Just found this thread, looks great! Looking forward to following along on the progress. One question, is part of this addition under the garage? looks like the old one went down in the beginning. Very ambitious project!

I hope its the guy with the pool that is quoting the convenant - irony...

Excited to see the progress!

Assuming the neighbor gave up on his threat, just being unneighborbly now (I am guessing he wasn't the greatest neighbor long before you ever started this project). Looking forward to more pics - should be pouring the floor soon I suspect?

For years I did traffic engineering for development work and every new subdivision or business that came in on new ground, the folks that had just bought a new house on what was farm ground maybe 3-5 years before came to the Planning Commission and City Council meetings complaining about the extra traffic and loss of their view and their children can't continue to play in the streets, etc. The Not in My Back Yard "NIMBY" syndrome, even if they had just done the exact same thing. Totally oblivious to the irony.

Good that you did. Unfortunately it is still true that if you want something right, do it yourself (or at least supervise!)

Very glad you are ok. That last push when you are tired and rushed is never good, especially if you are working by yourself. Hopefully you will have some help raising those walls.

That is a great and safe plan. Framing will go quick in the Spring. I am assuming you did not order trusses or framing material yet so won't need to store those...

Yeah, the same winter storm that sent gas prices skyrocketing in February shut down Texas Ethylene plants and they are still not back to full production. I bid a project where we went had half in PVC over copper to save some $$$. Bids came in nearly double the estimate. It is an emergency repair, so we had no choice but to press on. As if COVID distribution issues weren't enough...

Looks good! Cutting in expansion joints at narrow opening/halfway? Or using a sealer maybe. I always use a sealer now, really helps the concrete cure evenly and is good for the freeze/thaw this will experience over the next 30 days and longer...

It looks like the circular stairs are walled in now - they were open in the original plan. Just wondering if there was a code issue or some other reason. I have circular stairs going to the basement, they look pretty cool open I think...

Looking forward to watching the construction going forward.

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Yes, you can hear both the downstairs TV and pins when they are going as the stairs go right up to the Great Room. However, it is not that bad (exception: large group/party) and you can still have a conversation/watch TV upstairs - if the stairs are going up to a hallway or somewhere else I think it would not be too distracting at all. I think a decent tradeoff for the open stair look.

Nice. I use Home Designer Pro at home, consistently dreaming up expansion plans for the basement (threads like this don't help that compulsion - Ha!), I haven't been behind the wheel of AutoCad in years. Sketchup's 3d Warehouse has some pinballs that I have used in 3ds file format that I think you can import into Revit.

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Looking forward to seeing construction pictures. Wood is a roller coaster here. 7/16 4X8 zipboard - was $55 last week, $64 this week, and it might be down next week. And has been nowhere near the pre-Covid pricing under $20. I balked at $35 a sheet last year, regret that.

That is good to know - I have a bunch of zip and 2x6 to buy soon - I will pounce on any decent price drop.

Great to see progress! 2X6 construction - required or preference? Also looks like a pretty big beam pocket on the left?

I don't think it is required by IBC, though I agree it is the extra insulation that has lead many municipalities and states to adopt it. Using 2X6s, you can generally frame 24" on center instead 16" (which also increases the insulation). This looked like 16" on center (hard to tell) so that is why I am curious what the requirement is. I am framing a garage (unheated) 2X6, 16" on center primarily for bearing strength for the 2nd floor which is clear span trusses 24 feet resting on the outside walls.

Nice update! Looking good!

Getting closer to roofing! Are you stick framing rafters or using trusses or maybe a combination? I rented a crane for three timber frame trusses at the back of the house - best $500 spent (this was 20 years ago) on the job.

Looking Great!

Looks good. They do make a long leg joist hanger that might have worked in this situation, but column support is always the best.

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Looks good, I would love a skid steer and would use it the same way. Instead, I have a little Kubota BX24 tractor a front end loader. I had a back blade but got rid of it and just back blade the bucket and that works just fine. I also have a backhoe on it with a little 9 inch bucket that is not very fast at all, but is fun to use, just takes a little more time.

