Second Deck/Floor Goes Up!

Very exciting as Ricky and his crew frame the 2nd floor and it starts to look like our dream house.

We have 10'4" ceiling heights on 1st floor and 8' on second floor.
Rob has had our engineering group over a few times to confirm roof height building code requirements.

2nd floor deck...

Our stair tower...

Our family room - fireplace will go in the center floor to ceiling

Our library framed....

Starting to Frame

We've started to frame the house on July 16 when we returned from vacation. Rob, of course, had the lumber ready to roll at 7 am for our framing crew, August Construction.

Michala came to view the start before she leaves for camp for 4 weeks at Fernwood Cove.

Here in our basement, Rob puts several sills to get the basement ceiling at 8'4" in height.


The first deck and subfloor goes in and the house looks like a HUGE airplane!



Rob works with Ricky, the brains of the August framing operation, on confirming the ceiling height of the entire house which must be under 35 feet per Sudbury,Mass building code.
Ienjoy walking on my new flooring in my work boots - a requirement for all family members visitng the job site per the builder - Rob.




Our family room starting to be assembled....


It's starting to become a house from the front view and street....

Looking through a wall to our future kitchen...

And a view from the living room to our meadow. A future window wall...

And here's the back of the house. You can see the basement walkout, future sliders and windows, and first floor shaping up!

Foundation: Part 3

The forms are off and here are pictures of the foundation and views in the back of our meadow.

Foundation Part 2

Next the footing was poured and forms were erected around the foundation for 30,000 PSI concrete can be poured in the forms. Large cement trucks came in and poured the foundation which was then left for 1-2 days to dry and then the forms were removed.

The Foundation

After 1-2 days, escavation was done and they started layout of the footings which hold up the house. Although many builders don't always do this, my husband Rob, with his wealth of building knowledge, insisted on putting in extra reinforcement - rebar steel -which was laid into the footing.

We've Broken Ground!!!! The Foundation

Hi to all our friends and family. We have moved forward and "broken ground" at Pelham Island on June 14. We hired Al Mailett of Mailett and Sons to put in our foundation.

The first step: escavate and dig the hole where the house will be. The site plan along with staking our the foundation from our engineer was necessary for this to be accurate. The stone was laid for drainage.

Selling our Home in Sudbury

We put our house on the market at the end of May even though it is quite early. If anyone knows of someone looking to buy a fabulous house in Sudbury, please have them e-mail me at dana@redjavelin.com or visit our site for more details at http://www.68shadowoak.com/

We are only 1/2 mile away from the land we are developing which is so convenient right now and we are still truly enjoying the pool - we will miss it soooo much!

Springtime - Time to Move Trees

Hi all,

Now that it is spring, it's time to move the 8 beautiful 12 foot hemlocks on the property to their permanent home. We hired a large tree mover expert, Leighton Allenby, to move the trees and plant 4 other large roses of sharon on the border of the property.

We also cleared out the back of the lot and put down a special conservation mix of wildflowers to start growing near the back buffer zone

Put to bed for winter

The barn is now down, the land is cleared, andwe have put the project to bed for winter. We are in the planning and budgeting stages and will start building this summer.

Clearing for our new back yard

After getting a Notice of Intent approval to clear within the buffer zone, we hired a wetlands supervisor Dave Burke and a clearing company to clear within the parameters allowed by Conservation. We then purchased hay bales and sill fencing to border the perimeter.
We have a totall of 2.5 acres of property which is beautifully bordered with a sweeping meadow back view and a farm feel. Less than 1/2 mile down the road, there is Heard Pond where people can boat, fish, ice skate, etc. along with many walking trails of The Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge & Sudbury Valley Trustees Land.

Barn Demolition

Demo underway! A crew came in and had to remove every nail and all of the timbers as they took the massive structure down. It took 2 months to finish and all of the full aged timber wood was saved.

Michala's Fav Tree

Michala's favorite tree in the backyard before it was cut down

Clearing the land

Almost immediately, Rob pulled out his chain saw and started cutting down brush to clear whatever he could. I, along with Michala and Taylor ran around the land feeling proud as new landowners and soaking up the little left of warm sun before New England heads into winter!

Here is a picture of the barn and land. It was a 60x40 barn that was NOT historical so was able to be dismantled. This is the Fall of 2006.

The barn was built in circa 1860. Pelham Island is the site of a 400 acre land grant made to Herbert Pelham and his father-in-law Mr. Walgrave in 1639.