All ready for the roof-beams

The big east wall - all bedrooms and bathrooms to catch the morning sun. The wooden "barge boards" are just temporary patterns used to check the ICFs are to the right shape and height.  Hopefully they will be reused as rafters.   

Front view - garage with sitting room over on the right, front door in the middle behind the builders sign.

..and from the back

Some rather surreal (unfinished) walls.  You can see the shape of the south sloping roof where the solar panels will go on the right of the big photo.

The specially made padstone sits on top of the dense-block walls where the four steel beams that form the ridges, the valley and the hip of the main roof will be come together.

The lower roof will have timber gluelam beams instead of steel. It looks like butcher's block and they will remain exposed to the sitting room below. I'm  hoping to stain and wax them before they are lifted and  just have to touch them up in situ if I'm lucky.  I'd like a sofa swing - the engineer says definitely not a problem with these beams, they weigh 150kg each. Will we need a crane to lift all this? Wait and see.

ICF walls complete weekending 5th February

Ice, sleet and a chance of concrete.  It all came together. The joiners put in that last bit of floor and put up a temporary staircase. We got some extra scaffolding to fill the void in the kitchen and utility. The ICF crew worked hard all week, and the concrete pump turned up 8am sharp on friday, concrete due at 8.30.....










.. and then we waited and waited, finally the concrete turned up at 10.30 and the ICF walls were filled by 3pm.

Can't wait to get my arm out of plaster and get on!

Second floor in place weekending 29th January

At last some timber in the building! The first floor blockwork internal walls have been built, a couple of steel beams and lintels added (one with a bit of bullying and hacking of ICF ).

and finally all in place for the floor boards.

One last bit to go on....

The finished second floor ice rink. To the right is a void where the utility and part of the kitchen (on the first floor) will be open to the roof.

Time to get the ICF team back to finish the walls!