November 9, 2007—The utility wing gets its ears!

I was on and off the site all day long but did not have a chance to take pictures until the framing crew left at the end of the day. I was so excited when I noticed that they had framed the parapet on the utility wing and so now we have the first of our little ears.

If you look at the building corner you’ll see that the roofline steps up in a little stair-step. I had looked at them in the elevations for a year when suddenly they started looking like ears to me. They will help give the house a distinctly southwest look without being too odd for a Bay Area stucco house—there are certainly houses with ears in Berkeley.

Notice how much more filled in the framing is on this end of the building.

They started sheathing the roof of the kitchen/family room. Again, the framing is getting denser as they fill in.

The living room and dining room got the piece of metal sheer-wall installed. I think the engineer required this because of the two huge windows in this wall.

Sheer-wall is installed to keep a wall from collapsing sideways in an earthquake or other disaster. If you look at this wall, you can see that with the holes left for these large windows, there isn’t much structure to the wall—hence, I am guessing, the sheer. I am now wondering if another one will be installed above the first one. We will see next week.

A lot more work had been done on the library/guest room wing, as you can see from this photo.

Here it is from the courtyard, looking a little lonesome on its own without the connecting neck of the foyer. In the middle of the structure, there is a big post and the foyer will connect to this wing there. The foyer will have a lower roof than these two rooms do.

You can see that the french door to the courtyard from the library is framed in. When we originally designed the house, my office got eliminated in a cost cutting round, so I was going to put my office in the library. I thought I would need an entrance for customers, so we put in the french doors.

Now that my office is to be in the barn, this room will house the main TV as well as function as a library. I am much happier with this arrangement.

Here it is again, looking very odd when viewed from the end. The crew already have rafters up and have put up the cross-bracing here as well; but the “X’s” are smaller than in the kitchen, so you really have to duck to get under them.

They have taken up even more of the floor protection, but hopefully it will go back down next week. Because the floor is the finish floor—except for stain—I am very concerned about dings. Stepping on a nail could chip the floor because it is still curing. I keep harping on the floor protection with the whole crew, but they say they need to take it up during part of the framing to get everything in place. I will breathe a sigh of relief when it goes back down.

 

I love the way the cross-braces look—like a yoga class, all doing Warrior II.

I am guessing that the far wall will get filled in a bit, even though they have put rafters and beams in this section.

Guests will have a fabulous view of our rock formations—some of which are native and some of which are placed. For a north-facing view, I think that this one is quite lovely.

To see the placement of the rocks closest to the window, click this link and go to: June 22, 2007, page 2. You can also see how much steeper the site was before the recent grading.

With the roof sheathing going on the kitchen/family room, it is starting to feel like a room. This picture is taken from the living room, and you notice in the foreground that there is evidence that the framing of the dining room walls will go up next week. (I have been predicting that they would do it next for more than a week. I obviously am clueless to the order of things in this process.)

There will be a small arch from the kitchen to a tiny hall and then another arch into the dining room. The dining room and living room will be separated by a very large arch. The boards on the ground delineate the wall but the arch to the kitchen will start about where the diagonal joins the board on the ground, so they will cut through there. The arch to the living room will start just about where the cup is on the ground. You will be able to see the fireplace centered in the arch from the dining room.

Here is a closer look at the roof sheathing. That hole is just an unfinished spot, not a skylight. We do have some skylights in the utility wing, but not in the tall rooms—in those we have clerestories instead.
Here is the view from the window over the kitchen prep sink. I showed this to Jim this evening and pointed out that this would be his view while he was cooking dinner each night after we move. (For any of you that don’t already know, Jim is the family chef and cooks a terrific dinner every night.) He didn’t look too upset.
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