Summer isn't officially here yet, but it's starting to get hot enough to feel like it with temperatures in the high 70s and humidity rising. We got to squeeze in a quick visit to the house between busy work schedules and social functions but there was a lot of progress to look at. There seems to be a little pause on the progress of the tile work while we work out budgeting for the more expensive foyer and bathroom tile. Progress is nearing completion on the exterior stone with the granite cobble going up on the chimney and nearly every interior door has been installed and trimmed in the last week. Deck installers have been sneaking in on the weekends to put in some time, but nothing monumental at this point. Finished carpentry continues on the front porch and more evidence of painting prep was seen in the front of the house.
Gratuitous car shot. Not much difference on the front of the house as most of the front porch arch work is on the side. We'll put in to Distinctive Designs to fabricate the gable pediments this week and hopefully they can get them done before the painters come in. The new dumpster has some rubble in it, but no where near full. The dark ash you see to the right of my car is the remnants of a burn pile where they dispose of wood cut offs from time to time. Not visible in this shot is the caulking the painters applied to all the cracks between the various materials.
Old Country Stone completed the concrete retaining wall by applying mortar to all the joins and installing stone and mortar to the small returns caused by the elevation drops. Completion of these two parts fully completes this retaining wall. We'll get the safety fence that will be installed on top of the wall, put in after the completion of the driveway.
The mortar that fills the joints of the limestone blocks are cleanly applied. You can see where some of the moisture from the mortar is absorbed into the limestone, darkening the surface. This darkening will fade in time so I don't expect it to be an issue. The safety fence will be bolted down into the limestone, and perhaps even down into the concrete wall itself. It's not meant to stop a car, but it will be strong enough for a person to lean against.
It looks like all the joints were caulked, strongly defining the areas that will be painted. It's a paintable caulk that will be covered with the white trim paint, so there's no issue with the joint definition against the gray solid stain of the shingles.
On the side of the wrap around porch, all the interior arches have been installed and the process of installing the exterior arches and filler pieces has begun. There's some additional trim work on the curved porch part that has been plaguing completion of the porch, but I'm not sure what the final product will look like.
As expected, Old Country Stone finished the installation of the lower porch pylons, completing this section as well. I'm pleased with the finished product and can't wait to see the steel posts finally covered with the wood decorative posts. the posts are about four feet high from current grade and will probably only be about three feet high from final grade. There's still a good seven feet of post above the pylons, so it would be difficult for someone to gain access to the wrap around porch by climbing up on the pylon and climbing to the deck.
Here's how the final pylon against the house turned out. The smaller stone chips that were used to fill the wall after the limestone top was installed still need to be mortared. There are a few places around the house where electrical receptacles are installed that have small stones installed, but not mortared, so there will probably be one more walk around with the mortar bag to finish of these parts. We'll have to also perform an inspection to make sure the small details aren't missed since the scope of this install was huge.
Here's how the side of the house looks on the driveway approach. I can't wait to get all that red steel covered with wood and Azek. The glass block for the mechanical room still needs to be installed as well, and I recall Mike affirmatively confirming with OCS if this is something they can handle. There will be a mulched bed where the three pine trees stand and the rest of the flat space will be our front lawn with planted beds closer to the house.
Here's a closer look at the side of the house, probably the first with the completed pylons and above porch stones installed. I saw the decking installing crew at the house for a few hours on Sunday through the security camera, but I couldn't see what their progress was. I just saw them moving some material to the front porch, so they're either staging up for installation or beginning the installation of the deck itself.
Walking around the back of the house revealed a very tall scaffolding that reached from the basement walkout level all the way up to the roofline. OCS is using this scaffolding to reach the chimney to apply the stone. There's a pulley with a 5 gallon bucket attached to a rope to move mortar and stone to the top, and the top platform has a small pile of the granite cobble staged for installation. There are a few roof supports and boards up there for them to stand on, but not much else in the way of comfort. Definitely a job I wouldn't want to do.
A good amount of progress on the chimney, considering all the other work they completed during the week. I didn't take a good look from the other sides of the house, but it looks like they installed all the corner stones first and are filling in the rest. They also parged the entire chimney so all the prep work is completed. I figure they'll be able to finish this off during this next week if the weather cooperates. We're already in a windy area, so a little more increased wind can make it pretty scary up there.
A long shot of the back of the house finally hints at what it will look like after completion. Once the stone on the chimney is completed, the only remaining task for OCS to complete is the application of the blue stone to the back porch and gazebo. We obtained a quote for the completion of the front gate pylons, but we would need to know what gate is being installed, a detail we haven't figured out yet, so that's something that will have to wait a bit longer.
OSB plywood was applied to the ceiling of the gazebo to prep for the installation of the stained beadboard. I guess the trusses were a little too spaced out to apply the beadboard directly to, so this is the solution. They'll probably apply the OSB to the flat part of the ceiling too. There's currently a mourning dove nesting in the eaves, so they're giving her some time to finish up before they continue work back here.
Moving inside, installation of the interior doors is nearly complete. I found the dutch door that will be installed between the mudroom and kitchen, in the study, so hopefully it will be installed soon. It's made of the same materials as the other doors, the only difference being that there's an extra horizontal rail between the upper and lower panels, which separates the two doors. I can't remember if we opted out of having a small shelf on top of the lower door as is traditional with dutch doors, but when I measured the height of the two pieces, it was close to the height of the door openings, so I'm guessing there will not be a shelf. There's no door handle hole in the top door half so I think there will be a surface mounted throw bolt that will lock the two halves together when we want it to operate like a single door. We'll have to accommodate for another wall protection bumper for the top half.