Here is the Kubota sitting next to my own garage addition. It will be two stories as well with a Gothic Arch for the second story. The pad was poured last fall and trusses were ordered and arrived but I have stalled waiting on material pricing and time. Prices have dropped some again so I think I will try to get this built July-August. @yaksplat's progress is motivating me to get it done!

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I'm glad I bought my trusses when I did, but still need a couple of gluelams 2X6s, and a whole bunch of sheaving. Matching the existing garage door style is also going to be very expensive...

That actually is pretty darn good. I hope you get some more help lifting rafters and roofing sheathing up - would be well worth it (and rooftop delivery of your shingles - I doubt I will ever haul roofing bundles up a ladder again if I can avoid it).

Yeah, I thought about pining this thread, but I didn't want to push - projects like this get done when they can. That said - great progress! Looking forward to continued updates as they come.

Nice job - didn't think we would get to see any rafters for a little bit after all the other work. The wood we get nowadays is suspect - I had a 2X10 pressure treated curl up on the end just laying flat over 2 days. Frustrating to say the least.

Will this be the only hip? Curious what the rest of the roof-lines will look like.

Can support a bigger dead load on your rafters if you want to store stuff on it, and less sag on Drywall ceiling are bonuses for the 12" spacing as well.

I don't keep much in my garage attic but I have a catwalk down the middle and I wired in cheap porcelain light fixtures with a switch at the top of the pull down steps so I don't need a flashlight. Works great. I did it when I removed a Federal Pacific sub panel and put in a new GE panel, wiring and circuits.

Wow, great progress!

The one thing I will not do is hang/mud more than a few boards on small projects. On a job this size, it is best to contract drywall out if you can. They are the one trade that will do it not only faster but better.

Speaking of ass, maybe you should take up topiary - this would look good facing your neighbor's lot

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Have a great vacation, and thanks for posting your progress for us before you go! Your progress has been amazing and clearly you won't have any issue being dried in before winter.

This is an epic build and really two years and then the rest of your life to enjoy is a very good trade-off. By comparison, whatever project you take on next will seem like a cakewalk.

Working this Labor Day weekend? You could probably get the roof fully framed and sheathed I would guess...

We did a similar project as yaksplat 20 years ago (not the same scale though!) where we took a lake cottage, added a second story and a great room addition. At that time we also put in a geothermal system. All new walls were 2X6 with wet spray cellulose insulation, all windows low E and most of the window surface area is on the south side, with Deciduous trees blocking the summer sun and then dropping their leaves for winter solar gain. We were on propane, so the payback was way quicker than natural gas (3.5 years). We also got a reduced electrical rate from our CO-OP of .05 cents a kilowatt hr. and the excess heat is run through the hot water heater too which helped with the payback

Geothermal heat has been great - in the summer, it is very cheap to run to cool the house, as the differential in ground temperature and air temperature is greater. My only regret is not drilling one extra well. At the time, the cost-benefit said it would be 20 years before we would make up the difference between electrical resistance backup for those very few sub 10 degree days. Well, electrical rates have gone up and we at now at 20 years, and thinking about another addition. Not sure how hard it would be to retrofit one or more wells. The biggest benefit of Geothermal, combined with a tight building envelope, has been an overall even heat and cooling, a relatively quiet system that has been very reliable. There is no outdoor condenser, and when the inside unit wears out and needs to be replaced, we will still have plenty of life left on the wells, 50 years or more.

Closed loop, vertical wells 150' deep. They drill an 8" hole using water well drilling equipment and loop the piping in and out of each hole, which is backfilled with a bentonite clay for good geo-conductivity. Horizontal loops would not have worked for us as we are mostly wooded and the one area of lawn that might have worked is too small and has our septic system on it.

The lake we are on is public and we are on a cove that loses it's water in the winter when they draw down the lake level so that would not work for either open loop or closed loop.

