After a couple months at the mothership, I've finally gotten my Canon 7D back with a replaced shutter so I can start taking wide angle shots again. I think I need to re-calibrate the auto focus because lots of this weeks pictures are a little out of focus.
Even though we were just at the house a couple of days prior to this visit, there were still a enough changes to add 22 pictures to this post, and that's not even all the pictures I took for personal record. If you're building or thinking about building, here's a tip: take pictures of everything you can before the drywall goes up so you have a record of where every wire, pipe, and stud is. You never know when you're going to need it in the future.
The all the new work is important, but it's getting down to finer and finer rough carpentry details so I'm having to really examine everything to catch all the changes. Many aren't as apparent at first glance, but are definitely required to make a great final product. Seeing all the work makes we realize how far off we were from any real finishing work, before Mike took over the project. Now I think we're probably 95% of the way to be completed with all the rough carpentry work.
Today was one of those crisp Autumn days where the air is a cool 65 F and the sun made all the leaves come alive with color. It's was a great day, but also a reminder that the colder days of winter will soon be upon us so we have limited exterior building days. Thankfully, almost all of the trim work is completed outside and we just need a few more doors to seal up the exterior of the house. Maybe if we're lucky, we can get the siding and stonework on before the frost hits, but time really is running down. At least we can work inside when it's cold out, so we don't have to go another winter without progress.
My wife says I missed this detail on Thursday, but they installed the detail around the round window in the front. Because it was so high on the trim, I didn't think it would be possible and kind of resigned to missing out on it, but it's there and it looks good. Makes me wonder if they'll do the thick top trim on the laundry window to the left of it.
The trim board on the front of the porch has been installed since it will be needed for the porch pour; the very last of the concrete work needed. This area was troubling Mike since the cement in this location isn't part of the final deck surface. Since we'll be using Azek decking on the front porch, this slab needed to be thin enough to fit under the Azek boards, plus sleepers for the decking to attach to. I guess he figured it out since all the boards necessary to pour the slab are in. Since it's not structural I'm not sure if it will be reinforced with a light metal mesh but it will be nice to finally have this part poured, and end the saga of the cement.
The front porch was one of the harder things for them to work out and correct. They're completing all the corrective work and working on the rough finishing work, like boxing in all the steel posts in preparation for the post sleeves. This is one of the details that I would miss if I wasn't examining everything. It's a simple thing with huge ramifications. It means that it's one more step towards finishing materials.
Another troubling issue was trying to figure out how to hide the laminated beams. Now that they've been properly supported with welded angle iron, we have to figure out a way to box them in so they look good. Unfortunately, the distance from the curved fascia to the laminated beam is different in different parts of the curve, so we need to try to figure out how to normalize that difference. They're working something out, as evident by the lumber on the right side of the lam-beam, but I can't figure out what it will look like yet.
One corrective construction is how the deck meets up with the house and how that works with the cobblestone exterior. When the deck was originally built, the ICF was removed and the ledger board that attaches to the house was bolted directly into the concrete. This means that the 2x wood material was sitting into the ICF foam so if the cobble was attached to the foam itself the ledger board would be behind the cobble. This means that should water get here and run down the ledger board, it would have a chance to get behind the cobble substrate and crumble out the mortar from behind. The stacked 2x material you see here is the solution to that problem. Now the wood sits about flush with the cobble stone exterior, and flashing can be installed down the wall above the deck and over the wood so water doesn't have a chance to get behind the the cobble. Ideally the spacers would have been installed first and the ledger would be farthest out but this will have to do, unless we were to tear down the entire deck.
Here's another correction. The laminated beam between these two posts was cut because Matt thought we wanted the barrel vault arch to carry into the fascia of the porch. This was never corrected until now, when Mikes crew reconnected tied the beam back together.
Here's the back garage door arch completed, but still needs to have the corners boxed in. The straight shot through the bay looks nice. Even though the rear garage door is just for access, it's nice knowing we could drive a car into the back yard if we wanted to really mess up the lawn. It will mostly just be used to get the lawn mower to the back yard since the back of the house will have steps to get to the back.
The gazebo is almost completely trimmed out around the rim and all the beams are boxed in. Although we're using arches to box in the beams around the rest of the front and back porch, in the gazebo, it will be straight. I think some of this trim work will need to be removed when the fireplace is installed. We're still working out how the ceiling will work in here.
The side porch roof structure is also starting to be boxed but these will be arches from post to post. They work fast enough that they got some of the beam fascia installed before I got a change to fill them in on the arch detail. You can see the strong-ties they installed to the roof joists to increase the structural integrity.
Moving inside, basically everything we asked for on Thursday was implemented in one day, which is amazing. The ceiling of the pantry was brought down to conceal the vent duct for the powder room. The powder room ceiling might need to drop down too unless we have the vent fan in the wall. Unfortunately, this is the powder room vanity wall and I think we're planning a special wall treatment here so a vent fan right in the middle of it might not go over well.
