Mid-week update: Drywall and trim planning.

   I'm posting a late mid-week update because drywall is finishing up quicker than I can document weekly, and to share some information about the design meeting we had.  We had a meeting with Mike, our interior designer Margaret, and Mike and Mike (so many Mikes!) of Distinctive Design, the carpenters that made the rotunda stairs and who will be providing interior doors and all the trim.  We also met with the deck installer for the front porch, and a wood flooring installer, who was just measuring to calculate quotes.

   Distinctive Design brought some samples for a great show and tell so we could get a final decision on what we're going to implement around the house.  Here's the newel post we'll be using on the stairs.  We'll have one at the bottom of the stairs, one at the top of the stairs so the diagonal railing can transition to the rotunda railing, and one at the end of the upper rotunda hall near the turret room.  We need that additional one because the railing will turn 90 degrees and terminate in the wall.  The newel post will be made from oak, but is prototyped in poplar here, and will be stained dark to match the floors, stair treads, and hand rail.

   Distinctive Design also brought one of the highlight balusters that we'll be using in our railing.  These will be sparsely spaced among the other metal balusters that will go up the stairs, around the upper rotunda, and at the great room overlook.  The come from a company in Canada called Prestige Railings and Stairs and by the heft, they're solid stainless steel.  The other balusters will be just a straight stainless steel bar, so I think these will add a nice amount of flash to the foyer without looking too visually intrusive.

   One of the main reasons for the visit with Distinctive Designs was to finalize the baseboard, door, and window trim.  The samples left at the house last time were deemed too chunky, and this is something that DD made in the shop to replicate a trim we saw much earlier in the design process.  Here's what the door trim will look like against a piece of baseboard.  The window trim will use the same as the door, but the bottom piece will be oriented to provide a window sill look rather than a picture frame look.

   Here's the profile of the baseboard.  The older one was a two piece design with a thick top and flat bottom.  This new one thins out the top with a wide rabbet and rounds off the top profile with a slight ease on the second profile.  This will break up the thickness of the baseboard and add a shadow line a little farther down from the top.  Cleaning should be about the same since you're just taking the width of the vacuum brush across the top and face of it.  As with before, they'll be milled from poplar at the Distinctive Design workshop.

    Here's a look at the profile of the window and door trim.  The only difference between the prototype picture here and the final product is that the final product will be a one-piece design while the prototype is made from two pieces.  This profile offers one more step on the molding, thinning the profile out more towards the door opening, but retaining the thickness at the edge so it stands proud of the baseboard molding.


   Distinctive Design also brought along a mock up of the coffer ceiling they'll be installing in the great room and it's an impressive display.  The only changes to this design is that the intersections of the coffer beams won't be segmented as they're shown here.  We had to finalize the placements of the coffer beams and decide how they would be laid out on the ceiling.  It's a little difficult to describe without a graphic, so maybe I'll try to render something up, but suffice to say, we came up with a final working design.
   We also talked about wainscoting panels in the rotunda and in the great room.  We've had the intention of implementing the panels in the rotunda to dress up the first floor a bit and tackle concealing the construction errors in the exposed ICF floors.  We added panels on the great room window walls to deal with the lack of space between the ceiling and the tops of the windows, and with the narrow spaces that will be left between the windows when the trim was installed.  This will make the windows all look like one unit, which is kind of the intent of the window design.

   Elsewhere, drywall hanging has completed and the drywall installers are applying the tape and first layer of mud.  This application just lays down the tape with some mud directly on the drywall seams and screws.  Another application of mud will follow that will smooth out the transition between the wall board and taped areas, blending them into a smooth surface.

   The tape and mudding crew consisted of two guys while we were there, but they quickly moved from finishing up the second floor, down to the first floor.  I think they finished the first floor by the end of the day.  They assembled scaffolding to reach the highest places, and walked around on stilts to reach everywhere else.  It's impressive how proficient they were on the stilts, more than once walking on the upper rotunda without any railing.  I get nervous up there on my own two feet, so I can't imagine walking on sticks up there.  For tape application, they used a drywall banjo, which quickly lays tape that is drawn through a reservoir of drywall compound.  A flat trowel is scrapped across the tape to further set it and scree off excess drywall compound.  This extra is used to fill local screw holes.

   I'm not going to post many pictures of the drywall progress because by my next weekly update, I'm sure they'll be farther along with a nicer visual effect.  This is what the drywall looks like with the tape and the first application of mud.  The compound is still a little wet, but even when completely dry, you can see the difference between the seams and boards.  I think even with the final application of mud, you'll see a difference, which will be covered with primer and paint.  Roughly cut openings are repaired in this stage, sometimes using tape to close up the holes.  Not the best solution if you're trying for a tight house, but not bad.

   They drywalled under the first floor stairs, so the basement stairwell has a completed look.  The two sconce locations in the well should provide enough light to make the stairs safe.  The area under the basement stairs will not be drywalled, but it will have a door so it can serve as another storage space.  Maybe we could make it an additional pantry storage space for dry goods.