Open loops have a separate heat exchanger where the open loop water transfers to a closed loop in the system. Still, really corrosive water can cause this exchanger to scale up/corrode and this is hard to fix as there is generally no good way to treat the water economically at the volumes needed. I got a grant from the department of energy to use water in an abandoned mine as an open loop system (pump in one area of the mine, dump in another) for the Illinois National Guard. This corrosive water was one of our concerns. Managed to hit the Mine 2/3 test wells (Illinois Coal Mine approximately 160' below the surface). It had been abandoned for over 50 years, and there was only about 18" of water in it - not enough to run the system. That was a surprise. There was also methane but we did not have mineral rights or a way to capture/use that. We capped our wells and used the rest of the grant to put in a conventional field that covered half the building.

And now hopefully back to some progress reports from yaksplat , sorry for the derailing. I am a geothermal fan though, have put in in four large commercial buildings and I always try to consider it if the budget can support it.

Good luck with the interview! I think it is a great job market for CS still. Lot's of our CS/IT folks work from home - started with COVID but now it is a perk since we are government and our pay doesn't match what they can get in the private sector.

Awesome!

Got to be a great feeling! Roofing will seem like a breeze!

No rooftop delivery on those shingles? Can you rent a shingle lift in your area? Of course after hauling up all those 4X8 sheets these probably don't seem as bad...

I did the same thing building a very long retaining wall - dropped the pallets by the workspace so they would be close - and they blocked getting the tractor in to move the 82 pound blocks easier. Did two pallets by hand to make room to get the tractor in and from then on out could slide 7 into the bucket at a time, set them on the wall, and slide them into place. Much faster and lesson learned.

Looks good - surprised they used a buggy, seems like enough room to back the truck up and use the trough on the truck with an extender. No power troweling either?

So how is the roof coming along? Anymore progress there? Are the metal shingles easier or harder to work with?

Would not have noticed if you didn't point this out. It will never be seen from the ground. This photo really shows how ugly your neighbor's pool looks though. Will be nice not to have to see that. I think you said you were re-roofing the existing house with the same metal shingles, I assume after you are done with the new?

Any updates?

Great update! Front facade ties together nicely - I really like it when larger garages are broken up visually into smaller sections. Is the stone wascot you are going to do on the main house going to continue around the garage? Also, what color of siding are you thinking about?

Great solution, right choice!

Well @yaksplat,
I have to tell you this is one of my favorite threads on Pinside. Every time I see a post pop up and I get excited about seeing the progress (and I feel inadequate all at the same time ). We haven't even got to the Arcade part yet!

Your solution at the corner was great and I wonder if my OCD would let me do what you did, but it was totally the right choice. Keep the progress reports coming!

For the first time in a while, we recently received construction bids that were lower than estimates for 2023 work. Still high of course, but with the interest rates hikes, a reduction in future planned projects, and supply chain issues easing some, I am hoping we see stabilization and maybe even some reductions, at least on materials sourced in the US and Canada. Zip Sheathing is at $29 for 4X8 at the big box here which is the lowest it has been in some time.

I wonder on insulation if you had considered blown in Cellulose. I have it in my house, super tight with no voids. It was cheaper than fiberglass at the time (20 years ago with a new provider in my area that wanted the business). You can rent the machine for the loose blown in (attic), and get a bid for wall cavities (it is wetted to stick, you wait a day or two to reach the right moisture content before buttoning it up).

It doesn't look bad at all. In fact, I am wondering if you should turn it into a design feature, like putting the house number on it vertically or lighting, etc. Maybe a different stone treatment too.

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In Great Britain and some other European Countries, houses get names. Though we don't have a plaque outside (yet) we named our house Koselig Hjem, Cozy Home in Norwegian (Cozy is not really a one for one translation, the word actually means much more, like sitting by a fire on a cold winter's night, grandparents visiting from far away, baking cookies with your children, etc.)

Could do a house name (Pin related of course!), or the street address, illuminated from behind or from a fixture above for a more vertical orientation. Could also do a sign that is mostly blank except for the "2" at the bottom.

OK, enough on signs for me. Now that the roof is done, and it looks like the windows are done (?), guessing block framing inside, finishing plumbing/electrical rough-ins and insulation?

