Anchor bolts had been embedded in the edges of the concrete and the tops of the pre-poured walls had holes in them that would allow the first floor framing to be bolted to them. In concept framing seems simple enough but in reality it requires a lot of planning and calculations to make sure that each of the substructures that is built fits together with this rest of the structure when they are mated together. The door and window openings have to be the right size to fit doors and windows that will be coming later and must be located in exactly the right location with the wall. Many of the dimensions are not specified on the house drawings (for example, rafter lengths) so each of these must be calculated to ensure that every stick of lumber is right. The framing crew has a lead framer who is responsible for this and for keeping each of the crew members busy and usually each of them is working on a different part of the structure so it is a lot to manage.
Our lead framer was named Ramon. The photo at the right show Ramon leveling a wall. He was very good at explaining the options each time I had another decision to make (and there were many of these every day). Things like the location of the kitchen window, which depended upon the kitchen layout (which was yet to be determined) needed to be established before the wall that holds that window could be built. The kitchen design was, in our opinion, the one weak link within our overall house design, which is to say, the way it appeared on the drawings was not going to totally meet our needs. We identified this deficiency early on and even tried to hire a kitchen designer to help us with the details, but by the time framing started we still did not have a revised kitchen plan.
The single window the was in the kitchen needed to be located above the main sink but we did not yet know exactly where the sink needed to be because we had not yet figured out the right location for the stove or cooktop (whichever we decided to install). I preferred to install a cooktop on an island opposite the sink, but the kitchen (as shown on the plans) was too narrow for an island. The kitchen was essentially U-shaped with one side against a wall and the other defined by a post that held up the second floor loft. Kitchen walkways should be a minimum of 36" wide and with one on each side of the island, we would have only 12" left for the island. With all these problems I hired a kitchen designer. I sent her a set of plans and a week later she came out and laid out a schedule, a set of deliverables, and a price that we quickly agreed to. To make a long story short, she left and never returned and we lost several weeks and still had no kitchen plan.
At that point I decided that I would have to take the kitchen design on myself and with the help of some Web sites I was able to move the side peninsula over and draw up a plan that I think we can live with. Once that was done we established the location of the kitchen window and provided it to the framers who by then were well on their way to completing the basement framing. The basement has 10 foot high ceilings and those walls, when completed, looked very tall. The floor deck above that was framed with 2x12s, which added another foot of height, so the floor of the main living space then is 11 feet above the basement floor, making it s long climb up those stairs. A floor framing inspection was performed, the floor was sheathed, and then the first floor walls were built. The photo above shows some of the first floor framing, including the 14 foot side walls that will support the front roof.
We were happy to have the first floor walls in place so that we could finally see the outline of our rooms in full scale rather than just on paper.
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