Even though our luck ran out with the nice weather, our luck continues with the progress on both the exterior and interior of our house. We got a chance to visit the house on a rainy Sunday with the knowledge that drywall had been delivered earlier in the week, but not expectations on what they could have accomplished in the two or three days after the delivery. We were greeted with stacks of drywall in every room and a nearly completed second floor ceiling with some of the walls up in the master bathroom. Work continued on the exterior stone with the completion of the gazebo fireplace and front retaining wall parging and the beginning of laying the stacked stone on the fireplace. Mike expects the drywall to be completed by March 31st, which seems crazy to me, but he's been fairly accurate with his previous deadlines. There's a ton of drywall to hang and taping and mudding is limited by drying time. I'd be super impressed come next weekend if I'm looking at finished walls.
Since most of the work was done on the second floor, this blog entry will start there. Here's the first look at the ceiling on the second floor. The ceiling will be the first to be completed since the walls will butt up against it on the underside and we need to get insulation blown up there as soon as possible. What you're seeing is actually the only places that don't have ceiling drywall up, probably due to height. The only places that don't have drywall ceilings is the great room and the rotunda. These two areas will be the most difficult to install drywall since special scaffolding will be needed to hold the large panels up there. I didn't see a drywall lift anywhere on site so unless they're taking it away every day, they're using raw manpower to hold the ceiling pieces up while they're fastened.
The master bedroom ceiling is completed. All the recessed lights and speaker holes are of course cut through and ready for final trim. Each room seems to have many pieces of drywall stacked vertically against the walls, probably the pieces required to complete the room. Even with all the work accomplished, the debris is kept to a minimum and the dust isn't too thick. This might be the last look a the studs.
The master bathroom is the most completed room in the house with all the drywall applied to the ceilings and walls. The spaces for the Robern mirrors were left open and it looks like all the fixtures and switch boxes were preserved through the drywall. The curved thing hanging on wall is a flexible drywall corner bead. Since they don't put drywall bead on the bottom edge, I don't know why they opted for the flexible kind.
Here's a shot of the other side of the master bathroom. The curved shower dividing wall has been dry walled as has the water closet. All showers and tubs will not be drywalled, but will probably use cement board with a water impermeable membrane, in addition to the wall tile. The drywall installers aren't quoted to install these areas so maybe the tilers will do the job. Now that the curved dividing wall is done, we can see if the either of the two tile selections we have for the feature side, fits the interior radius. Now that the drywall is up, there's definitely less light in the room, but it shouldn't be too dark. It's unfortunate we couldn't implement the stand-alone wall design because that would have kept the natural light level high.
Most of the master closet drywall has been installed. I couldn't pop my head into the storage space because of the building materials so I'm not sure what condition that's in. It's an insulated space, but unconditioned, so I'm not sure what the code requirements are for installing a fire blocking material. I'm pretty sure it will be drywalled in. The insulated exterior wall still needs to be drywalled too, but all the material is in there to complete the task. Since there aren't any exterior openings in this room, it's super dark now so I'll need to start to use my flash more and more. Lots of the pictures I took on this trip were blurry due to long exposure times needed for low light conditions.
The other bedroom (room 3) upstairs has the ceiling completed, but none of the walls yet done. As with the other rooms, all the drywall required to complete the space is in the room, so there isn't a lot of running around to be done. Just cutting and placing to complete the spaces. Good organization and install implementation by the dry wall team.
Here's a closer look at how the drywall is being installed. As per the contract, the drywall will be "...glued, screwed. Nail corner bead". There were definitely many tubes of construction adhesive in the house, but visual examination didn't provide any observable squeeze out between the studs and installed dry wall. I'm sure Mike will inspect the work, but maybe they're being efficient with the amount of glue applied. The screws are standard drywall screws and they're driven to slightly below paper level. It doesn't look like they're using a dimpler, but that should be okay since the drywall screws are going into steel studs. Over all, it looks like a good installation so far.
