Okay, this is fun. There are a ton of machines already modeled over at https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search/?q=pinball

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Basement insulation is Rockwool R-15. I'm going to have a minisplit for the home theater. But the basement is going to be a separate zone for the furnace. There are two sumps, one on each side of the basement. I'll have a water backup on each as well. I've never heard of sewer backups around here, but that would affect the other basement if it happened and not this one.

Here's the dream...

Only 4 and a half hours of rendering time

It was pointed out that I haven't made an update in a month. So, here goes...

We're stuck in a cycle of 37º rain and a warm day a week. Spring in Buffalo sucks. They put this boom out in the lake every fall to prevent ice from going into the water intakes in the power plant at Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, there's a side effect where our spring gets delayed due to the ice on the lake just sitting there. It keeps us cold, way longer than we should.

As soon as this stupid weather breaks, I'll be ready to build some walls. But in the meantime, I've been creating attachment points on the house where the addition walls will be nailed to, grinding and cutting concrete to square up the crap foundation walls, and trying to figure out how many loads of stone that I need in the garage. I think it's another 40-60 tons. Pocket door hardware was ordered. I found that there's such a thing as a soft close pocket door. No more slamming. Guard rails are up around all openings in the deck to stave off any potential near death experiences.

Positive note. Lumber is coming down from its latest soaring.
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I still have to figure out the trench drain hardware in the garage bays. If i can get this all figured out, I'll get the garage poured in the next month or so.

Not a lot of exciting stuff right now. Feels more like just pushing paper around than anything.

I bought all of the lumber for my walls back in November. It turned out that was the lowest price possible. Zip was $34/sheet and you can get it now for $65. The prices that we're seeing now is for the peak in February. It has only come down since, so we should see at least a 33% drop in the next couple months. I have 200 sheets of 1/2" zip to buy for the roof and a shit ton of 2x10's. So I could really use a price drop. My guess is that i have another $35k in lumber to buy.

Here's 11/16 pricing:
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Hey, I built a wall. Kinda pathetic that this is an actual update, but it's progress. I decided that this is a learning construction site. I've got my 16 year old measuring, marking plates and building door frames. Framing nailer spooked him a bit at first, but he embraced it. I filled him in on the 43 ways that it'll kill you.

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Local requirement is 16" on center and 2x4. I wanted the extra insulation. 2x6 will give an r-23 vs r-15 with a 2x4 wall using rock wool.

That beam pocket is for a 6.5" wide beam. I like to give a touch of extra space. There's also a wall going to the backside so it's acting as an inside corner as well.

Finally vertical. Huge day. This is the first time that I've built new on to existing and I tell ya, it's a pain in the ass. New house? Piece of cake in comparison. The house connections make everything more difficult and then worrying about water leaking in from weather. Hopefully a lot more updates from here out.

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I'd be thrilled with 89º and 91º angles.

This is more, hey, why is that piece of the garage foundation 3 inches that way. Then beam locations are changing. Thank god I know AutoCAD and have a dwg file so i can change anything on the fly to match the foundation. It's still a huge pain in the ass. Something that should take 1 day, takes a day and a half with all of the extra measuring.

We've found the answer to the question, "How much wall can two people lift"

The answer is, a wall that has the equivalent of 36, 10' 2x6 studs. It's the one with the door and beam pocket. I think we were within 50# of not being able to get that one vertical.
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We also deployed what we're now referring to as "Asshole shields". They keep the moron gaze at bay.
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We can still see the crappy pool and deck, but one more shield should do the trick.

This is the first time that I've ever used Zip, but if it keeps me from having to mess around with Tyvek, which I absolutely hate, I'll call it a win.
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As soon as that wall went up, a storm blew in and we had gusts to 30mph and 3/4" of rain. The temperature yesterday was over 70 and now it's in the 40's with snow in the forecast for tomorrow. The rest of the week looks decent though, so hopefully the rest of the shields can be deployed.

And BTW, holy crap 10' walls are high up. The space is starting to feel absolutely massive. That front area is the shop where the pinball surgery takes place.

Stupid spring in western NY. 72 hours from 80 degrees to this. I've never cooled sunburn with fresh snow before....

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Out in front of the walls that i've built. Garage is in blue, completed walls in red.

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I may have to raise my camera up. The walls are blocking the action.
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This was one of the heaviest walls I've ever built, which is why there's no sheeting on it. We lifted it in two pieces if you look at the plate separations. I didn't feel like adding another 100+ pounds to each lift.
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Rule one when having people help you lift walls. Don't kill them. Make sure they say, "Hey, that wasn't too bad." Then they have no problem coming back. My main wall lifting help is my wife, 16 year old son, and a couple of neighbors in their early 50's. I'm limiting walls to about 16'.

I'm not looking forward to the 12' high wall with a 12' window and transom in it. I may end up using the forks on my loader with chain hoists for that one.
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Got my ass handed to me by covid this week. Fortunately, the weather was crap, so I didn't miss much. Hopefully I can get back out there tomorrow or Saturday and get some work done. In the mean time, I only have enough energy to fly a drone.

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That's some nasty shit, huh? The guy was crawling under his deck yesterday, trying to get a glimpse of us standing on the deck. Dude's a psycho.

No windows and no doors. It's only a single story addition. I wanted more basement space than living space. There will be two condensers, a mini split, a trailer, dryer vent and nothing more. We had plans for nice shrubs and flowers and a couple of small windows. But since the guy has been such a douche canoe, he gets nothing but mechanicals. That wall will likely be sided last, so he gets green zip for the next 12 months.

Putting green is owned by some awesome people. They've brought beer out after a long hot day of work.

Thanks.

Started with 1884, removed 451 and adding 1796.5. But 634 of that isn't living space. So really, we're going from 1884 to 3229.5, or adding 71%. But according to the town, we didn't remove 451 sqft, but we're reconditioning it.

That's their math, so it's the only math that counts since it determines the taxes that I'll be paying.

In my town we're required to have at least the lesser of 25' or 25% of the width of the lot total in space between the foundation and lot lines on either side if the house. My lot is 115' wide and I have 10'-1" on the other side, so I needed at least 14'-11" on this side. I do think i have a couple inches to spare though.

The setbacks were difficult to deal with. I'm on a cul de sac and so the setbacks are measured from the center of the circle. So out front yard setback is an arc. This is why the first bay of the garage is pushed in a foot. The red line dictates how far we could build.

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Covid lasted from Monday to Saturday. Energy and sense of taste returned on Sunday.

When lifting really heavy walls, always have kids with saw horses ready. This one was beefy and didn't go up on the first try. The bottom kicked out and I stupidly didn't have a kicker in place. We dropped the wall back down on the horses and regrouped. It was still heavy as hell, but it went up.

The wall I've been worrying about has finally gone up. This one is 12' high and 22' long with an LVL beam and a 2x10 spreader between the window and transom. The two of those weigh about 300 pounds and are high up on the wall, which would have made this a brutal lift. For a rough opening over 12', even by a few inches, code says that you must have 6 full studs on either side of the header. I decided to lift this one with the loader. It's finally dry enough to not make a complete mess. I hooked the straps from the forks to the header and just lifted slowly, watching both of the kickers at the bottom of the wall. As long as those didn't move, everything would go up smoothly. It worked out fantastically.

I'll be stick framing the rafters. It's not a horrible roof, but there will be a ton of wood up there. I tried to limit the rafters to 20' where i could sister them together over a short wall, mid-span. As long as everything is square, you cut one and repeat 60 times. I haven't done a hip roof in a while, so that should be some fun.