Building a new house in our yard

Our charming old house from 1924 is getting too big for Knut and I. Both kids have moved out, and although the house is filled to the brim once or twice a year, most of the time it's just a big house with a big yard that requires lots of upkeep when we'd rather be at the cabin!

We have been looking for a new home for years, we've looked at several homes all over Sandnes, but nothing caught our interest. Way back in 1989, when we bought this house we said something like "The yard is so big that we could build a house there some day." Well that some day is now and we are doing it.

We found a wonderful architect who helped us through the red tape of dividing the property, found us a contractor and drew our dream house.

So after all that was done, the first excavators arrived early in the morning on January 2nd this year to start digging. 

Here they are looking for some water pipes that needed moving.

Getting ready to pour the cement.

The basement walls are in place

Everything with black insulation will be under ground.

The front where there will be a garage and spare bedroom

Starting on the second floor.

The garage is closest to us, you can see the stair well in the center.

The floor is almost ready

Raising the second floor. Check out the steel beams supporting the overhang 

They have filled in all that is under ground. This will be our porch.

Raising the walls 

The roof is finished. Heaters are on inside to dry it out

The roofing will be black tar paper.

This will be the kitchen. 

This will be our bedroom

Yessir, the windows are installed!

I was afraid that the old apple tree would bite the dust and had to take several pictures of it. But they managed to keep it after all. Whew.

The excavator is back to finish some work behind the house and bury the water pipes.

View of the porch area. Looking into the TV room/guest bedroom. Both the kitchen and the guest bedroom will have doors to the porch.

View from the southeast. They have started with the siding.

The siding is cedar wood. We won't be treating it, it will just weather naturally.

View from the northwest. Here you see our living room windows to the right and out bedroom windows to the left.

Peeking inside the kitchen window, we see the painters at work.

The siding on the southeast wall is finished.

Linda admiring the details of the siding.