No real major progress this week, but the exciting thing is that the framing crew started back up on Thursday!!  Whoo hoo!  So now they’ll be here to stay until the house framing is complete.  Here’s some quick pictures of what the house looks like now that they’ve worked a couple of days.  More trim (barge) boards are up, and it’s hard to tell but the roof sheeting has started to go on the backside of the garage.

A little bit more progress to be seen as we drive up this week!  Shed dormers still need to be built above the master closet window and the laundry room window.  Maybe that’ll happen next week!

Love seeing the trim (barge) boards on the edges of the roof line.  The entry above the front door (and the big window to the right in the dining room) will eventually be arched – that’ll make the entry look a LOT better than what it currently looks like.

Another view of the front of the house from the driveway.

I think they now have all of the trim up around the roof line.  Can’t wait for them to start framing the gable on top of the garage – that’ll add some architectural interest for sure.

We also discussed roof venting this week.  In addition to having vents in the eaves, we had the option to do standard box-type roof vents (black box that pokes out of the roofing, ridge vents (continuous venting on the peaks of the roof), or gable vents (circular louvered vent on the sides of homes).  We opted for the ridge vents.  My main reason is that I didn’t want to have the box-type ones be on the front of the house (and I think that the less holes we have coming through the roof the better…we do get lots of rain in the Puget Sound).  Another reason is that one they add ridge vents to all the roof lines that show from the front of the house, there really isn’t many other ridge that are missing them.  So for easiness and consistency, we stuck with the one type of venting.

Plus, from the articles I’ve read, it sounds like ridge venting is the way to go.  The ridges are the highest point in the roof so as warm air rises it won’t be trapped anywhere in the attic; and since they’re continuous along all of the ridges, there isn’t worry about warm air getting trapped in corners.  The only thing we may do is add in a couple gable vents on the sides of the house.  Matt’s concern is that when it snows (which is really only a couple times a year), the ridge vents do get blocked – so having another source of ventilation is a good idea.  Gable vents work by allowing a breeze from one end of the house to the other. So you’d install them in pairs.

From the articles on the internet, people debate whether having both ridge vents and gable vents are a good idea.  We know that the cooler air will come in through the soffit vents and push the warm air out through the ridge vents.  But the debate is if adding gable vents on the sides of the home interrupt that flow of air.  Does it end up pushing air ‘sideways’ instead of allowing it to rise straight up?  Alternatively, others argue that the more venting you can get in your attic the better.  We’ll see if we end up adding any gable venting.  Maybe we’ll live without them for a bit and just see how hot it really gets up there.