Building begins, some final design plans are finalized, others changed on the fly...

With the lot cleared, and the first floor level established, foundation footers and construction moves forward. We were initially quite pleased with the progress of the construction. Early on workers, supplies, and progress were all progressing at a reasonable pace. Construction of the first floor exterior walls, and even the second story slab went fairly well.

A temporary structure for the workers is constructed and footers, foundations, walls, and slabs rise before our eyes. During this early phase discussions continue on finalizing the interior arrangement. One major consideration I am pursuing is adding a second bathroom (directly off the master bedroom) and this is causing our architect to be challenged to meet my desires while preserving the access to natural light into each room. To my delight he presents a floor plan that meets all of our needs and it is quickly adopted. Another challenge I had for our architect was to completely recover the lost interior space currently being taken up by the carport. We all recognized early on that we preferred having that interior space over a carport; the challenge was in accommodating the building code standards which require space for one vehicle off street parking. This was accomplished by turning the driveway parallel to the street thus removing the need for the portion that infringed upon the living room and giving us back the space we truly desired. Another feature we wanted and which was rather simply accommodated was a second story veranda, an area where one could sit up high enough to catch the evening breeze and relax with a cool beverage or sip a hot cup of coffee in the early morning, this idea turned out to be very good and useful and we’re glad we made allowance for it. We were also able to arrange our front upstairs fire escape here through the railing and an extendable ladder. In the back where the water tank is placed we had a small ledge across most of the width of the house and in the corner a full slab to hold our tank and if necessary the outdoor portion of the split A/C unit. We quickly realized there was no reason to limit that ledge and commenced extending it to provide more ease of egress for the rear 2nd floor fire escape and to allow ample room for whatever contingency we might need in the future, a second consideration was that it would greatly reduce the opening to the downstairs dirty kitchen and laundry area and with some security fencing panels we could adequately secure the area while still allowing for natural light to shine in. This was born out of seeing the concept come together and recognizing how we could with minimal expense capitalize on the space available to make it more usable and more secure at the same time. Another feature which I was quite pleased with was that all of the sewage plumbing for both upstairs CRs was outside of the first floor living area, over the “L” shaped exterior passage instead. This is comforting since in the unlikely event we develop a leak it won’t contaminate the interior of our home. In further review of this during the latter stages of the build we decided not to conceal it by installing a false ceiling in this area, since first of all it is really considered outside and secondly my brother-in-law and I figured we could keep an eye out for any developing leaks and access the plumbing much easier if there was no ceiling. Again seeing the design in real time allowed us to make this simple decision that saved money during construction and will likely pay dividends in repair difficulty and time in the future. Once the walls were finished and it was all primed and painted it looked just fine to us.