Framing is complete!

We no longer go up to visit our lot on friday nights.  Now we go up to see our house!

The exterior walls, interior walls, and roof are all completely framed.  Right now they're working on all the cornice which collectively refers to everything that encloses the house.  In our case, as our builder will very proudly tell you, that means 3 layers of energy efficient goodness.  There are 4 layers on the corners actually!  His focus on energy efficiency was one of the major reasons we chose him to build our house.  On top of the already superior sealing and energy work they include standard in all their homes, we opted for the additional Rolls Royce of energy efficiency packages, which should put our house in the top 1% of energy efficient homes in the country!  Yay for environmental responsibility!  Yay for our electric bills in the Texas summers!  

There are 4 houses under construction in our community.  The other 3 are moving much faster than ours, but ours stands out from the crowd now while most of our energy efficiency investment is visible for all to see.  I tried to capture a picture of all the layers.  You'll see the thermo ply, followed by R-50 1-inch foam wrap, followed by PinkWrap.  On the corners they also wrap in plastic as a first layer.  

The pink is so much prettier than the neighbors green, don't you think?  :)

If that's not interesting for you, here's some pictures of the exterior from a more reasonable zoom level.  You can see our french gnome roof has taken shape!  :) 

Front from the street

Nugget and daddy peeking in the nugget's future bedroom window.  (they haven't finished cutting the hole)

Nugget and daddy with cheesy fake smiles at the front door  :)

Back of the house - look closely.  can you see that they framed out the fireplace on the patio?!

And if you're bored with exterior shots, here are some pics walking through the rooms.  I'm sure it'll be easier to "see" once the sheetrock goes up, but this will have to do until then.

I'm standing in the front door looking straight ahead into the main living area with the kitchen/dining on the right side and the living room on the left.  The kitchen sink will be under the big window, and that's a fireplace in the middle of the wall on the left in the living room.

Still from the front door, I just angled to the right a bit to look towards the kitchen/dining area.  Brent is standing in the "dirty" hallway.  We call it that because it's got the back door (to a future pool and wet feet?), the garage, my craft room, and a mudroom, so we are going to have tile flooring in that "wing" of the house.  There's also a game room, pantry, and guest bed/bath on that side.

Also from the front door still, but panning left to see more of the living room.  Directly opposite the fireplace wall is our home office.  Just to the left of where this picture cuts off is the entryway to the other side of the house which holds all the bedrooms and bathrooms, the laundry room, and a homework/study nook for the kids.

This is a view of the same space from the kitchen looking towards the living room.  You can see the front door on the far left of this photo.  Getting your bearings now?  I know all the 2x4s look the same, right?  :)

Home office - I called dibs on the window.  :)

Nugget's room is on the far end.  That little nook in the hallway will have built-in desks for the kids, and Doodle's room is behind the wall on the right, though you can't see the doorway from this angle.

Master bathroom entry from the master bedroom.  Tub will be straight ahead.  Potty room is immediately on the right, and just beyond that is the shower.  You can see the end of the bench is framed out.  Beyond that is Brent's vanity, and my vanity is on the far left.  

Garage

Game room from the entrance by the garage

Game room looking towards the entrance.  That's a closet to the right of the doorway.

The kids played in the cul de sac for the first of probably infinite times to come today.  I think daddy was trying to keep them away from the mud.  Well played daddy. Well played!

We're told that we should be "water-tight" by the end of the week, meaning all the cornice and insulation material will be up and the windows will be installed!  So excited to see the windows!!  Plus, they're lining up the plumber and we should have our first official walk-through and consult with the cabinet maker very soon.  Feast or famine, this building process.  Hopefully it's more 'hurry' and less 'wait' this week.