Here is our progress through 12/29. We are hoping the weather holds out so that we can get under roof by the end of the week. Happy New Year!

I'm so glad to be able to post to this thread! We've had three years of headaches trying to get this house started. We FINALLY got everything squared away and all the pieces fell into place in late November. Our forms went up on November 22nd, The foundation was poured on December 11th, and our framing was completed the day after Christmas. I'm nominating our builder for an award of some kind because he is so fast. We really have been blessed with wonderful, hardworking contractors so far. Our plumber worked all weekend (he was even there at 7:30 New Years Day in the freezing cold!) and we are doing a walkthrough with our electrician tomorrow morning. Our ac/heating guy is starting in the morning as well, and the roofers are coming back to finish one corner of the house because they ran out of shingles on Friday. Happy New Year to everyone!

constant.....that's a very interesting foundation. I have never seen that before. I see where the piers would go with those raised squares but where are the actual piers to hold up the first floor??? Do they install them as the floor is being built? Metal piers?

mrs egg:
looks like it will be a very nice house! nice use of Zip sheathing! well worth the added expense.

We have foundation poured and finished. They are supposed to begin framing on Monday!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Like so many others the cold weather has slowed us down, but our garage is now dried in. And the stucco base coats are going on ... on warm days!

We hope to haul our fifth wheel up there about mid Feb so that we can take our 6 dogs and hang out on our property. Of course, if you will all keep your fingers crossed, we will have sold our SC house by then and be moving permanently :) And starting the actual house build .. I so wish!

Here is the start of our roof ...

And finally, here is a sample of the stucco finish we have chosen. We will have stucco walls on top of the 3 foot high stone cladding (4 inch Tennessee Crab Orchard)...

elizabethtontnbuild, love the stucco choice and I can't wait to see the Crab Orchard, that is one of my favorites!

To the other new posters, welcome, I know I was very excited after reading this topic forever to finally say, "we've started." Best of luck in your builds!

Our build is continuing to progress well. I just got a new camera lens that I need to try out tomorrow in the hopes that I can get some decent pictures!

I love looking at the progress everyone's made each month. I hope some of the ones close to the finish line post as well.

We are in the finishing stages, right now they are installing the interior doors and trim. Next week the painters come and on the 14th they begin to lay the tile. I'm not going to post photos yet as the house is kind of at an ugly stage with not much to look at other than primed walls. Lol

We just picked out the tile, hardwood and granite in the last few days. It's tiring and so stressful wondering if you've made the right choices. The house is supposed to be ready sometime in late February or early March. We can't wait!

We have been slow going as well due to the weather but it is starting to advance

Here is a link that might be useful: home

Wow!!!! looks like its very good house in a good location....and the progress work is also on speed.... All the best :)

Here is a link that might be useful: new homes smithfield va

Pretty darn good progress. Started framing very end of September. Plumbers and electricians are doing their thing...unfortunately exterior will remain unfinished until spring due to our climate, since we're having a combination of brick, stucco, and stone. Here's a few crappy pics taken with my cell.

Dining Room window

Puff is "guarding" the garage. Cupola will be painted to match stucco

Windows are in. Soon the plumber and electrician will be in. Phew. Then the stress if doing the kitchen! That's the part I'm overwhelmed about!

Tinycastles, I LOVE your cupola! That dining room window is beautiful as well!

Why thank you, mrs egg:)

The cupola was ordered from Cape Cod Weathervane Co. It is made of that Azek material and came with the copper roof and equipped with internal braces for a weathervane. I had to order the weathervane as a separate item (also from CCWC). I think the cupola looks quite stark now and I am eager to paint it, but I have to wait until I choose a stucco color.

What fun seeing the new posters and the progress of all!

We started installing windows today. Here's the view from the street.

This is from the back, taken before any windows were installed.

And another angle of the back, showing the screen porch with parking below.