The laundry room ceiling is completed, but the walls have yet to be worked on. It's a fairly small room that should go up pretty quickly, but there are many openings that will slow the work down. With the ceiling drywall completed and the sound dampening fiberglass, this room is currently the quietest in the house. There's no echo, but that might change once the hard surface of the walls are installed. I'm really hoping the fiberglass works well for dampening, but I'm not expecting complete sound proofness. There are sound proofing solutions available that we might explore in the basement theater, but it's kind of overkill in this room.
The turret bedroom (bedroom 4) has all the ceilings installed, save for the turret itself. The ceiling is spray foamed, so no further insulation is required up there, but the ceiling height increase from the room to turret needs to be completed before the attic insulation is sprayed in. Both the attached bathroom and the closet beyond it have the ceiling installed, but again, no walls. You can see the pieces of drywall stacked and ready for install in the bathroom door.
I have some concern about how the drywall is cut around some of the recessed cans. The goal is to make the installation as air tight as possible and some of the openings are pretty rough. We'll need to go back and seal the gaps to make sure we're not losing energy through the ceiling on the second floor. The recessed cans are rated air tight, which means the inside of the box has fewer penetrations and there are some gaskets on the light baffles. Mike says the gaps will be taped and mudded so they will be lessened. I would love to be able to get some spray foam against the back of the drywall but I'm not sure I'll get the chance. The light baffles should provide enough air sealing, but there's no such thing as over engineering in my book.
There's a short scaffold in the rotunda but it's much too short to reach the second floor ceiling. I think they're either build it up more or use some kind of drywall lift on it to get the large drywall pieces to the ceiling. I'm tempted to make a mid-week visit because progress seems to be happening too quickly.
Here's the shot of the second floor ceiling from the first floor rotunda, and how much needs to be completed. The sheets are 4 feet by 12 feet and are brittle, so I think it takes a couple of guys to properly lift a piece up. They probably mark the approximate location of receptacles, and use a plunge cutting tool to cut out the penetrations. The cuts are too clean for drywall saws since they tend to tear up the paper a bit. The plunge cut spiral bits can ride the receptacles to cut an exact shape.
Moving down to the first floor, no drywall has been hung, but boards are stacked in every room, ready for installation. The study has a large stack of boxes full of drywall compound. I found two different types of drywall compound around the house, but at this stage, none of it has been used. I'm not sure why they use two kinds, but there are probably different applications for each depending on where it's used.
The black boxes are some kind of general purpose compound. From professional opinions on the internet, this is best used for taping, but is too scratchy for finish coating. Some seems to think it's a little more durable, containing larger gypsum aggregate but not great for a smooth finish. I guess that's why there's the fewest boxes of these on the site.
The next drywall compound is this "Lite Blue" type that seems to be used for finishing surfaces since it's smoother and goes on easier. There are the most of these boxes in the stack so it would make sense that they'll use this for a finishing surface texture on the drywall board.
A few of these boxes were placed around the house. It's a low VOC adhesive used to adhere the drywall to the studs, reducing fastener pops and reduces sagging in the ceiling. We don't have to worry about nail pops since we're using screws, but it's nice to know that the drywall will be adhered as well as screwed, making cracks much less possible.
More of the basement utility runs were boxed in, in preparation for drywall. Mike priced the difference between the fire blocking paint and applying drywall to the insulated surfaces and found no real difference in price, so we're going with drywall. You can see all the stacks placed around the basement. It looks like they'll apply the drywall to the ceiling nailers when possible, and boxed exclusively around the utilities. This is the storage area, so aesthetics isn't highest priority, but this roughly matches the rooms we'll be implementing in the area. The space just to the right of the elevator shaft will be a dedicated fish tank room, and will more or less occupy the footprint of the ceiling. The raised portion on the right doesn't really reflect any particular walls, but I always imagined shelves on this wall.
They erected a wall to close off the mechanical room in the basement as well. It starts at the bottom of the stairwell and terminates on the exterior wall. There will be another wall installed on the other side to block off the mechanical room from the future basement bathroom that has yet to be constructed. We'll have to consider how we'll conceal the doorway to the storage space now that we're getting a shape of the basement walls. Ideally this area would have been centered in the space, but the stairs came down a bit more in reality vs implementation so we'll have to figure out how the final space will look.
