What a Week!!

We got so much done this past week! I was off of work and Ben worked for just a few hours in the morning some days. We tried to take a bunch of pics, so I will give you a run through of the week via them.

The garage actually started a weekend before when we had a garage raising. Sadly, the pictures from this event are on Ben's computer which isn't here right now. Basically that day we got the sill plate on and the two side walls and the back wall up. It doesn't sound like a ton, but considering we had a huge trench to get over that was dug up for the foundation to be poured and we were putting up 8 foot walls on top of a 4 foot foundation wall it was a lot!! Our friends Jess and Jon were there too...you can check out some pics on their blog. Then Ben worked throughout the following week to get a lot done too.

Ben got the front wall up before the week we had off, which was a big help.

He also got most of the sheathing done, then we finished it up the next weekend/week.

With Brennan's help, Ben got up the jack post and the one side of floor joists for the second floor.

This is a view of the house. We put tar on both foundations to seal them up.

Mom and Greg working on the decking for the second floor. They both love the nail gun!!!

Craig finished up the excavating throughout the week, which makes things look more like a real house and garage!

We got up the blue foam insulation around the foundation, then Craig backfilled around it to keep it up. Craig also spread crushed stone in the house for the concrete floor to be poured on.

Here's a better view of the second floor.

A view from the inside. The area in the back corner that doesn't have any decking is where the stairs will be. They will be pull down and will rest on a landing that will be in the corner. The landing will also be the way you step up to the side door to get out. With the house and garage being built into the slope, the levels for doors are a bit trickier. The garage is really tall -- 12 feet!

Another thing we did this week was to install the drainage for the garage. We put in the gardening fabric, then crushed stone, then drain tile (PVC pipe with holes drilled in it), more stone to cover the drain tile, and Craig finished it off by backfilling the area. We also needed a way for the drain tile to exit, so we installed the pipe above. It's about 4 feet underground near the garage, then getting shallower from there. It ends in the ditch that runs along the driveway, so hopefully everything will work perfectly!

Tada...my favorite purchase of the week I think! I am SO excited to have a garage and a door opener too!!!! Holly (my Honda) is looking forward to it too!!

We have the beginnings of a back yard!!

Ben giving the "troops" a pep talk before raising the ridge beam.

Brennan was tacking in the braces for the ridge beam.

Ready...

...set...

...GO!!

Ben had to reinforce the supports.

And we have a ridge beam!!

I finally conquered my fear of getting up on the second floor. It's not necessarily being up there (although I won't go near the edge up there)...it's getting down that scares me!!

And then there were the garage doors! (wow...I'm using a lot of exclamation points...can you tell I'm excited?)

Ben got pretty sleepy, so he took a power nap on poor Greg before we went to an event where I work.

These two pictures are of the "finished" product of how things were left after our week (notice, it's very dark -- but we wanted to get to a certain point before we stopped). This one is from the back of the garage looking toward the driveway.

This is a view from the front...notice the pretty doors (and one is fully functional)!

I'm so proud of the work we got done this week, and I look forward to getting even more done soon!