Parade home update

The framing of our parade home has been completed on May 1st 2008. It is really beginning to take shape as you are able to see the wide open floor plan and the large window openings that will offer a nice view.  Well I made a change during the framing phase that will end costing a couple of thousand dollars extra but I believe it will really have a nice impact. I will talk in detail about it when we move a little farther along but it has to do with adding a very beautiful coffered ceiling in the formal dining room.  As I tell all my clients making changes during construction can have a impact on the bottom dollar and try and refrain from doing this as much as you can, but I believe this will really be worth it.  The patio screen contractor was out at the job site this week and we worked out the details for mounting the screen tracks so they are incorporated into the brick columns on the patio. It is very important on things such as this to have a very cooperative team of contractors that are willing to work together to make the end result what you want and I will say here at Montgomery Homes Inc. we have just that.  The roofing contractors will be installing the roofing in the next few days and the windows will be installed as soon as they come in. It is at this point I always feel good about a house because it is in the dry and out of the direct weather elements.  I have completed the electrical plan and the structured wiring plan as here within our company we draw our own plans so we have the ability to draw exactly what a customer wants within in the plan as far as electric, stereo wiring and structured phone, cable wiring. I will be reviewing these plans with the electrical contractor prior to him getting started.  The fireplaces are ordered and will be installed this coming week.  My wife who does the decorating and coordinating of all colors, will begin the selection process of all interior materials, as well as exterior colors.  So I am very pleased with the progress that is being made at the job site and we would like to see you out there some time.

Spring time

Well I think spring has finally sprung here in the central part of Oklahoma that is.  The grass is beginning to green up the trees and landscaping are coming out of hibernation and things are starting to look real good. I really like when all the Bradford pear trees bloom out as this is one of my favorites.  I am seeing people out in their yards and bed areas working them over.  This is a great time of year.  Well a little bit of update on the show home we are constructing in the beautiful Stone Mill subdivision in Yukon Oklahoma, on Thursday of last week the framing crew showed up and started laying out where the walls will go.  This sounds probably trivial but it is at this stage right here where you house gets squared up so that they are level and in correct relation with each other.  If a framer lays out the walls out of square it makes the sheetrock stage hard to do, it will make tile floors grout lines not be parallel with the walls in other words nothing good will take place.  I find as a contractor this is a great time to spend at the job site because some times walls have to be shifted a little bit to make a plumbing line work properly or maybe make cabinets and trim fit into corners like they should.  After walls are chalked out on the slab the framers go to work putting down the 2 x 4 sill plate and we like to use  liquid nail under all the sill plates for a good bond to the slab.  By the end of the day of Friday about 2/3’s of the walls were framed up with window and door openings in them.  This next week I will be meeting with my cast stone contractor and we will be discussing cast stone mantles, hood surrounds and some details possibly for the exterior fascade.  The framers will continue on with the walls and on up from there.  Brick will be ordered this week and the windows are on order. We will continue to press on from here.

Show home update

Well we have returned from the Kitchen and Bath show in Chicago over this past weekend and wow was it a large convention. If you have ever been to the McCormick Convention Center there in Chicago the show filled up all 3 convention halls as I believe there were over 900 exhibitors. Got to see a lot of new products that are going to be on the market soon or have just come out onto the market in some areas.  Lots of attendees from all over the country were there to see the show.  My wife and I had never been to Chicago before so we did not know really what to expect.  I must say although it turned off very cold and that wind that blows in off of Lake Michigan does have a bite to it, we had a fantastic time as Chicago has a very beautiful architectural aray of buildings and high rises.  We took a architectural boat trip down the Chicago river to tour and hear the history of many of the buildings along the river.  We also went up to the observation deck of the Sears tower and that is way up in the air and what a beautiful site it was as we got up there about 7:00 and stayed until after dark to see the city lights come on.  So hopefully we can incorporate some of the new ideas and products into our show home that we are building in the beautiful Stone Mill subdivision that I started talking about in our last blog.  Here is what is happening on the job now, we got all the plumbing drain lines and water lines installed in the foundation area the 1st part of this week followed by our city inspection for plumbing.  Today, Wednesday we poured the concrete slab in the house floor and garage floor. In pouring the slab we like to install steel at every inside corner to help minimize the cracking issues and also the next day after it is poured we like to saw cut the slab so that in the event that the slab cracks we hope it will crack over to a saw cut area and stop there.  The saying about concrete is that it does 2 things 1 is it will get hard and the 2nd is that it will crack. So we try and do what we can to help minimize this.  The framing crew will be moving onto the site in the next couple of days and it will begin to resemble a house.  I will be ordering the windows this week so that we have all the necessary window measurements.  I will be taking some pictures and try to point out some issues that we here at Montgomery Homes Inc. feel are critical and not to be overlooked in the framing process.

Parade home progression schedule

The weather held together this week and we got our foundation and stem wall in on Friday. The area that we build in here in the Oklahoma City metro area we put in a concrete footing 18-20″ deep with 4 bars of continuous steel tied up horizontally in the footing. When that is set up for at least a day we then use plywood forms and set a 6″ wide stemwall on top of the footing. It is at this early point of construction that you can start to see you boundry lines and what kind of an area you wil have for yard and landscaping. It is also when the stemwall is installed that I have had clients call and ask the question, are you sure my house is as big as it should be as it just does not lot very big. I always answer the same and say wait until the walls start being framed and you will see your room sizes begin to take shape.  The next step in our schedule will be for the plumbing contractor to come in and install all the drain lines and the water lines according to local building codes.  We like to go ahead and get our sewer line stubbed out and if possible go ahead and hook it up to the city main sewer and that way this deep ditch can have time to settle during the course of construction.  My wife and I will be headed to Chicago this week to attend the National Kitchen and Bath show as we here at Montgomery Homes Inc. feel it is very important to stay educated on the latest design trends and products that are new to the market.  My wife does our decorating in the new homes that we build and so she will be on the look out for some new stuff to put in our show home.  We will report next week on the progess that was made on the home as well as what we learned at the show.