Hopefully we'll get the rest of the windows and doors installed tomorrow before the predicted winter storm hits us. Meanwhile the plumbing has begun and we are planning electrical, low voltage and heating/air conditioning systems.

Painters start Monday!!! Yea!! Tile was supposed to be here last week now a week from Monday. Brickers are almost done and shake siding is almost finished too. But we have that four letter word coming tomorrow. SNOW!!! At least we are finally in the dry but my cab maker is supposed to come in Monday to help with a couple cabinet issues my electrictian created. He lives an hour away. Bet we won't be fixing anything until later this week.:(

Lots of progress on this board, that is great, despite the terrible weather everywhere, even here!

Buckhead, wow, it is beautiful and now I really get it! The setting is so pretty and the house is perfect there! Love the windows in the front and look forward to seeing that detail on the rear too.

For our house, so far so good, a little slow because it has been so cold that the stone has been slow going, but the electricians, plumbers, audio and hvac are wrapping up in this phase. I think we'll start with insulation soon, though there are probably several things to do before that that seem invisible to me.

Here are several pics....
Front exterior view. The stone base is on, the center portion of the house will be stone. Now that the mortar is finally dry, I like it, but it was very questionable for many days! The cupola was not exactly what I had in mind --- I wanted the roof to "swoop" in vs. be straight. What I want is exactly what tinycastles has! I love it, think it looks charming. Luckily, it can be trimmed with the metal roofing to look the same, so I am saved!

Here is a view from the basement walkout area up to our round screened porch. You can see a little bit of the fireplace up there. I think we'll spend lots of time here:

This is an interior picture of the keeping room / kitchen --- you can see the breakfast room off to the right with the barrel vault / arched window. There will be window seats in the windows flanking the fireplace, but they are not in yet.

We are expecting a rare snow storm tomorrow, so I'm sure the area will be paralyzed. I'm hoping it won't be too bad!

Best of luck through these winter days to all!

Incredible homes!

Mythreesonsnc what kind of fireplace is that?

They are all Isokern -- I really like them from what I know so far!

Mythreesonsnc, Thanks for the compliments. Your house is looking so great. I think you can relax about the stone. It looks really good!

I walked down to the new build through the snow today and took this shot. This shows the windows in the back. They didn't get the terrace level or screen porch doors in and we're missing a chimney, but it's a little more complete. The master suite - almost a cottage really - is completely hidden by the magnolia.

Finally able to post our pics - sorry for such a delay everyone! Build was completed in late October but we've been super busy.

Everythings been great so far! We're really glad we went with the French Country style house now that everything is complete!

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Great room

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Keeping room

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Dining room

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Kitchen

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Breakfast room

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Bar

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Master bath

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Master

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Aduncan- I love everything about your style. Can you share- where did you get your bedroom set (who makes it?) What color paint is your blue keeping room- do you like it in person....

LOVE all of you selections- beautiful!

Thanks Suzie. The bedroom set came from Ashley, I can't remember the name of the series though. The blue is Soar by Sherwin Williams, we like it alot. We wanted to make the room very light with just a bit of color. We also did an upstairs bedroom in this color - for a future boy I hope!

Mine is not going at all well but thanks for asking.

macv, I hope things get better for you really soon!

Aduncan are you happy with Ashleys quality- funny we went there today- but i just read your post. Can you look at your reciept and find the name of the set- or post some more bedroom pics?
Thanks!!

We BROKE GROUND last week! Check out my blog. We are building a modified Cape Cod with a walk out basement.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Blog

Haven't posted in awhile, but we finally broke ground last month. Things have been moving along well. Can't figure how to get the pics into the post, so here is a link to myblog where we are keeping our family up to date on progress. We are about 3 hours from our build, so we try to get out there once a week, but our GC is great about getting us pics.

Here is a link that might be useful: House Build Progress

We're all dried in and the electrician was there today. We're heating with geothermal, but we needed heat for the basement slab pour which will happen next week, so my HVAC guy hung a furnace from the floor joists in the basement with temporary propane to heat the basement.

