Even though I haven’t been posting I have been taking a picture as things get completed, Here’s a catch-up on the progress.

This is where the old pantry was, new pantry is to the left.

In the above picture you can see some pipes and wires hanging down on the left side of the old pantry. These were in the wall of the pantry that I tore out. I had a plumber look at putting the pipes in the load bearing wall. Couldn’t be done as I  have a large laminate beam along the floor right there that he didn’t want to cut. You can see in the picture below that I ended up building a small chase down the wall. The fridge will go there eventually, so the chase will run up the side of the fridge when it’s all said and done.

Here’s pics of the exterior

This is how I got my Vinyl siding home, I drive it to work like this then home from work. It sat in the parking deck through the afternoon like this.

Here most of the drywall is done in the new pantry and in the picture following the drywall is completed and painted.

I don’t have pictures of the shelving up yet. I’ll get a couple when the wall where the fridge is going is finished and post one more porchry post. Maybe a video is a good way to finish off the series.

1. attach the ground wire to the electrical housing.
2. make sure to insulate under the floor

I got to the office around lunch time. Nice.

Insulation
On the way home from work I stopped and picked up the insulation. If you can build your frame 16″ on center you will save yourself a whole lot of heartache! The floor was 16″ on center and the walls were 12″ The floor insulation when in to place with little effort. I had to cut each and every one of the other strips (batts?) of insulation to get them into the wall frame. Insulation only comes 15″ wide and the wall needed 11″.

Oh well, a little more time, I’m learning right? Here’s what we look like now:

Already called and ordered the insulation inspection. I’m working on getting some house wrap from a guy on craigslist and I already have the drywall. So hopefully will get to hang the drywall after the inspection tomorrow and will probably try and get the house wrap hung as soon as we dry out around here(been. It’s been raining quite a bit around here, in the time it takes to let the osb dry out a bit I can get that house wrap from the guy on craigslist.

Drilled into the concrete today and bolted the frame to the concrete. Also added a pressure treated frame for the floor. Here’s what it all looks like now:

[bp@ocean ~]# find /keywest -type f -name ‘*.tar’ -depth -exec rm -f {} \;

Framing
Today I got the first wall framed. Quite a learning experience. I found a different neighbor this time to help me lift what I had constructed and help me get it in place. We had to try three different approaches before the frame landed properly. While he was helping me his builder came by that was going to build his deck and game me his card. He didn’t wince at the work I had done so far, maybe that’s a good thing. I put two nails to hold it in place until I secure it finally and one of them i couldn’t get out to shift the frame slightly. Need to get a nail puller of some kind to get the final alignment of the frame. I’ll get to that.

Hoping to be ready for rough in inspection Friday. As long as I can get to building the other frame before then I have a friend coming Friday morning to help me with some of the details of completing the framing. Here’s my first wall framed:

Electrical
Had a neighbour come and help with getting the electrical started. Still need to thread the line up into the ceiling. Not sure if I’m going to run wire for sockets yet.

Porch is ready to be framed:

Introduction
I have often read peoples accounts of projects they have taken on and blogged about along the way. I’m about to pursue an endeavour I have zero experience in and thought it would be fun to blog about it.

If you look at these pdfs ( pantry_house_1-4 & pantry_1-2 ) you’ll see the plan I submitted to the Town of Apex in application for the building permit that give a basic layout of my first floor of my house the construction of the frame for the walls. Creating the pantry will open up our kitchen space so that we can remodel it and gain lots of counter top and cabinet space, which we severely lack right now.

Pemission
First step, which I almost forgot to do, was to get permission from the Town and the HOA. A huge applause for my HOA! I submitted my request last Tuesday to the management company, was visited by the president of the HOA Wednesday for a 5 min review, left for vacation to the beach thursay and had an approval letter in the mail when I returned Saturday evening. A second applause for the Town of Apex. I submitted my building permit application Thursday before I left for vacation and despite their being short a set of hands in the office they still beat their usual five day turn around. I was called Monday morning with an inviation to pick up (and pay for) my approval. $75 bucks for the building permit and $40 bucks for the electrical. I have no idea if that’s reasonable or not. On the other hand, what choice do I have?

My plans estimated a $600 build cost. We’ll see how that goes. I plan to keep track of the cost of materials and leave out the cost of tools that I add to my collection along the way Though, I think I’ll be able to borrow tools I need.

Investigation
My plans called for ten foot walls and replacing the column on the porch with a set of double treated 2x4s. This was a rough guess that I don’t think is too far off from what I needed. I’d torn out pieces of the siding and moulding on the porch to form a plan of attack and decided yesterday to go get my first round of materials:

• 4 treated 2′x4′x10′s
• 2 treated 2′x4′x8′s
• 16 2′x4′x105″ studs
• 4 2′x4′x96″ studs
• Box of galvanized nails
• Box of Decking Screws
• 5 Red Head masonry anchor bolts

Already up to $140, I had estimated $55 for framing materials. Oops!

Fun story here. On my plans I did not specify how I would attach the frame to the existing porch foundation. The town wrote in that they expected me to use !/2″ anchor bolts 6′ on center no more then 12″ from the corners. I wanted to be sure I bought the correct bolts so I asked someone at Lowes what would fit this requirement. The employee told me that anchor bolts are set in concrete when it’s poured and that I would probably have to re-pour a new foundation. I was confused with this so I started to call the town to ask what I was missing. Before I could complete dialling the number a guys approached me, apologized for eaves dropping my conversation and offered his assistance,  worked in construction, as he thought he had overhead me getting misinformation. He proceeded to kindly lead me to the proper anchor bolts and walk me through a very detailed instruction on how to use them. I had a few more questions but was interrupted by my 2 yr old asking me to take him to the potty, who later told me that he wanted his mommy and “Lowes is not fun”. I hoped he just meant that particular visit since he usually has fun there riding the lawn mowers. So we went and got the lumber and I let him ride on the flat bed cart. Hopefully this was a decent recovery.

So here’s a picture of the porch post investigation:

The column is a hollow pvc like construction. I’m not sure if it’s weight or load bearing so I’m going to treat it like it is. You can’t see it in this pic, but the foundation is painted brick like next to the wood steps in this pic with a layer at the top of unpainted brick and filled in with concrete. Standard porch? as far as I know. At this point I’m working to tear out enough of the molding and siding to take exact measurements for the frame and start to build it. Once I have the measurements I need to cut and construct each wall frame and put them into place. Once in place I’ll drill through the wood into the brick/concrete to attach the frame to the foundation. Then I’ll use the deck screws to attach the frame to the existing walls.

More to come.

I ended up scooping it up with my hands and putting it in a cardboard box to get it in the trashcan. Otherwise it probably would have solidified in a huge blob in my driveway, and existed for what would have seemed like eternity.

On the other hand… I think the tile job in the downstairs bathroom turned out pretty decent. This photo is pre-grout. If I remember to I’ll take another photo in a finished state.