Framing part 2

It's been so stressful these last months and I've cursed more in the that time than in the rest of my entire life put together....but our most recent inspection gauged the house is 50% done so we're getting there!  The dream to move in by Christmas is dead, but we knew it wasn't likely in our rural area to have things move as fast as we'd like.

Catch up on the #hometodiein house building adventure!
Going to Build,
 Footings/ Stained Glass part 1,
Foundation,
Framing Part 1

Rhett and I designed our house in early in 2012.  We had a basic drafting software program to plan it all out, then turned it over to an architect to make it official and up to code.  Our initial floor plans were for a modest home we intended to later sell. Basically a 3 bed starter house as practice-build.  A year later, we were actually starting to get serious about building the thing and what was going to be a starter home changed into our dream/ live in it until we die home.  I am so glad we went this track, because building a house is a nightmare and I am glad I will never do it again, and (hopefully) never have to move again.

So to be here forever, we decided to finish the basement and we redesigned the roof to use previous wasted attic space.  Working with the truss designer and our architect, I added side dormers to make head room for stairs.  This allowed a 19' wide attic room from the front to the back of the home.   Trusses required a crane to set them, luckily it only took one day to plop them all up there.

View from the front of the house.

 The open hole on top of the house looked weird.  One neighbor asked what the airplane hangar was for.
View out the back of the house in the attic.

This attic is by far my favorite space.  Or at least if all my ideas work out, this will be my favorite space...more to come on the plans for up there later.

The attic extended over the back deck, which I was glad because I got more room up there.  Rhett wasn't a fan of that change, as the original roof design had a vaulted roof over the deck and now it's regular height.  I prefer the normal ceiling to help it hopefully feel like an outdoor living space with more protective roof over it.  Mainly I like the idea of being able to hang outdoor curtains to shade the west setting sun or just provide privacy. We'll see how it all pans out.

This is the little pop out where my stained glass window my mom and I made will go.

In the beginning so much happens.  In two weeks we went from a foundation to a house.

One feature I was excited about in my new attic plans was a round window in the center front.  It became a really important design element for my vision of the space up there and a theme that bled its way through other areas of my interior designing in the last 9 months of planning. 

I always had wondered how they frame in a round or radius window, it was interesting. Basically make a sheeting frame and line it with stud chunks between 2 layers.  The window is 3.5' or 42" in diameter.

The roof was originally a hip, which means it slopes away from the front.  Adding my attic space required a front to back gable, which is basically triangles stacked upright.  It changed the architecture of the exterior from what I considered traditional to more Craftsman.  Rhett was more on "Team Hipped Roof", but I was "Team Gable".  I thought for our floor plan, the gable made the front more interesting to add dimension rather than just a sloping black roof. 

This is a wrinkled page of the original exterior with the hipped roof.

 I told the architect my plan for the redesign and he was also on Team Hipped Roof, and asked if I was sure on the huge front to back gable at least 3 times.  It was the only way to add the huge attic the way I wanted, and yes I was sure.  But so far I love the change it gave the whole exterior.  I am not bold enough to design anything super crazy, but I like that what we ended up with is somewhat unique.  A nephew came over and said: "that round window reminds me of the creepy houses in scary movies" I laughed and thought we definitely need to do something creepy for Halloween down the road...actually I already have a plan my kids will love.

Next the guts, roof, and exterior!