   Speaking of the basement, it's fully drywalled, soffits and all.  The only remaining space is the mechanical room, which will be tricky due to all the wires and pipes.  The walls are easy enough, but the ceiling is a well organized tangle of HVAC, electrical, and plumbing, none of which are on the same plane.  The easiest way would be to drop the ceiling down with rigid support and drywall the whole thing in.  A fire retardant spray is also available if we just want to blast everything up there.

   Our make up air powered baffle arrived and is ready to install in the basement.  This will open when the hood vent in the kitchen is turned on, and prevents any air leakage when the hood is not in operation.  It's a 10" diameter baffle to match the MUA pipe diameter.  Not much else to say about this I guess.

   Despite the cold, Old Country Stone pushed forward with finishing the gazebo.  They've started installing the face stone on the inside seats and barbecue space and filled many of the voids in the cinder block seating since they'll need a solid surface to adhere the bluestone to.  I noticed a little pooling of rain water on the gazebo near the seats.  I'll have to ask Mike if he thinks we'll need some weep holes through the seats.


   Here's the seating to the right of the fireplace.  It looks pretty much completed.  It's interesting that OCS is installing the stone all the way down to the cement decking considering they installed it with a gap for the blue stone with the house cobble.  All that's left for this section is the mortar and bluestone seating.  Once this is completed, we'll have our first official seating in the house.


   OCS finally added this last little corner.  They stopped short of the post before, which wouldn't work because we still need to apply the finishing wood to the post.  The gap between the cinder block and post provided no room for stone and post finishes.  The solution was to enclose the post base so the post finishes will sit on the bench like it does on other places.

   Most of the exterior of the gazebo seating is completed, as well as the fireplace.  Grout still needs to fill the spaces and the blue stone edging needs to be applied, but that will come later.  If you look closely, you can see large flakes of snow falling.  Yes, winter hasn't let us go yet with one last (hopefully) cold day complete with snow.  Looking at the house camera today, snow accumulated on the roof, so it was considerable.  Weather forecasts for this weekend are in the high 60s.  Typical spring weather.

   The back of the fireplace has been completed, save for the top of the chimney.  You can also see that the back of the barbecue needs completion as well.  I think they can bang this out pretty quickly if we can get some warm weather.  It should warm up enough next week for them to put in some good days.  They've distributed pallets of cobblestone around the house so it looks like they're staging up for a final installation push.

   We contacted Jeff at OCS because the implementation of the stone surrounding the fireplace opening wasn't quite what we envisioned.  Early in the design process, we sent him a picture of what we wanted, but it might have gotten lost along the way.  Luckily we caught it soon enough where they could easily implement the change.  Here's half of the opening completed how we wanted.  We really like the staggered keystone arch rather than a straight edge they had originally.  They had a little test burn in there to see how the chimney was drafting.  Good thing they did it because they were getting a little back draft down the chimney due to the wind interaction with the gazebo roof.  Mike had them increase the height a bit to counter that effect.  A taller chimney will increase the amount of warm air in the column, which will have a greater pulling effect at the bottom of the chimney.

   Here's a side shot of the new chimney height.  I'd say it's only three cinder blocks higher, so probably one clay liner in height.  It's still not quite to the peak of the gazebo, and our finial will be taller, so it doesn't look imbalanced.  Stone was applied on top of the roof but I didn't get the chance to go up there and take a peek at how they did it, so I'll have to make sure to grab that picture next time.

   So that's about it for this update.  I'll post more pictures of the drywall progress but with only two working days between updates, I'm not sure how much progress there will be.  Drywall can be pretty boring so I'll try not to fill the update with pictures of blank white walls.  Next step after drywall will be cabinet installation, some exterior doors, interior doors, and trim.  All these changes should make a big difference in the appearance, but will probably take a long time.  There's a surprising amount of woodwork that needs to go in but I'm really happy with Distinctive Design so far.  Being an amateur woodworker, I can really appreciate their build quality and techniques.  Co-currently, work will complete on the exterior of the house with the deck installation, beadboard on the porch ceilings, and paint on the trim and cedar shingles.  I think when the exterior is finished, we can call in Great Oaks to finish up the front landscaping and get started on the driveway and steps.

Gazebo work and Drywall prep

   Even though the temperatures are well below freezing, we got lucky with a shining sun on our weekly visit to the new house this weekend.  Temperatures in the past week have been consistently cold, which isn't the best conditions for exterior masonry work, but progress still moves forward in the gazebo.  Inside, more prep work for drywall installation was visible around the house, which included the installation of our two gas fireplaces.  Even with the second floor ceiling still open to the attic space, it was considerably warmer inside with the basement furnace running and the first floor furnace off.  I'm not convinced we'll need both temporary furnaces when the attic is finally closed up.

   This is what's currently stacked up in front of the house right now.  Three pallets of cobblestone siding that will be applied to the end of the garage and exterior of the retaining wall.  I'm not sure how much they'll be able to work on the exterior since cold temperatures and snow are in the forecast for this week.  At least it will be available once the weather breaks.

   The entire garage is now closed off to the outside.  There's an access door in the plywood of the double opening, but it locks from the inside, fully securing the entire house.  The opening isn't wide enough to get sheets of drywall through, so I'm not sure where those will be stored but at least they have a large, dry area to store and work.

