Wow! You can see the progress that has been made since Tuesday (from top to bottom). We have had a lot of volunteers (family-BIG thanks to the Ortner boys...especially Andy & Joe...and Al!) All the shinglings has been put on except a couple small areas and about half the windows in. Our electrician, Dave Haskin, has made some great headway inside and out of the house. He has most of his wiring down inside and today got the can lights in the "eyebrows" outside......VERY COOL!!

BIG, BIG thanks to everyone who has spent either their weekend off, have worked on their vacation days at the house or have watched little Mack Daddy while we have been working out there. It is greatly appreciated, more than you'll ever know!

Wednesday, Dec 13th, the guys worked on the garage and stoop. I don't have a picture of it but they got 1/2 the rafters on the garage today with Chris's help after school and before their night practice. Earlier this week, they completed the upstairs walls (except the walls that will be effected by the rafters). You will see some interior shots....I have taken a picture of the walls/rooms from the main floor. The top pic is a bedroom, next is the entryway where the catwalk is open to both side of the main floor, third is another bedroom, then the bathroom (you can see the tub/shower in there) and then the sitting area which had to be created to make all the roof lines work. Not sure what we will do with that but I am sure we'll figure something out. Tomorrow they are going to finish the garage rafters tomorrow. Friday the cement guys will be back to pour the stoop and Doug & Mke will start setting rafters on the house.

Sunday, Dec 10th, Doug, Mike, & Chris worked most of the day on the second floor. They had some much needed help from Chris's brothers Kevin & Joe. As you can see they made some serious head way with the second floor today. It was a bit nerve racking with Doug scaling the 2nd story back wall with nothing but the ground (3 stories down) or the main floor for him to land on each side of him!!! They got all the exterior walls up except the right side (from the front view), which will be completed tomorrow. More scary moments to follow...the rafters and roof. Most of the shots are of the exterior walls going up on the second floor but the one is me standing in the sitting area on the second floor looking down at the great room, dining room, where the stairs will be and on the right hand corner you can see a doorway to the pantry in the kitchen. I know pics are hard to visualize so I am trying to explain the best I can! BEAUTIFUL DAY (you can see that Mike was wearing a s/s t-shirt:)

Tuesday, Dec. 5th, all the main floor walls have been completed on the inside. They will be back on Thurs, Dec. 7th to close up the main floor and begin to put the floor joists on to the second floor. I will help navigate you through the pics of the interior thus far. The 1st pic is a shot of our master bedroom, 2nd pic is a shot of our great room & slider (where the deck will be), the 3rd shot is a pic of the kitchen and pantry (it is kind of hard to see in this picture but all the way to the left you can see where the door will be to enter). The other shots are of each side of the house and their progress.

Sorry the top pics are dark...we got out there just in time to grasp some of the daylight. You can see they filled most of the stoop/porch area and Speidel started to dig the well. On Saturday, Dec 2nd, Doug was back with his two sons who worked for part of the day and got most of the outside walls done on the main floor. One picture is the front of the house and the other is the back. Not bad for a few hours of work! I will update more this week because they will be there all week long, with pics in the daylight, sorry! In case you didn't know, you can double click on a picture and it enlarges it if you have a hard time seeing a picture.

The Ortner House Process

The Ortner House Process

Doug, Mike & Chris got done the basement/walkout all enclosed on Friday, November 24th.

Our builders, Doug & Mike Reiter started on Tuesday, Nov. 21st and they didn't mess around! Also, the garage floor was poured and the septic work began on the 22nd. Here is the work they got done in two days by Doug, Mike and Chris (helped on Wed after school). With it being Thxgiving week they were off on Thurs. but hard at it again on Friday the 24th with Chris's help again. I will post the Friday's (24th) progress asap. They got a ton done on Friday!

On Nov. 14th, Webb Concrete got the basement floor poured and Larry Federspiel got all the back filling done so it is starting to take shape. Larry had to bring in about 10 loads of black dirt to fill in the front stoop area. Next week will be a big progress week. The basement floor gets poured as well as the well getting drilled, septic put in, and Doug, our builder, starts. The first picture is a front shot of the house and gargage from the street, the second it a top view from the garage wall I was standing on, the last two shots are of the house from the back side. One is the left side and one the right side views.

On Nov. 6th, they put the forms up for all the walls as you can see in the bottom two pictures. The bottom picture is a shot of the garage from a front of the lot view. The picture second to the bottom is a shot of the back of the house where the walkout will be. It was taken from the left rear side of the house. On Nov. 7th, they poured the walls and the next day they took the forms off to expose the walls. The top picture is a shot of the front of the garage, the second picture is a shot of the back of the house showing where the walkout will be, and the third picture gives you a good idea of the whole layout. The house and garage form an L-shape with a stoop/porch in front of the house where the dining room, entry way and den will be. On Nov. 8th & 9th, the plumber and electrician were out doing their work to trench in the plumbing and wiring before the flat work on the basement is done.