On our 4 day trip up to Summerland we met with our contractor and the electrician. With the electrician we went through each room to determine the placement of switches, receptacles, lights, heaters and thermostats. We also visited many stores to start making finishing decisions. We selected the colours of the soffits, roof shingles, Hardie Board and trim. We found flooring which we think will work well. We also looked at plumbing fixtures but need to discuss our choices with the plumber.

All the second exterior walls have been erected and the roof trusses have been installed. Work is also proceeding on the first floor internal partitions. The supply line feeding the electrical panel is in. The backfilling around the house has now started. Unfortunately the geo-tech is requiring that a rock mixture is used for the backfilling – our builder was hoping to be able to backfill with free material.

Our builder is now wanting us to make a whole lot of decisions about materials and colours to be used. We are meeting with the electrician tomorrow to go over where switches, receptacles, light fixtures and electric heaters will go. Our builder wants to get the roofing done soon and have the trades start next week.

The new webcam is up and running so hopefully we will get some pictures of the progress as seen from outside the house.

The back wall pour completed yesterday as planned and the bills arrived today.

Our builder has started the framing of the second floor. Here is a picture of the lake side wall taken by John Gregg.

The second floor retailing wall form has been completed and the plan is to do the pour tomorrow morning. The road will be closed from 7:30 until 11:30 am. Thanks to John Gregg for the picture.

We just received the BC Surveyor’s Certification of Location of the Foundation, along with the bill. We also received word that the windows and external doors are complete and can be delivered at any time.

Our builder put the second storey floor in place and has started working on the form for the top section of the retaining wall. Unfortunately the rebar people were not available this week so the form cannot be completed. It would have been good to have it done because the weather is expected to warm up considerably at the end of this week.

Sandra Broughton was kind enough to send us some pictures of the progress.

After taking a Christmas break, our builder has started back at it. He is currently working on the first floor and doing the floor system of the second floor.

We had much discussion about the stairs going between floors. Our builder suggested that using a half wall instead of railings would be less expensive. We decided on putting a half across the stair opening in the great room and putting a wall along the side of the upper section of the stairs instead of railings as we had originally planned. There will be railings on the landing and lower section of stairs. See pictures below.

Our build would like to get the backfilling done so he can put up scaffolding to work on the upper floor but it has been too cold put complete the application of the damp proofing on the foundation.

We made an attempt at getting the webcam working again but we only got one picture. Fortunately, our neighbour John Gregg took these pictures.

A new camera has been ordered but it is not expected to arrive until Jan 13th. Then we need to get it to Summerland. So we could be without webcam pictures for a while yet,

Our Structural Engineer takes a lot of pictures at each of his many inspections. Here are some that help show the progress of the build.

Looking south down the hall from the small bathroom

A north bedroom

Looking towards lake side door and Mechanical/Laundry room

Top of sump pump tank and Mechanical/ Laundry Room plumbing

Looking towards main bathroom and southwest bedroom doors

Southeast bedroom

Looking north towards the small bathroom

Looking east from the back of the south side deck

Looking north from the east side deck

Here are a couple of pictures taken by our builder.

Floor rebar before the pour looking south towards where the main bathroom will be

This is after the floor was poured and finished. Looking north towards the small bathroom

This is the floor in the large south east bedroom with support structure for ceiling slab as designed by the structural engineer

According to our builder the floor is curing nicely and he has started building the support structure for the pouring of the ceiling concrete. However, there is no evidence of anything happening from the outside. We will try to get our builder to send a picture of what is happening on the inside.

Last Photo received on Dec 16th at 4:00 pm

The last picture from the webcam was uploaded at 4:00 pm on Friday. The temperature has been extremely cold overnight and it may have been so low that the camera  shutdown. Unfortunately those who we would normally ask to try to restart it have come down to the coast for Christmas. Therefore, there may not be any new pictures from the webcam for at least a week or so.

Even though the temperature was really cold, our builder has gone ahead and poured the concrete for the first floor slab. I guess the heaters will be running full out for a while.