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I had no doubt - your work has been terrific. Corrections to the out of square foundation pour, stick framing the rafters of a complex roofing plan and more - I would say passing the framing inspection was a given too

Looks like you have underground service (I don't see any overhead wires in any of your pics). Do you have a transformer at the street? Sometimes utilities give rebates or free upgrades, especially since you seem to be less than 100 feet from their line I would think. Any such luck with you? When you start filling up that game room and have all your circuits on at the same time, I am sure you would appreciate the extra amps.

I went from 100 to 200 service and it required an extra transformer by the house because of the distance. They wanted me to pay the whole cost of an extra transformer, but it serves my neighbor as well, so I argued he should pay half if and when he upgrades. That cut my cost in half, it pays to push back a little. I have a 100 sub to the garage off it, geothermal and remote lines to the boat lift/shoreline and an outbuilding. Haven't had any issues with the 200 amp service so far.

yaksplat I hope you and your family are ok and have survived this blizzard in relatively good terms with no loss personal or otherwise. Thoughts are with you and it looks like you are getting some warm weather this week which is welcomed I am sure.

Glad to hear you and yours came out OK!

Nice job - finished with all rough-ins now, or low voltage still to go?

Time to call that Drywall sub!

I used wet spray cellulose - 6" R value is 21

In the great room I have 10" SIP (structural insulated panel) over 2" Doug Fir planks (sitting on timber frame beams). The rest of the house I have either lose blown in celloluse (very small area at least 24" deep) or dense packed celloluse (vaulted ceiling, standard framing). Overall the house is very well insulated.

My geothermal has been terrific performance wise, but I am sure it is the combination of good insulation, passive design and we are located in a very good area for geo with 58-60 degree ground temperatures. Still, like any heat pump, when the air temp gets down to 5 degrees or less, electric resistance backup kicks on to keep up with the load. However, the electric bill was only $250 last month (I heard of other all-electric systems in our area at $700 or more, and of course gas/propane were pretty high too).

Rule of thumb - hire out any drywall job with more than 10 4X8 sheets. In my area I have a hard time getting anyone interested for less than that (or I would hire that out too).

Good luck on the job interviews @yaksplat!

Update today? Drywall up, new job, etc...

I hope this means a big update is coming soon

Great Update!

Better they dropped it than you. Lucky they had another one and it wasn't on backorder!

Looking great! Looking forward to the progress as now you are at the "good" part of interior finishes

Yeah, we our addition/remodel was done around the same time and we have been going through a refresh the last two years and my work is significantly harder to remove than what was there before!

One thing we decided to do was replace three different floor types with a very nice LVT. We kept our kitchen cabinets (granite counters tops put in about 10 years ago) so to remove the tile floor I bought a harbor freight toe kick saw and modified it with a tile blade to cut around them. Worked great. Then the rip up and I used a floor underlayment across it, the great room which had carpet, and the hallway, hall bath which had 3/4 maple. Had to lower the toilet flange and patch in the door jams there, but otherwise one flat surface and no awkward joints. LVT holds up better with dog nails than the maple floor and we got the waterproof kind which has made kitchen spills easy to clean up. Would highly recommend getting a quality LVT.

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Yeah me too - but the 3/4" maple we had in the hallway had tons of dings/scratches from the Dog nails. None went through the finish but it looked worse than playfield dimpling. It has been about two years with the new floor and so far not a single scratch. It was the best with the biggest clearcoat layer and the waterproof backing. The hardest work was putting the underlayment down, and should I need to replace this floor in the future for whatever reason, it will be super easy. LVT are great for basements, especially with the waterproof backing. No isolation membrance, minor cracking won't hurt it, and it is a little warmer underfoot.

Those look beautiful - expensive but beautiful. Looking forward to seeing it installed. Maybe LVT for the Game Room...

That would have driven me crazy, and I would have furred down the garage ceiling, which is why I would be nowhere near where you are with this project OCD is a bitch.

I would be curious too but I will say the aggregate looks well dispersed in the core sample so it would come down to how much cement is in the mix. Since the knuckleheads that poured your foundation didn't actually mix the concrete, it came from the batch plant, I would guess you are probably around 3,000 since that is the called for minimum strength in many building codes for residential foundations.

