Building Crowtopia

The design and planing for siding has been on going since the very beginning. Initially we had been thinking of more traditional products like cedar shakes and bevel lap siding. […]

It was inevitable that Randall the excavator would have to come back. This time it was for drainage, both downspouts and footing drains. The rains have started back up again […]

No living room would be complete without an entertainment wall, center, or whatever you want to call it. We are definitely going to have one and it has sucked up […]

Now that we are dried in it’s time to start installing the internals of the structure. That includes plumbing, HVAC and electrical. This phase is all about the “rough-in”, which […]

The windows were scheduled to be delivered soon and and there was lots of preparation before they can be installed. The first thing is to get the rough window openings […]

Once the roof was framed up I started thinking about skylights. This was especially important since the roofers had us penciled in and they will show up any day. First […]

We have come a long way on the framing in a short time. The second story and roof are left. There is a lot of detail in this portion of […]

Now that the first floor framing system was in place we could see the view again! The main and upper floor walls were easier to frame because the floor is […]

Framing started later than I had expected. A framer was lined up for September but he decided not to do the project so I scrambled to find a new framer. […]

It all started in early December when the steel detailer sent me the first takeoff of the steel from the structural plans. We have quite a bit of structural steel […]

The slab (floor) is the last concrete pour before the framing can proceed but there is a fair amount of work to do before that. The rains have started after […]

The time has come to pour the last of the footings and get out of the ground. We left off in the last post with a minefield of pipe piles […]

It’s been a while since I updated the blog. It’s time to pour more grade beams. Getting the beams done represents a faint light at the end of the tunnel […]

We have many stages of concrete ahead of us but I’m super happy to get started forming up. The main grade beam and a couple of square interior footings are […]

It’s time to start rebuilding the house and it all starts with the concrete. There’s still a bit of prep to do but nothing too terribly complex. The first task […]

The excavation is complete for this phase and it’s time to move on to pin piles. Since the soil under our house is not considered to be load bearing, a […]

Days turned into night and night turned into day with seemingly no progress made on the foundation issues. The engineer had been working on a plan to fix our foundation […]

Like the wood framing, we knew there were problems with the concrete foundation the moment it was exposed. The demo contractor had seen it many times before and was quick […]

After asbestos abatement we were ready to start the demo process. I was keen on keeping as much of the structure as possible to save money and be nice to […]

A geotechnical firm was brought in to assess the slope stability and give recommendations for building on the existing foundation. After some test bores for soil conditions the news came back […]

When we bough the house in 2010 we had no idea that it would take 6 1/2 years to start our remodel. The first time we walked into the house […]