Basement enclosed

[sorry for the delay in posting this. I typed it up last Thursday and thought I posted it but i guess it didn't actually "publish."]

The wall support and trusses where the stairs come down were installed.  The left opening is the bottom of the stairs, the right hand side is a door opening for storage access to below the stairs.

 

The windows were delivered.  We went with Alpen high performance windows out of Denver. They have better insulation values and less air infiltration than any other windows we could purchase locally, so we'll be anxious to see how they perform once they're actually installed. They are "triple pane" with a suspended film in between two pieces of glass for two argon filled air chambers.  

Here's the hole that needs to be filled in for the garage floor.  Once we saw how much depth we have, we decided to buy a cistern to set in under there.  It will likely function as cold storage, with a hatch door through the garage floor, but it might also come in handy for an actual water cistern someday if we ever have problems with the well, or want to store rain water or something. It also helped us fill that space since we will be close on how much dirt for fill we have.

And the sub-floor of the main level was put in, creating a roof over the basement.  Here's Ryan standing in our future living room, checking out the view.  I think he's going to wish it was a glass house.  Once the walls are up and windows installed, the views will feel much more restricted compared to this (still not bad though - I ain't complainin'!): 

Showing the panorama from the living/dining space.  Hard to tell in the pic, but you can see the creek down there! (And hear it too)