If you change your mind later you could drop the cylinder off at a local university with a civil engineering program and they would probably do a compression test for free. It is not a true "test cylinder" size but that really does not matter.

Congrats on the job! Incredible stressful to be in the middle of a project like this and have to go through that. Hopefully you found a position you will be happy at. Also, still great progress on the house!

Wow, huge job. I have seven to remove and I am dreading it. Two storm damaged, one dead, one dropped too close to the garage, two to close to the house and one for thinning. Even with my tractor, ton of work.

However, I am sure pool guy doesn't like you messing up his view of the woods, so there's that.

It appears you are on the biggest lot in the cul-de-sac, maybe the whole neighborhood, and now one of the biggest if not the biggest house - and also out working hard on it all the time - Maybe these guys are tired of hearing about how they don't work hard enough at home

I take the view that he is improving the neighborhood (and conversely, their property values). But people can be pretty self-centered. I use to do traffic engineering consulting and would see people get up at the planning commission meeting and complain about the traffic from a new subdivision being built right next door to them in a corn field - conveniently forgetting their property was a cornfield just a year before their subdivision was built and they added traffic to the folks that were there before them. NIMBYs (not in my backyard).

Practical every development - don't want it, argue too much traffic, too much noise. Always the same arguments... Amazingly, never heard even one time, "I will buy the property at fair market value and put a park there."

We still have the full game room buildout!

Looks great, and the light on your clipped corner looks like it belongs there, and the corner and light were part of the original design. Just need the house numbers below

I got mine from Goddard Spiral Stairs in western Kansas, my second set from them (first set went into a house in Overland Park Kansas so I could make my galley kitchen bigger).
https://www.spiral-staircases.com/
A different approach, it is completely welded in one piece. Superstrong, but has to be shipped in one piece so there is some cost for that. The first one I bought (1995) I met them in a parking lot off the highway and we transferred to my trailer. Second one (2002) they freight shipped. of course, a walkout basement is a necessity, or a second set of straight stairs like yaksplat

This looks good, we are redoing the master bathroom and have picked a similar tile for the floor. Getting the laundry room done will go over well with the wife too I suspect - I just redid our Mudroom/Laundry (took too long) but she is very happy, as it get used daily. It sucked during the two weeks when the washer/dryer were out of commission.

Yes, no universal code for a laundry room drain, though that is a good idea. Yes, almost all laundry rooms above finished space install a washer drain pan, and "burst proof" hoses of stainless steel braid or like material are also pretty common, though that won't stop a leak inside the machine itself.

Well that is interesting. My last washing machine (Whirlpool) lasted 20 years with the same burst proof hoses, no issues (besides replacing a motherboard once). It was still operating when we got a new one, which cramped out in four months, still under warranty. I diagnosed the problem as a relay but the entire board was conformal coated, so they had to replace the entire thing. Wouldn't give me the part, so two trips for the repair man (one to diagnose, one to bring the part I told them it was). I put new hoses on at the same time, now I wonder ... Time to plumb a floor drain I guess, sigh... Manufacturing is worse than it has ever been.

I hope that is the case. He had started a new job so maybe that is taking precedent.

Looking good, pretty stone. Glad everything is going good, and I hope the new job is as well.

That looks great!

I think that is a pretty good ballpark seeing how there are so many variables in the construction trade. Earlier in this thread I (post 266) I showed the foundation for a 24X34 garage addition that required eight foot walls at the back due to the drop off, and going to normal frost depth footing in the front.

That was during COVID but just before runaway pricing, in a very rural (aka cheaper than the city) area - $15K just for the foundation. I am guessing that would be $20K or more here now.

We made quite a bit of progress since that photo (exterior is essentially done) but I will save that for my own thread if I start one But, I do want to THANK YOU yaksplat for the inspiration to keep going on it by seeing your amazing efforts on your project. Very much appreciate you bringing us all along on this very ambitious project - as always, looking forward to seeing the continued progress whenever you can update us!