Timber Trail Front Porch

Here is an old picture of Timber Trail before any outside work.

BEFORE

AFTER!Notice the new front door, trimed out windows, shutters, new windows, porch, and reverse gable..

Josh is replacing the front deck and adding a few blocks so we can center the deck under the door. It took us almost 16 months to get the building permit because we were within 50 feet of a creek that drains 50 or more acres. Miracles never cease!
Here are Shawn and I laying out the reverse dormer. The front porch part is finished. We added front steps in an angular design to create the feeling of welcome and they tend to draw the eye to the porch/entryway.Max, Shawn, and I starting to frame the reverse gable. We had some fantastic weather with no rain till we had the roof on and felted in.Rough framing complete. Notice the beautiful arched front. Adding the arch took a somewhat squatty home and gave it a larger, grander appearance with a focial point. Also looking out from the inside you don't even see the porch. It also lets in a lot of light. Good job Al on the design.

Me, Josh, and Shawn.The almost finished product. We still have the patio to put down, hand railings to install, cover the brick chimney in stone, and a few trim details. If you noticed the large messy maple tree is also gone. We had Bob Finley from Finley's Tree Service remove it for us. Good job Bob.The stack of bricks are the pavers that should be going down next week some time.

Progress

Here are some recent photos of the house progress. We pored the concrete for the front porch last week and stamped in a slate pattern. It looks great. I trialed in some black die with black release agent to give a dark black grey look with some very light grey coming through. The idea was to balance the dark roof.

As you can see the columns arrived and we installed them as well. Sure does adds stability and a since of strength to the front.

Also the front walls are ready for the finish coat of butter colored stucco.
Here is the north side with the finished stucco on. It is looking very yellow in these pictures but it is really a buff color. We are trying to get an old world French country look. The partial stones are to simulate old walls with the plaster falling off.


Here is the gable end of the garage. The bottom section will be totally filled in with stone and the top will get stucco around the stones.

This is a good picture showing the rough grading. The land gently undulates. All the windows are in place and most of the doors.
Front doors are in.
Good picture of the back yard and sound mound. Big mound.

This is the sand mound going in. Yes it is as large as it looks. After a perk and probe a state certified designer designs the sand mound and you build it to their specifications. Evidently the soil was not very porous so consequently the large mound. Here we are putting 10' of 2 B stone on top of 38" of lime dust. On top of the stone will go 10" of top soil. We were joking that when we are done it will be the 19th tee off spot. It looks just like the 12th tee in the background. All the stone in place and rough grading around the mound.
These are the two tanks that the sewage flows to after it leaves the house. The first tank is the settling tank and the second is the dosing tank. The liquids from the dosing tank get pumped up to the sand mound and are distributed around the sand mound through a series of pipes. The liquids then leaches slowly back into the ground.
The white pipe will be connected to the pump in the dosing tank,

This is the front of Timber Trail house. We are getting the site ready for a new deck and patio. There was once a large maple tree at the corner of the house which we removed and now we are removing the roots. We have waited almost a year for approval from DEP to start this project because we are within 50 feet of a stream that drains 100 acres or more. Front of Larch with some of the grading done and the front doors in. We have not had much time to work on the new house, we are still seeing progress.
Garage is filled in almost ready for concrete.
The back of the house rough graded and some of the casement windows in. Tyvek on and doors and windows properly prepped for installation.

Fisher Brothers installing shingles

We work with many subcontractors who specialize in certain trades, roofing being one of them. I enjoy doing the hard physical labor of roofing but my back sometimes gives me trouble so I personally only occasionally get involved in the actual roofing. Although I did personally stock all 180 bundles of shingles on the roof last week.
We did a job for a customer some time ago and I noticed the roof was very professionally done. I enquired who did the roof and eventually made a connection with the Fisher brothers. They are 5 Amish brothers who started a roofing and siding company called Sunrise Exteriors. The brothers are Steve, John, Daniel, Amos, and Paul. Great guys with a wonderful sense of humor who enjoy hard work.
The temperatures the past few days have been hovering around 95 degrees and extremely humid. The Fisher brothers just kept right on going, doing an excellent job as usual.
Daniel, one of the brothers has not joined the church so he is the designated truck owner and driver. Daniel is the one who is not in black pants and not wearing a shirt.

Plywood on roof, shingles ready to go on.

As you can see the trusses are up, the sheathing is on, and the bundles of shingles are ready to be installed.

I like this view of the house. This was taken from beside the 12th fairway. This spot was where we took our family portrait last year.
We have five Amish brothers coming to help us to install the shingles. The tempetatures are going to be around 98.
Al took this shot from inside our living room looking south.