We have a second story (and a roof!)

The last 15 or so days since I updated the blog have been extremely busy. We traveled to Nashville to see my sister receive her Master's degree in Nursing, we have a new nephew, and we had a wonderful visit from Matt & Jen Nomey! It's been a wonderfully crazy two weeks, but I have been remiss in updated the house photos.

They have made TONS of progress. We even have a scheduled completion date: February 26, 2014! If I knew enough HTML to put that in Hollywood-style lights, I would.

Around July 30, the framing of the second floor was underway.

It was at this point that I started getting very worried about the proportions of the house.

The upstairs was "walkable" for the first time about August 3:

Kevin heads up the stairs for the first time

View looking to the front of the house from the top of the stairs

The back bedroom (Hellooooo neighbor's yard....)

 The framing of the roof started really quickly,

I didn't realize how blurry this was until I posted it. Oops.

And two days later we had this!

Then the dormers started to get finished!

The interior started to change a bit too. They framed the archways between the kitchen and living rooms. The wall will be reclaimed brick, and a double-sided fireplace will be in the center. After much drama regarding whether we could have a ventless fireplace, mostly due to our architect's decision to be an idiot rather than admit that Houston's Code had changed until long after we had settled the plans, we finally ordered an Isokern unit that looks the way I want it to (Kevin doesn't exactly get his panties in a twist over fireplaces) and won't get us into trouble with the city. We aren't planning on doing it on a regular basis, and maybe never, but this fireplace CAN be wood-burning, which is kind of cool.

View from the kitchen side

View from the living room side

 They framed the shower (Kevin's excited)

Where my clawfoot bathtub will be (I am excited)

And, the views from the back yard:

View of the master bedroom windows:

Late this week, about August 7, they started doing the plywood sheathing around the house. You can see a big difference in the upstairs bedrooms:

The same bedroom, a day later

 Our stairs got a very swanky city of Houston required railing.

 What will be unfinished storage space over the kitchen:

The view of the upstairs, looking to the front of the house.

The study, starting to look like an actual room!

This is the house as of today, August 10. They are working to get the fascia on so that they can get the house "blacked in" - it won't be completely dried in at that point, but we won't be getting the second floor rained on, either. We have been extremely fortunate with the weather! It rained a lot at the beginning of July, but our framing has only been sprinkled on a couple of times.

Back of the house

My favorite part of the house - our back porch

Kevin says hello

 I can't wait to be able to hang a swing on this porch. Which reminds me, I need to remind our site supervisor that I'll be hanging swings!