   Most of the material in the garage was moved out to the front and covered with tarp.  Nothing really important since the usable lumber is still in the garage.  It's a good thing there's a large window in there because lights have been prepped, but not installed yet.  This is the first look at what the garage will look like with the garage doors installed.  We'll have windows on all the garage doors so it won't be quite this dark.  We're also planning on installing very adequate lighting so we could move out the cars, open up the back, and use it for overflow entertainment space.  We'll just need to make sure it doesn't get too cluttered.

   The stud wall under the first floor rotunda stairs have been installed.  It still needs an electrical receptacle to be finished, but it's otherwise ready for drywall.  It was kind of neat not having the wall there and we could have entertained leaving it closed off with railing, but decided we would rather have the sound separation to the basement.

   Here's the rotunda with the under-stair wall installed.  I thought the inner rotunda would feel small when it was finally defined by the stairs and wall, but it still feels big enough for everything we would use it for.  We can already see a good sized Christmas tree sitting in this curve, especially convenient with a wall socket on the curved wall.  Even with a big tree, there's still enough space to walk around through the rotunda.  Decorating a tall tree will be much easier here since we can just walk up the stairs and rotate the tree to reach the highest boughs.

   Here's the see through fireplace from the great room side.  The log pile isn't arranged very high, so there's lots of open space above it.  They're currently protected by cardboard and the surrounding bezel is still in the box.  We had to modify the installation slightly since the fireplace column is 36" thick and the fireplace is only 30".  We took in an area surrounding the fireplace by three inches on each side to accommodate for this discrepancy.  We're not sure if we'll use a different material for the depressed surround or keep the stacked stone.

   Here's what the entire fireplace column looks like in the great room.  The carpenter is currently using the great room as his first floor work space so it's not a great shot, but you can see how large the fireplace is.  I'm happy with the over all look and can't wait to see it lit up.  It's an interesting fireplace  because there are two red halogen lights inside that shine on the side of the firebox augmenting the glow if the fire.  Even though the look is augmented, the output isn't,  It provides between 42k-57k BTU of heat, so I'm not sure the geothermal will even need to run when this thing is on.

   The height of the open fireplace isn't too restricted from the front door.  You won't be able to see out the great room windows, but there's no problem seeing into the seating area.  The large opening should help provide light to the rotunda so the center of the house isn't too dark.  We'll only be able to tell when the drywall is up and the front door with the glass side lites are in.

   A neat feature of the rotunda that we weren't expecting is the visibility of both fireplaces from the first or second floor.  Eventually there will be railing installed around the upper rotunda, but that shouldn't block the view too much.  There's also a hanging light in the center, but I don't think we're planning on having it come too far down.  Since both fireplaces are remote controlled, it's entirely possible to stand in one place and simultaneously turn them both on.  

   Mike picked out a different fireplace on the second floor since the one we originally picked wasn't supplied by the same retailer/installer so this is the first time we're seeing the selection.  I think he did a great job picking something nice for the space.  It's much taller than I thought it would be, but still proportioned well enough so we could get a mantle above it.  This one has LEDs that make the embers under the gas logs glow so you can turn those one without the flame to provide a nice ambiance.  The brick refractory is the same color as the one below, but arranged in a herringbone pattern.

   Here's the view of the fireplaces from the second floor rotunda.  This angle provides a much better view of both fireplaces than the one below, but the upper fireplace might be blocked by the hanging light once installed.  The dimensions on both fireplaces look very close, which adds a nice symmetry.  They're all hooked but but I'm not sure if they've been tested or turned on yet.

   Since the second floor ceiling is still open, you can see the exhaust pipes from each fireplace, going up to the chimney box.  They're double walled pipes so they handle both air intake and gas exhaust.  The exhaust goes out the center and the intake on the outer pipe so the incoming air is warmed a bit by the exhausted air.  Since none of the combustion air comes in contact with the inside of the house, none of that matters, but it will help increase the efficiency of the burn.

   I couldn't get a great shot of the gas exhaust pipes up in the chimney box, but you can kind of make them out as they exit the top.  I don't know if these will be insulated in the attic space, but since the fireplace installers installed these, I'm guessing that they won't be.  it shouldn't be an issue other than losing some heat to the attic space, but that was efficiency lost anyways.  The fireplaces do allow for piping the heat to other rooms, but we didn't build that feature into the house.

   The carpenter also prepped the underside of the first floor stairs for drywall installation.  He added 2x4 across the stringers to act as nailers for drywall for a finished look.  There's currently no lighting installed in the stairwell so we'll need to address that deficiency, whether it's lights on the walls or recessed lights under the stairs.  It's a pretty dark space so it will be required.

   The space where the stairs land on the first floor was also closed up, ready for drywall.  This will be an inaccessible dead space that really doesn't have an utility.  It's too high to reach from the basement stairs and too small to build in storage on the first floor.  It's better to just drywall it in.

   They boxed off beams and HVAC ducts in the basement too.  We're still trying to decide how we need to approach finishing the basement.  Original intent was to keep it unfinished and complete it later, but there's a construction code that requires that all insulating materials need to be covered with a fire protection barrier.  Most of the time that can be drywall, but that would mean we need to drywall the basement ceiling and exterior walls before certificate of occupancy and this isn't in the budget.  There are some paints available that satisfy the requirement, so we'll have to look at a cost comparison and figure out what we want to do.  These beams will be boxed in either way, so it makes sense to take care of them now.  There will be some dividing walls under them in the future so they'll provide a good place for the top plate to attach to.

