than 30 miles away and then a wall cloud that never touched the ground was about 5 miles away. This past weekend we worked on laying out the upstairs bedrooms and bath, the roof on the back side of the house and the front stone on the house.

Close up of the foam-1x material- and the Ondura roofing.

Chris working all on his own. I do not do well on heights.

Chris got quite a bit done...about 1/3.

Oh and we got pigs a week ago!

The front with the stone completed.

A closer picture.

Trying to finish the front

Chris and I have been able to get some work done on the house this week because the weather has been so much better. Well, it was better..until Sunday when it rained and got so cold that we got a dusting of snow!

We got the siding up on the front of the house this week. 

I was able to get all of the scratch coat on the lath below the siding so that Chris could start on the stone this weekend.

Chris started putting up the stone. We got this stone off of Craigslist for free three years ago. We have moved it twice now so, it is about time we get to use it on something!

Chris was able to get most of one side done but with all the rain we had to stop.

We also worked on the upstairs flooring for the South grain bin. We lacked 100 square feet to finish it. We will have to find some more of the same type of flooring before it can be done.

Trimming and finishing the front.

Chris only had one day this weekend again, so he decided that he would like to get the front of the house more finished. Considering we have at least 3 to 4 people a weekend that we see drive by and take pictures out their car windows, he thought he would at least give them something better to look at :)

This is how the windows looked at the start of the day.

Chris had to use two pieces stacked on atop of one another to get the correct height. Half way below the windows will be a decorative rock and above that will be the same shingle type siding that is on the back of the house. The trim boards came from a pile we had bought at an auction a long time ago. It is a concrete product and so is the siding.

This is the first half of the windows trimmed out.( Of course, the dogs were in the way. They love the porch)

Close up view.

Thankfully, Chris' brother Cale came over because this all goes so much faster with two people who know what they are doing. They framed the ceiling of the porch,trimmed the windows and got the front ready for siding and rock.

Another view of the framing for the ceiling of the porch.

We got a little bit of the siding up but it was starting to get dark.

It is hard to see much at this point.

Angus just thinks the whole process takes too long :)

Taking more shape

Chris and I got quite a bit done this weekend. He finally got a two day weekend! (YEAH) It seemed like we got so much more done and worked so much less. It is not as rushed when you know you have one more day to the weekend.

These are the stairs for the second grain bin. It leads to the master bedroom and bath.

This set of stairs has a bit more curve to them then the other set. The 2x4's are temporary  stairs treads. The permanent treads will be slabs of oak that were milled from a tree that my mom had cut down. 

We started the upstairs flooring.

The view going down the stairs.

There was a swap meet in town so of course we had to go and look. We ended up coming back with a truckload of old ceiling tin. The man we bought it from said it came out of the top floor of a general store that has been moved to a place called Frontier Village. The cost of the truck load of tin - $800. There should be enough for several rooms.

The biggest stack looks like this. It is in 8 foot long sheets.

The stack.

These are 4 foot tall decorative pieces. There are 8 of them.

These are another bigger stack of decorative pieces that are about 2 foot square.

There is a large stack of these crown molding pieces.

Another Trim piece style. There are about 12 pieces of it.

Another style of trim.

Another style of crown molding.

Chris finishing up the structure of the porch.

Putting on the cedar decking that we bought at an auction a while back. I think we paid  $300 for a pallet of it. ( 64- 12 foot long pieces)

We ran out of boards. So we will have to go and buy the rest from a lumber yard. At almost $20 a board and we need 14 more....so it will cost almost as much as the rest of the deck cost.

It's getting closed in! We have the upstairs to frame and cut the windows in Finish the flooring on the South grain bin.. Also ,we have to finish the back roof ( for that we have to have little to no wind and we sit on a hill that makes no wind hard to come by.)