Progress keeps moving full steam ahead with tons of changes present even since the few days I last saw the house. Plumbing, electrical, and exterior siding all pushed forward with their installs and the carpenters are hard at work trying to stay ahead of it all. Mike is three steps ahead, looking at the finish work and seeing what needs to be implemented now in order to fulfill his vision. We're finding that we need to make decision on finished plumbing and lighting very quickly so everything can be lined up for their respective installations. Everything is on track and almost every problem from the previous construction team is solved, under control, or has some kind of a solution in the works. Mike has basically take the build from a very rough state with many issues to a state where everything is in its place to be completed with a foreseeable end date.
One of the items the Mike and the carpenters are hard at work is how the final porch columns will look. The porch was constructed so that we couldn't implement the initially desired round column post wrap, so an architecturally sound alternative was needed. We came up with a shaker style panel like the one picture above, but only on the bottom half. Mike mocked up this full column example from available construction pine, but the final will be constructed from
Medium Density Overlay (MDO), which is like MDF, but with a weather resistant resin overlay, so we shouldn't have issues with moisture. It's supposed to be more durable than plywood, but takes paint better, which is what we're doing, so I think it's a good alternative.
We had some issue trying to figure out a square post that would work on our modern Victorian house and I think the shaker style is the closest we could get. Alternatives were the tapered Craftsman style, which we definitely didn't want so shaker it is. Maybe only the haughtiest of architects would have a beef with the design fusion.
They also included a design mock up of the final beam headers that will be applied to the front and back of the porch beams. We wanted an arch from post to post and this is how they'll implemented it in rough sawn cedar. Of course, there will be a full piece of wood the length of the beam and the arch will be continuous, peaking at the center of each distance. The beam fascia is dropped down from the porch truss to account for the bead board thickness of the ceiling. The underside of the beam will remain flat and not follow the curve of the arch as it approaches the post. All the trim will and columns will be painted white to match the rest of the trim around the house.
This is pretty exciting. The cedar siding installers completed the front and side first floor, most of the second floor on the side, and one side of the great room already. I think this is two days worth of work. We almost like the clear cedar color, but will most likely use a semi-transparent or solid stain on the siding. If this was a shingle style house, then the clear cedar might work, but we don't have the architecture or intent for that look. It's getting easier to imagine what the stone will look like below the ledge.
Even though the trim boards are the wrong color, I'm glad they are painted because it makes it easier to imagine how it will look when painted with final colors. This wall has been white Styrofoam for so long, it's great to finally have something that resembles the final look. All the trim sits just about flush with the bottom of each course of shingle, but has some reveal at the top of the shingle. I think this will work fine as long as there's enough room on the shingle to caulk against the trim. A little more reveal would have been nice, but I think the color differentiation between the trim and siding will go a long way in the looks department.
Here's the entire side of the house from the basement level grade. There's one strip left at the top right to finish off the side. There are corbel blocks that will be installed up there and the only prep for the carpenter to do is to install a little piece of trim so the siding guys can cut around them. Since this siding is already up, we can come back and cut out the siding to install the blocks to which the corbels can be attached. They're still on order but should arrive in the next couple of weeks. It's one of the things were implementing to try to capture the Victorian look, since we're not going with all the porch details.
The entire side of the house was completed, including the great room! Everything below the cedar will be real cobble stone, separated with a limestone ledge. A scaffold or skytrack wasn't needed and they just used ladders to get up to the high great room side. I initially thought the arch top window trim going into the house trim was a little odd looking, but now that the siding is up, it looks good. There's going to be a lot of stone going up the side of the house, and the prep work for that should start soon. The distance from the basement grade to the cedar about fourteen feet but is the most exposed side of the house.
Bracket mock ups were also created so we could visually see what it would look like. The bracket itself is made from polyurethane and the box behind it is created on site. We needed the box to get the bracket off the wall and mark where the cedar shingle doesn't have to go. Initially, I wanted the box to go down to the stone ledge, but Mike said it wouldn't work out right since there's a bit of a slope on the ledge. You're just inviting water infiltration into the wood if it sits on the stone. I think this look good too. We'll one of these on each side of each garage door and it also acts as a base for the hanging style wall sconces, yet to be picked out. In that way, the box serves an additional duty, providing a nice place for the wall sconce to bolt to.
The plumbers are wrapping up the first and second floor installations, filling plumbing gaps with fire blocking expanding foam in every location where the pipe goes through another material. This procedure was repeated at many places around the house and signifies that the plumbing work on the first and second floor is coming to an end.
Although all the plumbing supplies and drains heading down to the basement, there's still lots of plumbing work to be completed. Almost all the plumbing roughs have been installed for all in wall applications. The only remaining puzzle is the master bathroom, where some work was needed configuring the expected four mixing valves that were needed in the small shower/bath wet wall. We were going to use one for each, two showers, one hand held, and one tub filler but all the valves couldn't fit in the confined space so we decided that the handheld will be put on a diverter with one of the shower so the total count could be reduced to 3 mixers. It was confirmed that our
alternative tub selection would work, but the drain plumbing for that hasn't been installed yet. We'll have to get the thing in place before we can choose the rub filler spout.
Sorry for the dark picture, I think my camera setting dial got shifted for some of these shots. The master sink roughs from Dorn Bracht were installed at the final height, so now we can chose appropriately proportioned medicine cabinets to install above them. The wall mounted faucet has the control on the right and spigot on the left, which will pour into an under-mounted sink bowl. The trim is a rectangular plate, and it looks like the mixer cartridge is pretty easily accessible should we need to fix it. I didn't have time to touch the valve itself, so I'm not sure what the body material is made of. I'll make sure to take a closer look at it when I go back.
Even with the electrical walk through we have scheduled with Margaret this coming Wednesday, the electricians are still running wires to all the boxes on the second floor. Work hasn't begun with box installations on the first floor yet. There's a high level of confidence with the placements on the second floor, with only one or two items in question. I made sure to take as many pictures of the wire runs as I could for future documentation, but I hope to never have to look at the wires again. We're trying to plan everything the first go around so we won't have to renovate the lighting in the future.
I think half of one pallet was used for all the ceder that was hung thus far, so it's looking like a good possibility that all the required ceder is on site, ready for installation. With the speed they move, I think all the siding will be up by the end of the week and we can finally protect all the exposed ICF that should have been protected years ago.
As I mentioned, we have a meeting with Margaret at the site to do an electrical walk through. We've done it ourselves to address functionality, but it will be good to make sure all the lighting design elements we need in place will be present and Margaret is the one that can double check that. Of course, Mike will be on site with the electrical installers and The Sound Vision is slated to begin work around that time too so it will be nice to have their expertise on hand. Stair installers have started work on their workshop mock-up and we should have them in the house in a couple weeks! Finally getting rid of the temporary stairs will be another large step because we'll finally be able to visualize the rotunda. Porter and Heckman need to come back to complete the installation on the basement, but they've been bombarded with service requests. Mike has been hammering them to return since he's looking at rough inspections in a couple week. When that's completed, drywall installation can begin and the interior will look completely different. Even with all the pace of the progress, Mike keeps saying that we're targeting June/July for completion, so if drywall is done mid February, that gives four months for finishing work. Internet wisdom says drywall is the halfway point of house construction, but with our house, that doesn't mean much. Maybe the speed of progress will slow down after the rough, but I hope it doesn't.
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