
Alex and his crew are moving along quickly now, and the first floor framing is pretty complete. He’s now framing out the second floor, and will be placing 3rd floor joists within a few days.
Here are some pics, showing details.


This is the underside of the 2nd floor, looking from the corner along the back wall of the left garage. The house and framing are square on the right side, but Alex had to make this special V-shaped frame to accommodate the back wall of the garage, which is not square to the rest of the site.
More fallout from the mistakes of the first GC. Fortunately, the 2nd floor back wall will be hidden behind a closet.
In the right picture, the central stairway, temporarily installed for construction. The number of stairs is correct, so we can feel how spacious and easy to use this stair will be. The real stairs will be wider, connecting to a center dividing wall with railing. We are building an altar area in the space below the upper stair, for a large marble buddha statue that we own. The space under the landing will contain the elevator machinery, for the elevator going into the shaft on the left.


Second floor, looking from the left bedroom toward the right bedroom. Alex, Nancy and Bob are discussing framing details.
That little wall with white plastic in the upper background is a problem… This extra wall needs to be removed. This is up on the shelf in the right side of the foundation, where the 3rd floor joists will go. The blue lines on the wall mark the location of the headers for the joists, and this little return wall is about 20” too high. We’ll have to cut it off, and use a pneumatic hammer and hack saw (for the rebar) to remove the part in the way. Otherwise, this would stick through the floor in the living room.
By the way, this wall is not really an error. We couldn’t tell ahead of time exactly where the foundation wall and this shelf would meet the slope of the hillside. This wall was put in place to hold the fill dirt in place when we rebuilt the slope behind the right wing wall. As it turns out, the slope meets the foundation just below the bottom of this return, so it’s not necessary.
I think Alex has made great progress over his first 2 weeks on the job. He and his team are working very smoothly, and the progress each day is exciting.