Above 1200 Sq/FT So it begins, our new build in DFW

[jsherid1]

We just broke ground on our new house in Lucas (NE of Dallas in Collin County)

The groundbreaking crew hard at work



The garage (described in detail in Introduce Yourself) is a total of six bays in three two car units. Two of the units are part of the house itself and the third will be attached by a porte cohere. There will be a shop area between the two integral garage areas and a storage room for all the **** my wife moves out into my garage space. Above the garage will be a 500 square foot loft area with a stub in for a bathroom.

The forms are built, plumbing is roughed in and should pour the slab next week. I will try to document the build as much as I can on here and suggestions are always welcome.

Cell phone pic of the plan:



The loft

 

[JordonMusser]

Looks nice.. and HUGE! Also building in Collin County.. but City of Dallas.

 

[jsherid1]

Thanks Jordon--I will be hitting you up for wiring suggestions/guidance once we get into the framing stage. I'm still trying to sort out WiFi, Nest and all the other systems that are available these days.

I am glad we are finally at the forms stage, now the house has to stop growing. Now if I can figure out how to block HGTV on our cable I'll be all set....

 

[55cadillacking]

2013 CTS-V Wagon
2008 Escalade
1987 Porsche 928S4
1977 Coupe DeVille
1969 Chris Craft Cherokee (32' sailboat)

Quite a dream fleet of vehicles there! Those V-wagons are quite rare around these parts. I've seen 1 or 2 since they were produced. Good luck with your build. Seems like it will be an amazing space.

 

[dh1]

Lucas? Nice area, get it while you can

 

[jsherid1]

55Cadillac--thanks, the "fleet" is what keeps me sane sometimes. The V-Wagons are pretty rare around here as well but the other day when I went to get the new registration sticker for the V-Wagon what did I find parking next to me?



DH1--thanks, we chose the area for the school district and the ability to get some space around us.

 

[jsherid1]

A bit more progress to report--vapor barrier is down, beam trenches dug and steel/post tension cables are down. The slab gets poured tomorrow or thursday!

 

[Ed Litsch]

Nice place. This place will be awesome. Keep us posted.

 

[jsherid1]

Lots of activity yesterday as the slab was poured--just under 300 yards of concrete which required a lot of trucks...



They used a Putzmeister (I always chuckle when I hear that name having grown up with a lot of Jewish friends--putz does not mean pump in Yiddish) to distribute the concrete--



They were really sparing with the water in the mix, I had a friend who is a structural engineer check in a few times on the pour and he was very happy with what he saw and he thinks the cylinders will test out at 4000-4500 PSI or more. (He said it like that is a good thing, my thinking on PSI is limited to boost).

I'll take some photos of the finished slab this evening or tomorrow. They were working on the finishing of it until well after dark last night. Will be very interested in seeing what it looks like in the light of day.

 

[jsherid1]

Thanks Ed, I'll finally have some space after a very tight 3 car in our old house that could really only handle two cars when one is a 221" long boat like my 77 CDV!

 

[jsherid1]

A few pictures of the slab under overcast skies

General shot



Two of the garages with the shop area in between (the triangle) and the storage room behind the second garage (back wall will run from the back of the garage to the exterior wall)





The breezeway (porte cochere) and the third garage

 

[JordonMusser]

How many sqft is this beast?

 

[cdrewferd]

Wow, 300 yards of concrete is a lot for a garage. Can't wait to see this beast come together.

 

[jsherid1]

The garage/storage/shop space is 2,000 square feet. The house is a bit larger....

 

[jsherid1]

Just to be clear, the 300 yards is for the house and the garage. If only it was just garage...I could be happy. The women in my family, not so much.

 

[jsherid1]

Walls starting to go up...

From left to right is a two car bay, the triangular shop area with stairs up to my man cave and another two car bay



The rear two car bay and the entrance to the storage room



Both of the integral bays, the porte cochere and the third two car garage

 

[dubber]

I am glad we are finally at the forms stage, now the house has to stop growing. Now if I can figure out how to block HGTV on our cable I'll be all set....

Good luck on your build. Epic quote!

 

[jsherid1]

HGTV has been responsible for a lot of "I saw this on HGTV and wouldn't it be cool if..." quotes from a certain household member that have resulted in things getting added. Of course, GJ has done the same on the garage front so maybe it balances out....