Here's a closer look at the internals of the door on the bottom half of the dutch door. You can see the laminated layers of the LVL inside the door that provides a strong attachment point for the door hardware on the hinge side, and a solid material to drill and mortise the door hardware into. The rest of the dividing rail is made from a solid wood that looks like pine or poplar, and both of these are sandwiched between two thin layers of MDF. The MDF is an acceptable material for this application since it takes paint really well and should any damage occur, can be patched with Bondo and repainted. Our current hollow core doors have a wood textured MDF skin which would be difficult to replicate with a patch so the smooth surface of our new doors will provide better longevity and repairability.
A curious stack of boxes currently sitting in our entry closet is filled with these. They appear to be some kind of hard resin material, maybe wood composite. I believe them to be the material for the curved crown molding that will be installed in the second floor rotunda and turret. It's not the rubber material once spoken about since it has a hard surface, but it's obviously flexible. The 45 degree angles on the profile support my theory that it's for the crown and there are five boxes there, which is a significant total length.
Although it might not be as strikingly visual as a complete coffered ceiling, it's still exciting to see the completion of most of the interior doors. It's a ton of work considering all the steps involved with each door. You have to set and install the door casing, ensuring that the sides are plumb, the top level, and the frame, which doesn't have a threshold, is square when installed. Then you can hang the door, ensuring that it is cut to the correct height, accounting for the floor that hasn't been installed. Lastly, you can install the door frame trim to the appropriate level of finished carpentry expectation. Overall, 19 doors were installed last week with maybe 3 remaining.
Despite all the work Distinctive Designs is putting towards installing all the interior doors, there are signs of preparation for the installation of all the other final trim. Staged in the greatroom is a stack of wide, pre-primed boards that I think will be used for the paneling in the around the greatroom windows, and perhaps in the rotunda. These boards range in width and I think they're all half-an-inch thick, so the depth effect of the panels considerable. Half an inch will provide a good shadow line, and even though the flat of the panel itself is just going to be the drywall (I believe), once painted, will provide the look we're going for.
The big mudroom closet gets two swing-out doors to enclose our family coat and shoe storage. This closet is interesting because the shape of it is bigger than planned on paper. The original blueprint had a blind triangular corner walled off into an inaccessible chase, but the final implementation kept all the space. As a result, the closet can be defined into two spaces, a large flat wall for hanging items, and a smaller area that seems appropriate for shoe shelving. The closet was supposed to be a reach-in, but has turned into a small walk-in. Usually, you would see some kind of bi-fold door on a closet like this, but the double doors give the closet a little more gravitas. While you might thing it would be a nuisance, opening both doors just to access items, in practice, you only need to open one at a time, depending on what you want to get. I think we'll use the lockers for every day items; season appropriate jackets, daily use bags and shoes, reserving this closet more for storage.
The door installation is prevalent throughout the house. Here's a shot of the second floor room, slated for use by a potential future child. Just like the guest room below it, this room had three doors installed and is completed in that respect. Even though there's a curved wall on the hinge side of the door, the door opens to at least 90 degrees, with hardware installed.
The doors to the master bedroom and master bath are in place as expected. We don't have any operation hardware on any of the doors yet but I think that's more of a final finishing thing. Currently, the doors stay where you put them, without swinging due to any imbalance. Although you can feel the heft of the door when you move it, it swings easily on the ball bearing hinges. Some strength would be needed to slam these doors, and they feel like they could do some damage if you got caught in them. We'll have to be sure to hammer home door safety with the little ones.
Here are the doors to the master bathroom and master closet beyond. I think the decision to reduce the master bath door down to a single door was a good choice and made it easier to decide here to install light switches. While it would have looked more impressive, in practice, only one door would be used on a daily basis. I measured the door widths after the door installation and we're hovering just around the ADA recommended 32" on all the bedroom and bathroom doors, and close to 36" on the passage way doors. I can't get over the optical illusion that they're narrow because of the 8 foot height of the doors.
The laundry room, which is still the most completed room in the house, got its passage and closet door. We'll need some careful selections on door stoppers because I'm not sure if the standard spring stops will be strong enough not to collapse under the weight of these moving doors. Once pushed, they swing freely through their arch, losing very little energy to friction. The laundry room closet will house the second floor cleaning supplies, vacuum, and probably the ironing board. We looked into some kind of integrated ironing board solution, but it seems like there was always a compromise. They look great, but don't perform as well as a full sized stand alone board.
The turret bedroom has all three of its doors installed as well, with some unexpected results. The bathroom door had no choice to open to cover the open closet area since the opposite side has the vanity. There's no way around it and it shouldn't cause much issue. The walk in closet door beyond is a little concerning. The laundry room wall that is shared by the closet was implemented a little differently than on paper, so the closet actually lost some space. The door opens close enough to the expected shelf space on the back wall to cause some concern, but we won't know until we have a closet system in there and clothes hanging. There's no good way to cut down the door width so we'll just have to adapt when we attack the storage.
This is the kind of product you get when your builder is awesome enough to closely coordinate the tile installers with the trim carpenters. The other side of the shower wall in the turret bathroom has a finished bullnose tile, but this side would come to close to the door trim. The tile installer coordinate with the trim carpenters and installed the last course of tile to a width that perfectly complimented the door trim install. If we had this level of coordination from the beginning, I doubt we would have run into any of the issues we dealt with later in the build. Lesson is: get a good builder from the beginning.
So that's about it for this week. It's hard to predict what exciting new things we'll see next weekend, but we will have friends and family visiting the site, many for the first time. I'm happy to have something nice to show off, and can't wait to have lots of family gatherings in the future. I'm guessing that the stone work will be completed on the chimney, baseboard trim and maybe some panel work completed in the house. Besides that, I don't know what else to expect. Maybe more completed tile work or complete front porch. In any case, we're still on track for an August completion. 12 weeks to go!
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