We're finally getting a taste of winter here with some snow sticking to the ground. Forecast for later this week puts us in the 50s with rain though so I'm not sure if it will be sticking around. If there ever was a great winter to build this would be it. Hopefully we'll see quicker progress on the house.
Bob from Great Oaks said that they would be able to finish the boulder walls up near the house, then pull off his guys so we can get truss delivery. To my surprise, they finished all the boulder walls (at the house and street), although it looks like there some finishing work that still needs to be completed.
Here's what the driveway entrance looks like. There are still some boulders lined up on the right side, but the wall on the left side looks completed. I'm not sure what the extra boulders are going to be used for. There aren't any other walls slated for installation in this area. The boulder retaining wall added a good 6 feet to the left side of the driveway, but this space will be used to place one of the gate pillars, and will be mostly filled with a planting bed. It still feels much wider here and will add some assurance that we won't be falling off the driveway into the designated conservation area.
The boulder wall is pretty long and about three stacks high. I'm estimating that it's about 4 feet high. The landscaping fabric is still visible at the top, so maybe one more course will be added. That might place the grade of the driveway pretty high. Maybe they're keeping the boulders on site just in case.
Here's what it looks like coming back from the house. We had the option of using the same carmel mint stone here, but we wanted to keep this area looking more natural since it's a conservation area. Also, it's on the backside of a slope that we don't really see, so it didn't make much sense to put something really great looking in there. If the snow is obscuring the ground too much, the wall does extend past those two trees, but dodges them by a good enough margin. Glad we could keep them.
So it looks like the wall at the house has been completed. The top of the wall is level until it starts stepping down for the grade change. There isn't any visible landscaping fabric but there are some cut stones left up here. The top course doesn't look completely filled in since there are still large gaps on the top course high side that will probably need to be filled with the left over stone.
I really like this area. It makes a neat little alcove for this bed and I think will be a great planting bed. I don't think we'll need a safety fence here since height isn't too great. It would be a shame if we did need one. Hopefully we won't run into any trouble with the trees growing too large. If it happens, I guess we could take down the tree closest to the wall and leave the other two standing.
There is some landscaping fabric visible in this picture, but I think the final course is laid on the lower tier. It seemed like they placed one more step on top of the lower tier since it was a bit high compared to the land around it. It might have been a trick of the snow though. The bottom step is still cracked at the corner but I imagine with the cold temperature, any adhesive wouldn't cure properly so the repair couldn't be made.
Reverse shot of the wall. Start to finish, I think this took about three weeks so the timing wasn't too bad. I'm really impressed with Great Oaks and can highly recommend them. Our interior designer knew of them and said that they were pretty much the best around, but you get what you pay for. Definitely a large chunk of money went into this phase of the building, but I think it will be the most expensive phase, outside of installing a swimming pool.
Our visit to Hardwood Door and Bevel last week paid of this week. They came out the site to get measurements on the front door and called me later in the week to give me the details. We're getting a custom mahogany single entry door flanked by 14" sidelights. The door itself was supposed to be an eight foot door, but due to flooring choices and trim, will actually be just shy of eight feet, at 94".
We've already picked out the door and sidelight styles, but still need to design the leaded glass that will be installed in the sidelights. As part of their service, they'll install this construction door so we can button up the house. It also serves as a template for the interior and exterior building materials since the installers can drywall or shingle right up to the template. The final door is created at a door manufacturer, but assembled and stained by Hardwood Door and Bevel in their workshop. The finish for southern exposure doors is something other than standard polyurethane. They use a multi-coat process that slowly polymerizes and provides a more UV resistant coating to protect against weather and fading. While our door is under an eight foot porch, it's still south facing and tall so we'll probably get that finish.
The leaded glass is designed and built in the Hardwood workshop and it's real leaded glass thermopaned between two pieces of glass. Sometimes, you'll see fake leaded glass, with the lead only adhering to a pane of beveled glass. Not so in this case. Each facet is cut and leaded in a true manner, with any design being possible. I initially priced out a Provia eight foot door with 12" sidelights. We couldn't get 14" sidelights because Pro-via doors are made to standard widths, so we would have had to fill out some of the door opening, which wasn't preferred. The Provia door would have been fiberglass and stained, which would have arguably provided beater weather resistance, but the stain can also fade. There's a marginal difference in insulation properties when comparing the foam filled Provia vs a solid wood door.
The hinges are all square cut and ride on ball bearings. The lock will be a Baldwin mortise lock, cut at the Hardwood workshop. The mortise lock is good, but I would have preferred the option for a higher security lock. I don't think there's an option to re-core the mortise.
We're also getting the greatroom and mudroom door from Hardwood Door, so I'll post more information on those when we get them.
So not only did Great Oaks finish the driveway wall, but they completed boulder retaining wall that connects to the concrete wall! I wish there wasn't so much snow, so I could really see what this area looked like, but that will have to wait until next weekend. This portion of the wall is pretty long since it extends all the way past the circular motor coach and down the driveway a bit. I'll have to get some aerial shot of this whole area to see how it matches up to the final design.
The boulder wall here is about 4 or 5 courses high, but the boulders used are much bigger than the ones at the front of the driveway. Here's here it interfaces with the concrete all. You can see the slope they needed to use to make a stable wall. The wall will be covered with smaller granite cobbles, so I think it will transition smoothly. We're looking into options to have larger cobbles near the boulder wall that will transition down to the smaller standard cobble, just so there isn't a large and immediate difference between the two materials. The boulder wall is eight feet high where it meets the concrete wall, but quickly tapers down to four feet as the grade drops away down the driveway. There are no mechanical devices holding the boulders up, so it's just a matter of gravity and placement that retains all the dirt. Considering the weight of these things, I don't have much worry about shifting.
So here's the house in all it's snowy glory. Even though it looks like not much has been completed, it was a huge step towards finalizing the driveway and cleaning up the work area here.
Trusses are going to be delivered this Wednesday and we're strongly considering taking delivery of the windows so we can get the bank draw on those large ticket items and button up as soon as possible. Next update should see trusses on the ground and hopefully some trusses installed on the house. I'm told the roof is complex and there are many pieces, so all available flat surfaces will be needed to store the truss components. Once trusses are up, the roof decking needs to be installed, which can take some time since you're moving large pieces of plywood up there. We'll need to finalize and order the roof material, but after that, we can get windows installed and we'll be on our way to buttoning up for interior work!
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