   The first floor HVAC trunks and beam at the back of the house were also boxed in for drywall.  There will be a wall that encompasses the posts to divide the workout room from the general basement space so the ceiling was expected to drop down here anyways.  The area farther back is slated to be the basement movie theater and the boxed in HVAC will have to serve as a soffit for the screen wall.  Most of the make up air duct for the kitchen is encased in the soffit save for the part that ducks under the beam.  I'll have to find a creative way to wall that in on both sides of the space.  Eventually, you won't even know it's there.

   Old Country Stone got all the cinder block structure for the gazebo seating and barbecue installed last week, despite the cold temperatures.  Here's a shot of the barbecue area and cut out for the built in grill.  There's already a gas pipe installed that runs down into the under deck storage space and into the basement.  We decided to not install any openings for storage since we have a charbroiler in the kitchen range top that we'll probably need to use the same tools on.  The surface is at a counter top height and will be topped with a slab of granite.

   The fireplace has reached a height where they needed to cut away the gazebo roof to path the chimney through.  They've completed the built in seating structure, which will be clad in stacked stone.  There's one piece of clay chimney liner installed and almost bricked in, with four remaining.  I think it will take the height of the chimney above the height of the gazebo peak.  The seating is standard sitting height and will be topped with the same 2" thick blue stone that is going on the floor.  A half railing will sit on the seating between the posts and serve as a backrest to the bench.  We're not planning on putting any cushions on the benches, but they could be added if we wanted.  The seats are about 2 feet wide, but with the railing, will be narrower for sitting.  It doesn't seem like there will be enough space to lie flat on your back, which we're okay with.  The seats only flank the fireplace, keeping the rest of the gazebo open.

   The fireplace still needs one shoulder, but the firebox is complete.  You can see the clay liner and cinder block that surrounds it, so the actual chimney will be pretty low profile.  We'll probably need some kind of folding screen or screen doors to popping embers, but that's something we'll have to decided on later.  There's no built in firewood storage since we have enough land around us.  I'll just keep a convenient log pile some where.

   Here you can see the side of the gazebo and where the height of the fireplace is.  I think we'll need to ask OCS to build out the seat a little more to encompass the post because it looks a bit odd the way it currently is.  There's not enough space between the wood post and cinder block to allow for the post covering detail or seat stone so I'm not sure what the design intent was here.  I haven't seen any of the stacked stone on sight yet, so I'm not sure how thick it is, but it's definitely thicker than the slight gap they left.

   I climbed up onto the scaffolding to take a look at the chimney progress.  You can see the section they cut away and removed shingles from for the chimney.  They already constructed a cricket to prevent debris from collecting on the back side of the chimney when the weather cooperates, they'll be able to build up more.  Standard flashing will be required where the chimney meets the roof.  It doesn't look like they're providing clearance for the stacked stone on the inside of the roof so it will probably just stop at the overhand and start up again on top.

   That's about it for this week.  We have a meeting this week to finalize the front door leaded glass design and finish.  Weather isn't cooperating much, so I'm not sure what to expect for the coming week.  Insulation should be going in soon and drywall can start, but exterior stone completion might be put on hold until it warms up a bit.  The area left to finish is difficult to tent and keep warm so there might be weather delay for that.  Hopefully it will warm up again soon so we can finish off the exterior, but interior work should still continue.  We've gotten lucky with the weather this year.

Copper roof finished! Geothermal wells installed! Nearing the end of the pre-construction phase

   Every week there's something new and this one is a doozy.  The problem with having so much progress is that it's hard to keep up with the blog, the blog posts are way longer, and I don't get to see the work in transition so I'm missing out on exciting pictures.

   As mentioned in the last post, this week we had three crews running at the house at the same time.  The carpenters were working outside, installing window trim and prepping for siding.  They were also busting ass inside, making corrections to walls, prepping window openings, finalizing all the door openings, and finishing unfinished areas.  We had the copper roofers installing the copper roof on the turret and installing the weather vane mounting rod.  All that's left is to finish off the shingle near the turret and wrap the chimney with ice and water membrane.  Lastly, the geothermal well drillers came and went, drilling six wells 140 ft deep each, connecting them up, and trenching the line to the house.  Prepare yourself for a progress smorgasbord. 

    This greeted me as I pulled up to the house.  Since the front of the house was dominated by the geothermal well work, this lumber delivery couldn't make it into the garage.  With most of the previous lumber delivery almost exhausted, this load was required to keep the work moving.  I can't say I know where everything is going, but considering it's unprimed, I can guess that it's not going on the exterior.  It doesn't look like pine, and it's only .75" thick so it's most likely trim board.  Maybe used for all the window bays.

    Here's the state of the front of the house.  You can see the copper roof completed, trim under all the second story fascia and on the outside corners, some new framing on the garage headers to bring them to height, and window trim on almost all the windows.  The ground was disturbed by the geothermal trenching, bit is now flat and a little squishy.  I'm really glad we went with real copper for that turret roof.  I think it's a huge centerpiece to the house and it looks amazing driving up the driveway.