Plumbing is all roughed in already. HVAC rough in is in process. We hate the kitchen window, so we're pulling that out and putting in a single window instead of the two tiny double windows. Looked good on the plan, but stupid in real life. Looks like my tool shed will have a nice double window when I get to it this summer....

Trying to decide on flooring at the moment.

Some of these pics are a couple of weeks old.

From the street:

From my neighbor's drive:

From the lake side:

Looking out master br:

How exciting! What lovely homes...Buckheadhillbilly, that is absolutely amazing! Can't wait to see it progress. Aduncan, your dining room is GORGEOUS! Do you remember where you ordered your chandelier from? I really love it.

We are building a custom home, we broke ground in November, and it is currently being framed. I will post a few pictures once they frame the second level, so you can see what it will actually look like. I am in the process of picking plumbing fixtures and we just picked the brick, and laid out the kitchen cabinets with the kitchen designer. That was great fun! Our house is going to be a very old fashioned, traditional Southern design, Georgian but with painted brick. Some people think we are nuts for painting the brick...but I adore that look!

nini - we are painting our brick and so is Holly from the blog Things that Inspire - check her blog out. Her house is going to be BEAUTIFUL! A french house but she is not a fan of stucco so this was her choice - it is looking great (but not painted yet). I too love painted brick - always have - and I know it is something that I will always love! Ours is georgianish but with a french twist - our subdivision requires country frenchish design but that is not really my thing so this is a good compromise. This is the front elevation of our house . . .

She has a great post on painted brick . . . worth checking out for sure!

Just realized this is not the most current version - we are not doing the heavy lintels but instead a flush brick lintel . . should blend in as the brick will be painted.

Oh my goodness, that is GORGEOUS, Athensmom! Absolutely beautiful, and will look amazing with painted brick. I bet your house will be the prettiest in the neighborhood. :) Ours is much more traditional, 5 over 4 windows with two small wings on each side. We have a lot of french country and English Tudor in our neighborhood, so ours will be different than most in our 'hood, but would fit in perfectly in one of the early 1900's neighborhoods here in the South. BTW...does your screen name mean Athens, GA? I am a proud Dawg!

Hi everyone. We are in framing/ almost have the house walled in. We broke ground in mid-October. Here are some picture:

View from the bottom of hill looking up at house:

Looking at house from 1/2 way up driveway

Walk out basement and conservatory side of house:

View of front of house:

Conservatory inside:

View from conservatory window:

Master bath:

Great room:

Suzie, sorry for the delay, I've been out of the country the past week. Overall, we've been happy with Ashley's quality but I think it varies from collection. They don't show the collection name on the invoice but some of the item numbers are B697-92 (dresser), B697-56,58 and 97 (bed). Hope this helps!

Thanks Nini, I believe the candelier was from Capital Lighting but I'll have to doublecheck. Good luck with your build!

yep Nini - Athens, GA :)

here is a couple renderings I did of what we want to build this starting in a few months. Also an image of the lot it will go on.

Hi all -- bit of a newbie here. We have gotten our approvals from 3 village boards re: architectural and coastal review and environmental control (a fancy name for the tree police). We're waiting for our architect to finish our plans for submission to the building dept. I need the bldg inspector to sign off on the trees I've marked for removal which were previously approved. Unfortunately, every time I make an appointment to meet him at the site, we get a blizzard!!

We're tentatively scheduled for this morning, but as of 10:30 a.m., I haven't heard from him.

Whoa-ho, athensmomof3 -- if I'd seen your plan before now, I'd be having a serious redesign conversation with my architect. I absolutely LOVE that house!! How many square feet, and if you'd care to share, what do you think it's going to cost to build? We haven't gotten bids for anything other than tree removal, and even that is only one bid (snow keeping everyone offsite for now).

I keep worrying that I won't be able to afford to build the house I've spent all these months planning and getting approvals for.

long sign ... another sleepless night looming ....