 

[dubber]

HGTV has been responsible for a lot of "I saw this on HGTV and wouldn't it be cool if..." quotes from a certain household member that have resulted in things getting added. Of course, GJ has done the same on the garage front so maybe it balances out....

This really reminds me of something i heard David Chilton say at a conference a couple weeks ago. He said that the four most expensive letters in the alphabet are H, G, T, V. He went on to talk about a funny anecdote regarding the ‘granite counter-top phenomenon’ where people feel they’re a failure if they don’t have granite counter-tops in their homes. Was definitely a fun perspective, but i've got to admit I'm guilty of this myself.

 

[jsherid1]

In our case it has been the "Mightswells" that got us. While we are doing this, we mightswell do this too...I did that when restoring my sailboat a number of years ago (difference was it was me doing the work and material costs were low) and it sat out of the water for two years while I went thru the whole thing.

This is our dream house and we are fortunate to be in the position to do what we want with it but the purchasing (I help large companies reduce the cost of purchased goods and services for a living) guy in me dies a little inside each time the price goes up.

 

[MacTexas]

I told my contractor at the beginning of the project. I have your bid for the job requested now all I have to worry about is "scope creep". The scope of the job will change and it will always cost more money. Sure enough, it happened, but in the end it was worth it.

 

[jsherid1]

Scope creep is something I've become really familiar with on this project. I hope it comes out as well as your build did.

 

[Hdtheater]

After HGTV, comes Pinterest. Nice to see the walls go up there.

-Eric

 

[jsherid1]

Aw ****, I'd forgotten about Pintrest....

With this weather it may be a while before we see some more progress!

 

[Hdtheater]

It actually kept me an my wife in sync when we bought our house. I saw what she wanted and could have realistic conversations about budget.

-Eric

 

[jsherid1]

I figure i'll use the cost of her upgrades as defense for when I spend money on kitting out the garages. What could go wrong with that plan....he said rhetorically.

 

[jsherid1]

Between my travel schedule and the ice storm I haven't had a chance to get out to the site in two weeks. Will post pics tomorrow of the framing progress.

 

[Hdtheater]

They'll be laying carpet tomorrow.

 

[jsherid1]

She got a sister?

 

[Hdtheater]

She got a sister?

Tile. They also have a brother named Hardwood.

 

[jsherid1]

You can almost hear the internet groan.

 

[Hdtheater]

You can almost hear the internet groan.

Work with me.

 

[wannabridin]

loving the v-wagon. I love wagon's in general, especially super sleepers!! nice to see another DFW-person, wish i had that space and funds for the house!! good luck

 

[jsherid1]

Thanks man--will be interesting to see what I find when I get over there today.

 

[JordanFTW]

Can't wait to see the finished product!

 

[jsherid1]

Here's the progress, the roof structure is going up.









The site is really muddy and I did not have boots yesterday--will get better pics of the garage this afternoon

 

[Chuck S.]

Jim,
Looking good man!!

I'll give you a shout after the holidays and come out to see it in person!!

 

[jsherid1]

Been a while between posts but the holiday season necessitated a bit of travel so I haven't been around my computer for a while....

Without further delay here are the pics of the progress

The overall view of the man cave complex with the storage room, twin two car bays, the drive thru and the third two car bay with the original roofline over the twin two car bays...more on that in a bit.



It was when they sheathed the roof that we noticed a problem with the rooflines over the twin two car garages...



The architect had drawn in the loft and bathroom on the floorplans but had not changed the rooflines over the garage to reflect the need for headroom. As a result, Vern Troyer (Mini Me from Austin Powers) would not have had adequate headroom on the stairs or in the bathroom on the loft level. This pic is where the stairs will go and you can see the roofline is right there.






To their immense credit the builder did not quibble at all and will be tearing off this section of the roof structure and building the roof over the twin two car garages with a top plate of 18 feet allowing me to have the vaulted ceiling in the rear garage and a larger loft over the front garage as well as giving me adequate headroom for the bathroom. I'll also gain some windows on the back so that I can put in a window AC unit as a temporary cooling solution until I put in the Central Air/Heat unit.

On the plus side, the rest of the house seems to be coming along nicely--it will be Hill Country/Craftsman with a brick and stone facade.

 

[MSD Shop]

where is the " clap clap " applause button? That right there is a thing of beauty sir. Nice work!

 

[Speedfreak5150]

Hi just wondering how many bedrooms your new house is? The writing on the plan is really hard to read and from the picture of the plan there looks to be more house,