    Here's a closer look at the turret roof.  The carpenters replaced one of the curved fascia boards that was cracked.  All the windows are now installed in the turret and the overhang is completed.  Unfortunately it comes very close to the top of the windows, so some creative window trim design will be needed to make it look cohesive.  The weather vane rod is stainless steel and goes right into the attic space, where it's held captive by a mounting bracket.  I love the cone cap at the top.  We have a 3 foot copper dragon weather vane coming in mid-November that will sit up there so we'll have to hang onto the sky-trac until then.  We'll have to talk to the electrician to see if it needs to be grounded.  There are some trees close by that are taller than the house, but copper is much more conductive.

    I know it doesn't look like much, but underneath lurks the heating and cooling arteries of the house.  On the right of the frame, in front of the cement and boulder retaining walls sits 6 geothermal wells, drilled down through 140 feet of sand and gravel.  These are buried a couple feet under current grade, and will be buried under two more feet of fill sand when it's brought up to construction grade.  On top of that will be the paver section of the driveway.  Running to the house is trenched four feet down under the frost layer, two main pipes that breach the basement wall, bringing all the circulation liquid into the house.  The lines are covered with sheets of foam to help block against surface coldness.  A section of the porch was removed so they could access the basement wall and drill through.  I wish I could have gotten pictures of it all, but they moved too quickly.  The drilling took two days and the laying of the pipe and trenching was finished in one.  The only trace that's left is two hoses coming through the basement wall and a newly scraped driveway.

    Here's where they went into the house.  It was always planned that something would come through here so Matt didn't fully install the deck joists in this section.  We initially though that the water would come through here, but later changed it when it was decided the geothermal wells would be better placed under the driveway.  We might keep this open still since Mike wants to install some proper water barrier on the ICF wall when Great Oaks comes to repair the heaving in the retaining wall.

   Here are the lines that come into the house.  They're sitting right above the drain sump and across the mechanical room from the furnace itself.  I'm hoping they'll be able to route the lines really nicely since I hope to have a clean looking mechanical room.  Besides the furnace, it will also contain a water pre-heater from the geothermal system, a water heater, our main electrical panels, and our server stack for data and audio/video distribution.

   It looks like they drilled through the ICF and installed PVC sleeves, through which they ran the polyethylene piping.  I'm not sure what the other drill hole is for, but it's filled with concrete.  There are only two pipes, and I think they just run in a continuous loop going up and down each well in series.

   One of the lines is capped off and the other has a pressure gauge installed on it with a quick connect fitting.  The gauge is reading higher than 100 psi, which is higher than the 40-70 psi present during normal furnace operation.  I'm not sure how long they'll run this pressure test for, but it has been holding for at least one day.

   All the windows are being prepped for finishing carpentry work and drywall.  Here's one of the double casement windows in the front of the house.  Because of the width of this opening, this window is made up of two individual casement windows with wood in between.  The window bucks have been furred for the final material and some framing has been installed in the middle stile.  We're not really too keen on how far forward the center stile has been boxed out because, when finished, it will make the window look like two window bays rather than one window.  We talked to Mike about this and we'll have to come up with a solution.  There will still need to be some window sill taken up with the center stile, but we can probably make it thinner.  We have to be able to fit insulation and final wood trim there, so maybe some 1.5" thick foam sheet and the final casement wood of half an inch would give us the look we desire.  Mike has been awesome with accommodating changes and implementing them quickly.  He's a real problem solver.

   All the windows have been delivered from Pro Brothers, so we can finally get everything sealed up.  The full arch window on the left of the great room and the eyebrow in the laundry room arrived damaged and have been replaced, delivered, and installed.  The rough carpenters have boxed in the arches and spaced them to the interior dimensions.  Those spaces should probably be insulated with either fiberglass batting or spray foam (preferred) but now you can get an idea what the interior walls will look like.  You can see some furring strips installed on the bucks where the final interior casement will be installed.

   Here's The view of the windows from the second floor.  The great room will really look different when the catwalks are removed, but I think they'll probably remain through most of the rough mechanicals.  It's very convenient to work from them for the window trim and probably much of the drywall installation.  I'm really happy with how the windows turned out.  We thought about using rectangular windows on the upper side, but felt the arch on the back would end too abruptly without arches on the side.  The grid above and clear below mimics the rest of the windows and really adds character to an otherwise open wall.  We're expecting a coffered ceiling in this room but haven't nailed down a design yet.

   The dividing wall was started in the master bedroom but we'll have to make a design change.  Since the master bedroom is so long, we decided to have a free-standing wall about the width of the bed to break up the space into the sleeping area and a sitting area.  We'll be able to hang a TV on this wall on the bed side, and maybe some art on the sitting side.  The only problem is that, since the floors are concrete, a free-standing wall isn't easily possible.  If this were a wood construction, the sub-floor could be cut away and the wall joists could be tied into the floor joists, allowing the wall to stand freely without anchoring it to the ceiling trusses.  Since we can only attach to the surface of the concrete floor, we needed to tie into the ceiling, otherwise the wall would be unstable.  Since we don't like the look of the tie in, we've decided to add two short returns to each side so it makes more of an alcove facing the bed.  Just a short 1 foot return will allow the wall to be free standing without supports to the ceiling, and we could use that alcove space for shelves or a built in if we want.  There's about six feet from the foot of the bed to the wall so I'm not too worried about walking space.  Another example of design vs implementation and solutions that need to be invented as the process moves forward.