It looks like electricians have completed the install for the geothermal and EV charging electrical lines. The plywood at the top of the boxes is new and the lines run behind this into the box. There's still a tangle of wires that need to be installed in the right most box, the main circuits of the house. Since this room will need drywall too, I'm not sure how this area will be finished off. I'm hoping for a clean install, but I can always adjust it at a later date.
Outside, work on the gazebo fireplace continues. Construction of the structure is complete and Old Country Stone has started to install exterior stone. This stone is different than the rest of the house but has a similar color scheme. It's a gray and tan mix, which will be used on the fireplace, seating, and barbecue area. I think there's enough contrast between the two stone colors to set them apart, but not clash too much. Mike says OCS will be moving pretty quickly new that the weather is starting to cooperate more, so we should be seeing more progress on this front.
Here's the progress so far on the stone installation on the fireplace. They've installed the granite cobble on the gazebo, but haven't grouted in between the stones. They've started at the bottom of the fireplace and will work their way up, probably grouting both surfaces at the same time so they're seamless in the corners. Since this is a natural stone product, we won't have to worry about sealing it, as with the granite cobble. These should be maintenance free, save for the occasional power washing. It will be interesting to see how they manage installing the stone near the top.
The entire fireplace has been parged so the installation of the stacked stone should happen quickly. This is the complete progress so far, and I expect that they'll at least be able to finish the fireplace by next weekend. The product seems to go up quickly and they usually have a three man crew working simultaneously. We'll see how quickly they can get the gazebo seating done.
OCS is nearing completion of the granite cobble in the outdoor storage area. They've completed the exterior of the greatroom wall and most of the wall under the back porch. One thing that I've notified Mike about is that the light should be above the door, not to the side. He's already corrected the issue, so OCS must be on site today. They still need to mortar the joints, but when it's completed, they'll be finished with cobble on this side of the house. We've talked about what we want to do with this door. Mike says this is the final door, but it doesn't really fit the design of the house so we'll probably change it in the future. It functions fine for now, but we'll have to see if we can find a weather proof door to fit this location.
OCS is nearly finished parging the side of the garage in preparation for granite cobble installation. The the stone will be installed all the way up to the peak of the roof so there's a bit left to complete near the top. Once this side of the house is done, they can probably move on to the small sections on the wrap around porch, then finish off the chimney.
The entire concrete retaining wall has been parged and is ready for stone. It's nice that they'll be able to install all the cobble in this area at the same time so it will appear seamless to the house. Usually, landscaping is completed after the completion of the house, so this kind of integration opportunity doesn't always come around. I think the only thing we're a little behind on is the design of the irrigation and landscape lighting. We'll just need to make sure to allow for conduits under the driveway where needed.
The garage remains relatively clear, with a few piles of lumber and two large stacks of garage pertinent drywall remaining. We might be using this space to store the kitchen cabinets in the interim, slated for delivery this week. The drywall installers are requesting and additional $600 for the skim coating and texture finishing of garage. We'll gladly pay that to have a nice paintable, finished surface in there.
Here's a close up of some of the stacks of drywall waiting installation. These are in the garage. The drywall contract states that 5/8" thick will be used on the ceiling and 1/2" will be used on the walls, which I think this is pretty standard. The sheets are 4'x 12', which is 150% bigger than the more common 4'x 8' sheets you normally see. Sometimes you can install 5/8" thickness everywhere, which offers a little more fire resistance of 1 hour vs 30 mins in 1/2" drywall. It also adds a bit more mass for sound dampening, but it's not code required so it's not often done. This 5/8" "type x" is the higher fire rated variety you would expect in the garage. It will probably be installed on all surfaces in the garage since it's code that the garage is fire blocked from the rest of the house.
So that's about it for this week. As I said earlier, we'll be taking delivery of the kitchen, master bathroom, mudroom, and butlers pantry cabinets this week, and probably the other bathrooms in a couple weeks. Installation of the cabinets won't happen until the drywall is finished, but that could be as soon as next week if all goes well this week. Next update should see the completion or near completion of the interior walls, and more progress on the exterior. After the walls are done, we'll be moving on to interior doors, trim, and garage doors followed up by floors and tile! Even though there are still five months left in the build schedule, it's all coming together quickly!
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