The niche in the upstairs rotunda was installed. We asked Matt to finish this off a while back, but they never got around to it. It's just as we asked for and plan to put a small feature light in the top of the box. I'm not sure what we're putting in there yet but the box isn't super deep. Maybe just some picture frames or something.
The curve of the turret was completed on the side that connects to the bedroom. Now you can see that the turret has a ten foot ceiling while the room is like the rest of the house at nine feet. We have so many plans for this space that we'll have to implement after we move in or at least after the drywall is up. The sized of the turret makes it a perfect play room so hopefully we won't have to have toys scattered all around the house.
I finally get a wide angle shot of the turret with the windows installed, without stitching together a panorama. We're not having a bench installed around the perimeter, but keeping it open and maybe getting some comfortable chairs suitable to the twins ages. This is the one area in the house that gets direct light all day long so it will be a great space for kids.
Another example of small changes that are required for the final finishing of the house is the header install across the top of the upstairs elevator door opening. The rotunda walls were already in place, but the header that connects them wasn't there yet, but is necessary for proper drywall installation. Lots of these little details were missing before Mike and his crew came on board so it's nice to see them get completed. These are things that are easily overlooked unless you're really looking for the finishing rough carpentry work.
It's nice to get a wide angle of the great room. It will be even nicer when the catwalk is finally removed. It has been there since the erection of the second floor ICF, so we've never know the great room without it. Having it there makes it difficult to get a feel for the scale of the room and I'm not sure when we'll be rid of it since it's so useful during the construction process. I don't think it's necessary for the electrical install since it doesn't reach the ceiling. They'll probably bring in a scaffolding they can wheel around. I think it would be helpful for the drywall installation on the upper parts, but it will obviously need to be removed for the complete drywall installation.
Here's one of the niches as you enter the front door. They sit to the left and right of the rotunda entrance from the foyer, with one next to the study and one next to the dining room, picture here. Again, they're not too deep, this one being as deep as the Nestle Quik container (holding screws), but it might be deep enough for an orchid or some art.
Here's the entryway to the dining room. Since the study will have arch top glass panel doors, we wanted to mirror the shape on the dining room side by arching in the doorway. This will stay an open doorway though. The original plans called for columns rather than an opening, which you see a lot in houses, but didn't match the architecture of this house.
All the sleepers for the Azek on the master balcony have been installed. They're shimmed level since the deck below is shimmed at a slope to shed water. Any water that makes it through the deck boards will run down the waterproof liner and off the edge of the deck. It's nice that the rough carpenters realized to space the sleepers the same width as the deck joists at 12" on center so the Azek will feel more solid underfoot. It's probably standard procedure for them to put the sleepers right over the joists below, but it's still nice to see it carried through. A more careless crew wouldn't have thought twice about it.
So after going back and forth about the master bathroom door, and trying to figure out how we could make the double door work, we just decided to reduce it down to a single door width and call it a day. We just couldn't figure out a good way to make the double door work. It wasn't great opening into the bathroom since one of the doors would swing towards the vanity and not be flat to the wall when open, taking up the standing room in front of one of the sinks. Also with both the left and right side of the wall taken up by open door, we couldn't mount a light switch on either side, which would make turning on the lights awkward. We could have had the doors open into the bedroom, which was my idea, but popular opinion was that the doors shouldn't be done that way. Margaret's suggestion was to use a double sliding barn door, which we weren't opposed to stylistically but I was concerned about light and noise blocking. Double pocket doors were out since you couldn't have switches on the same wall as the doors. The only way around it that we could see was to reduce the double doors down to a single so here it is. At least it's a clear shot to the master closet on the other side, even if the tub blocks a straight traffic path through the bathroom.
Here's the final access door to the master closet storage space. We couldn't get a full door in there since this wall is load bearing, but this will be good enough. We'll have an actual door on there that will open into the space. We'll probably just use the storage space for seasonal clothing and gift hiding. It's going to be unconditioned and unfinished so nothing super nice. We might install some tongue and groove cedar closet liner back there. The door will most likely be hidden by hanging clothes, but it's not going to be otherwise concealed.
Here's the temporary furnace in the basement. I think Mike provided this one and we just need to get the gas hooked up to it before we have some construction heat in the house. It won't be hooked up to the HVAC system because we don't want construction dust in the ducts before we move in. It will just be open to the air and convection will hopefully warm the whole house. Considering we're an ICF construction, it shouldn't be difficult to keep the house warm during the winter time, even if the furnace is in the basement. The basement stairwell should be open enough to get the heat to the first floor, and the great room and rotunda should carry the heat up to the second floor. If it's not enough, blower fans could force the hot air from the basement up. Maybe we could open the elevator shaft, but it will have to be capped since it's open to the attic right now.
Now that the house is sealed up, HVAC should be coming back in to finish off the duct work in the basement. The rough carpenters should be finishing up with their tasks soon and maybe we can get the painters to come in and shoot the trim work so the siding can be installed. I think plumbing is the next utility to be installed and we're looking at tapping the sewer and water in the next couple of weeks. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get out there during the week so the next update might be a big one.
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