   Here's the free standing wall that will divide the shower from the rest of the bathroom.  The master shower will have two zero threshold entrances and a curved free standing wet wall.  The convex shower side of the dividing wall will have two shower heads and a hand shower with all the associated controls.  We don't have a need for body showers amd since it's open, we won't have a steam shower.  On the concave side will be the tub filler and controls, with the tub sitting perpendicular to the wall.  This wall will be able to stand without ceiling attachments because it's curved.  The wood pieces are just being used as spacers and will be removed when the wall is erected.  I think special attention will need to be paid to this wall since curved walls usually require more studs, but there's so much plumbing involved there will need to be spaces.

   The fireplace in the the up stairs has been roughed in, but we haven't decided on a specific fireplace up here so this might need to change.  While we have the great room gas fireplace picked out, this one has fewer limitations so it's completely open as to which one we want.  Picking one is on my to-do list.

   Here's a close up of the blocking in the windows of the full arch in the great room.  There's lots of space for insulation between the supports.  The finishing materials will sit on the supports and butt up against the windows, overlapping the window sash.  We'll have to figure out a good way to dust up here.

   The laundry room window has been installed.  This is made up of three individual components, the eyebrow across the top, and two square casements on the bottom.  The dividing stile was necessary to prevent needing rectangular windows for the casements.  Rectangular windows would have messed up the grid spacing.  You can get a better idea of the separation stile, and how obtrusive it is when it's this thick.  While not as thick as the ones on the first floor, it's also not connected to the top of the window opening, so it looks kind of odd.  If we can reduce the depth a bit, I think it won't look like a column in the middle of the window and will blend a bit better.

   The little broom closet in the second floor laundry room was added and I like how it came out.  To the left of it will be a crafting table that will have to be designed at a later date.  The closet will be big enough for an upstairs vacuum cleaner and maybe some other cleaning supplies so we don't have to lug all that stuff up and down the stairs.  This was added as a revision when we discovered the room was bigger than we had laundry use for.  All the laundry related things will be on the other wall, with plenty of room to spare.

   The great room fireplace was roughed in, but will have to be adjusted since we have the intention to elevate the fireplace about a foot off the floor.  We're not going to have a hearth, and since it's a gas fireplace, we don't need any fireproof materials in front of it.  This will make it a bit more modern, departing from the traditional look.  Elevating it will also allow a bit more eye line into the great room from the front door.  There also most likely won't be a mantle on the great room side.  We're undecided about this side and the second floor fire place, but we have a little time to decide.  All that's needed for preparation is a backer board installed before the stone masons come in to set the stone.

   Here's the great room side of the fire place.  There's more than enough room to elevate the box a foot, and a plywood box will be built on the floor to support the fireplace.  We will be mounting a TV above the fire place since it's the central focal point of the room and it will make furniture arrangement easier.  This will be the primary TV watching area even though we'll have a few TV's in other rooms and a theater in the basement in the future.  There needs to be enough space above the fire place for a sound bar, TV, and heat buffer space.  I should communicate with Jonathon of the Sound Vision about how this rough is going since he'll need to run lines and prep for the TV mount.  He'll probably need to communicate with Mike to install a mounting location so the stone won't be installed there.

   All the door openings have been increased in height to accommodate the 8 foot doors we'll have installed.  The rough openings weren't sized properly for an 8 foot door, so some work was needed on all the headers.  The openings were 8 feet tall, and you can't install an 8 foot door in an 8 foot opening since you need door casing.  We've pretty much nailed down the door design as arch topped, flat, 2-panel from Concept Millwork.  It's a mix of MDF for the panels and LVL for the stiles and rails, which allows for good paint-ability of the panels and durability on the edges of the doors, where you'll normally see abuse.  The doors are heavy so we'll use ball bearing hinges.

   Here's a close up of the rough carpentry finishing work in the window bays.  This is in the master bedroom and you can see the furring strips installed and ready to accept the final window casing wood, which will be painted white to match the windows.  Probably a semi-gloss.  There's wood installed on the sill, but I don't think that's the final finish since there's still so much gap between the sill and window.

   Here's the master bathroom wall where the vanity will be installed.  We had this furred out with 2x6 so we could run plumbing in the wall.  The vanity will be floating so there's no space for plumbing in the cabinets through the floor so they have to go into a wall.  There's no way all that plumbing would fit in the ICF layer of the elevator shaft so the wall was needed.  It also adds the benefit of being able to get a deeper medicine cabinet in there and extra space for sound insulation against the laundry room.

   Here's as close as I could get to the turret roof since all the scaffolding was removed.  You can get a good look at the overhangs and how they meet up with the windows.  Since all the trim will be painted white, I don't think we'll miss having trim on top of the windows.  The roof installers did a great job crimping the drip edge all the way around and the copper looks brilliant.  We'll bring them back for gutters when we figure out where they're needed.  If the cost lines up, we'll install round copper gutters where necessary.

