As of St Patrics Day ...

An up date on the roof seems to be in order, the shingles are done, the house looks great, Dave Steffen of DDS Construction did a marvelous job. I don't know where the photos of the finished product are, I'll post them as soon as I find them.

What we still need to do to the roof is put up the soffits and fascia.

Now that the weather has warmed above freezing, the ground inside the house is thawing, and is a wet sandy mess, its like walking into a freezer in the morning, and there is truely a dissernable fog in the house, which clears out once we open the windows, the outside temp is warm comparetively.

Outside the ground has thawed, and is a heavenly mess; if observing D is any indication. My son loves all the mud, this is the reason we wash his cloths separately from the rest of the laundry.

Onto the photos I do have...


Entering the door to the kitchen, these are the wires to several (six I believe), light configurations. Note that these pictures are only of the wiring for the lights, we still need to run wires for the outlets everywhere, except the kitchen, it is already wired for GFI outlets, RG6-u cable, and CAT5-e. The CAT5-e is for security, phoneline, intercom, speakers, ect, whatever we choose to put wherever we choose to put it.


Since we don't have inside walls yet, we can't put the switches in their final loction, so we coiled them up in the general area they will be in. Kevin and Kyle did a masterful job of getting the wires pulled to their correct locations in an orderly and well labled fashion.


Another place with alot of switches is here, next to where the fireplace will be, this is the junction of the entry area, dining, kitchen, and fireplace. Eight switches I think, I dont have the scematic infront of me at the moment, so that is just a guess.


More wires for the lighting, these are for the bedrooms and bathroom.


I have all the wires coming into the power room enter through one area, that way we can keep track as to where the wires are going, all the wires are currently labled on both ends for what they do and where they go. I showed Kevin how to make a basket weave of the wires so they get closer, taking up far less room, and stay much more orderly.


Just below the nicely ordered wiring we have this spaghetti mess, we'll get it wired in and pretty soon.


In the trusses I had Kevin build this cat walk, it is the trunk for all the wiring, keeping the wires as neat and orderly as possible, once inspections are done, a lid will be placed over this, and all the wiring will be well shielded.


Looking up to the trunk line, you can also see the Reflective/Bubble/Bubble/Reflective insulation. This is attatched to the underside of the top cord of the truss, creating an enclosed and well insulated chase between the soffits and the roof vent.


Up here in the trusses you can see the bubble wrap attatched to the top corde, and wrapped around the bracings.

Looking over to the sill plate, note the 20 inch energy heel, we can put 20 inches of blown-in insulation at the top edges of the outside walls, most houses don't have this option.

It is amazing how much light is reflected by this stuff, it also stops cellphone and radio signals, I was up here stapling down the wires in the trunkline, and never recieved any of the phonecalls from Mary. It makes for a great tinfoil hat. :)