   Here's a close up of the copper standing seam.  It's crimped, but I don't think the seams are soldered.  A single stainless metal screw secures the end of the seam to prevent opening, but the copper holds the rest of itself tight.  The copper is super shiny now, and we're not planning on lacquering it to preserve the shine, but will allow it to naturally oxidize.  Two generations from now, if the house is still in the family, they can enjoy a nice green patina.

   With the copper roof completed, all the overhangs can be closed up.  We'll need to install some small round vents in the turret overhang for roof venting, but it's pretty unobtrusive.  I guess they found a pretty good wasp nest up there so having everything sealed up will prevent all of that.  Eventually, I'll need to get up there to install fiber optic lines into the turret ceiling.  We're planning on making a starry field in there, but I'll have to drill through a lot of layers to pull that off.  Luckily, the attic access is close by in the turret bedroom's closet.

   Here's how the trim currently sits with the round window in front.  You can see the top trim is cut around the circle so all the other trim will meet up with that top trim.  I think all the straight trim has been installed on the second floor.  That's outside corners and top trim.  The trim on the first floor still needs to be installed, but they might be waiting until the porch ceiling is installed.

   Here's how the interior of the round window is roughed in, ready for the round tunnel finishing materials.  It will be super interesting how they get from a hexagonal shape to round, and even more interesting to see how they'll bend the wood into a round shape.  For anyone out there still in the planning stages of a build, curves are a budget killer.  Materials aren't naturally curved and we're seeing budget hogs in the stairs, molding, windows, and walls.  Just like the more exterior corners you have on a house increases the cost, the more curves you have increases the finishing costs.

   Here's what the corner trim looks like on the second floor.  The piece of wood on the inside corner is only used as a back stop for the cedar shake siding.  Having the trim this way makes the siding installation easier since you're only having to install on the flats and not having to worry about the corners.  I think the next step on the exterior is to get the trim sprayed and protected before the siding goes on.  

   Here's how the trim around the laundry room turned out.  From the elevation, there's supposed to be more header trim above the window, but I'm not sure if we'll be implementing that.  There's more than enough space and it's all cosmetic, but I think it would need to be done before the siding goes on.  I think it looks nice how it is now, but a larger header will add more character.

   Here's how they'll construct the round trim for the circular front window.  It's made from four pieces and a section of it will be removed where it meets the top trim of the house.  Even through there are odd pieces of wood, you'll never see it after it's painted.  The other arches and I suspect the oval windows will be trimmed out the same way. 

   Here's what the front yard looks like.  I have to come up with a better name because technically it's not the yard since it's all driveway.  The landscapers call it the motor coach, but that sounds pretentious so for now I'll call it the front yard or front area.  Besides the softness, you  would never tell the amount of work that took place here last week.  The well heads and lines are buried and the ground is level.  At a good time, Mike will bring in more fill sand to bring the level to construction grade and in the spring, Great Oaks will bring it final grade and install the driveway.

   Here's the turret with all the windows installed.  I don't have a wide enough lens on my small camera to capture all seven windows, but I have a few panoramas that don't translate well to blog format.  If I can figure out how to embed a photo sphere, I'll have to throw those up in a separate post.  It's pretty neat to be able to look all around.

   The rough carpenters also finalized the gazebo ceiling trusses for final material installation.  We'll be using the same bead board in here as we have in the rest of the patio and even though we couldn't take the ceiling up all the way to the peak, there's still about 14 feet of height in this area.  There will be lights, a ceiling fan, and speakers up there when the thing is completed and having a ceiling gives us plenty of mounting space.

   As promised, I've included some detailed pictures of the sliding doors that were installed last update.  This is the one in the kitchen but the other two in the basement are the same.  They're Softlite Kingsroyal sliding doors and have similar construction and insulation properties as the windows.  We opted for the simple white handles but there are other finishes and looks available.  There's a single locking lever in the handle, as well as hardware to install the toe bolt that prevents the door from sliding open.  You can drill several locking points in the track to accept the bolt so you can crack open the door for ventilation while still enabling the bolt for security.

   Here's a shot of the locking mechanism itself.  It utilizes two bolts and a plunger above that prevents the locking lever from swinging if proper contact with the jam is not realized.  This prevents "false locking" states where you think you close the door all the way and swing the locking lever only to have the locking lugs not engage, leaving the door unlocked.  The lock is operable from the exterior with a key and each of the three doors is keyed differently.

   Here's where the locks engage into.  While it's true that the jamb is just vinyl, the locking plate is steel and screws directly into the wood bucks in the opening so it's fairly secure. I tugged on it pretty hard to test the deflection of the frame and was pleased by the results.  If someone wants to break in, they'll just break the glass rather than trying to jimmy the jamb.  The little hook to the left is the latch point for the lockable screen door.  It's not robust, but hey, it's a screen door.

   Here's what the "locking" latch for the screen door looks.  I put locking in quotes, because it doesn't lock with a key, but it only has a latch from the inside, so if it's latched shut, you can't unlatch it from the outside.  It's about as strong a defense as you can expect on a screen door since the door itself is easily defeatable.  Regardless, it's nice to have this feature for keeping in crafty pets or wandering babies.  I think our toddlers would be able to figure this out.  The screen frame is aluminum and rigid enough to not feel wobbly on the tracks so I'm happy with the quality.  The uses standard splines and is easily replaceable in cases of damage.  The screen itself is a fine fiberglass mesh that should keep out all but the tiniest of bugs.  We'll probably keep the glass door open and screen door closed for the best days of summer since we seem to always have a nice breeze.

   Here's what the sill plate looks like on the door wall.  The sill is aluminum capped for durability so the stainless steel rollers aren't just rolling on the vinyl frame.  As with the windows, all the stiles and rails are foam filled insulated and there's a "triple fin" weather stripping to keep drafts and dust out.  The rail the door rides on is fairly narrow, which will prevent binding should too much dust get in the track.  The track is deep, so it looks like it might be a little difficult to clean, but a dirty track should impinge upon the operation of the door or screen.

   As mentioned earlier in this post, the main garage door opening was framed down to accommodate the nine foot door height.  The door height is a little bit more than standard, but a nice luxury to have, especially since we're having the corner of the door openings curve to match the radius of the windows in the garage door itself.  This will give it a stronger carriage door appearance while still giving enough clearance on the edges for taller vehicles.  We're hoping to to get the garage door rails as high on the ceiling as possible so that, when open, we can have the highest clearance from the door to floor.  We're not really keen on having those overhead storage racks above the garage door so preserving that lofty feel when the door is open is the highest priority.  We'll also be using Liftmaster 8500 garage door openers, which connect to the jack saft to lift the door rather than having a track and opener suspended from the ceiling so the only thing up there will be the door tracks.  The Liftmaster 8500 mounts on the exterior wall and has lots of nice add-ons like remote monitoring and solenoid actuated locking bolts.

   The smaller garage door opening has also been furred down to proper height.  This will also have a curved carriage door appearance, and this bay will most likely house the smaller sports car or off season vehicle. I'll install the car charger on the wall between the two vehicle bays so a charging cable can reach either the left most spot in the large bay or the spot in the smaller bay.

   The steel support beam for the master closet was also boxed in, ready for drywall.  There's nothing we can do to hide this beam, and there's really no reason to hide it since it's in the garage so it will just be boxed in with drywall.  Nothing spectacular or unique about it, but it's nice that they're prepping everything for finishing.

   I know I'm jumping around a bit here, but the master balcony rough in was finished as well.  Before, the decking was a mish-mash of temporary plywood pieces, not even covering all the holes and generally bouncy since it was a thinner material.  Now, a 3/4" plywood was installed on the floor and under it, long shims were installed on top of the floor joists to give the whole deck the desired slope to shed water away from the door opening.  The surface feels way more solid and of course it looks much better.

   The slanted barrier wall was finished off and sheathed in plywood, ready to accept the final finishing materials.  the wall will probably be sheathed in cedar shingles but I'm not sure what the top will be capped with.  To remind you, we'll get a triangular piece of glass cut to make up the missing part and make a railing.

   Here's what the balcony looks like from the bottom.  If you look close, you can see the long wedges used to create the slope in the deck above.  Of course all this will be hidden when the porch ceiling is in place, but it's nice to know that proper attention to detail was given.  I can't remember if we decided what material we'll have on the balcony deck, but I think any material can be installed in the current state.  The black insulated pipe you see is the ventilation from the powder room.

   Here's the back of the house now that all the windows are installed.  All the upper windows have the trim installed and you can see the trim going down the outside corners of the great room.  They stop at the bottom of the lower windows because that's where the brick ledge will be.  Above the brick ledge will be shingle and below the ledge will be cobblestone.

   Here's the trim on the master bedroom windows that go over the bed.  Again, the trim on the arch terminates into the top trim on the wall, but I don't think it looks too bad.  All the windows are a bit taller than I would have expected so they all incorporate into the top trim, but at least it's consistent around the house.  The trim might be simple, but I think it lends a clean look to the house.  A traditional Victorian would have a lot of embellishments and profiles on the window trims, but since this is a modern Victorian, we can get away with a simpler look.

   It's always great to see the crew cleaning up after every week, or at least making an attempt to keep things clean.  You know it's a professional job when they have enough pride in their work and mindfulness about their own safety to keep the job site clean so they're not stumbling over materials and debris.  There were a few other piles of sawdust around the house and there's always a dumpster on site.

   Here's the trash pile so far.  Mostly lumber cutoffs with some waste from the geothermal wells.  Even just having a dumpster constantly on site is a great difference, but Mike says that's just the way it should be done.

   So my finger are sore from all the typing this week and I think this is probably one of my longest posts.  We'll be going back to Hardwood Bevel and Door to sort out our door order and get two more doors, the garage exit and master balcony french doors.  We're also trying to meet with our neighbors to see if we can arrange to trench across their driveway to access the sewer tap, which would save us a ton of money and time.  There was so much activity at the site so far this month that my wireless trail cam ran out of the allotted data transfer allowance.  I know they're working there this week but I have no idea what's in store for my next weekend visit.  I think the copper roofers will finish up with the asphalt shingle and the roof will be 100% completed.  More rough carpentry work will be completed and I think we're getting door templates for the great room exterior and mudroom door.  Things are picking up!