The Big Reveal

The Adirondacks from our deck

Kitchen

Well we did it!!  After seven months, we are firmly planted in our new home.  Sure, there's lots left to do, as you can see in some of these photos, but we're here, it's starting to feel like home and even with the blemishes, we love it.

Here are several shots.  It's a beautiful sunny day, the windmill next door is not moving, which is very unusual, and it feels like it will be warm enough for a bike ride later.

Kitchen

There may be a follow-up post when we see a few electric bills or when the landscaping is done and the outside is looking better, but more likely, this will be the end of the road for this blog.  The process has been very educational, sometimes incredibly frustrating, but never dull.  I'm not sure I would do it again, but now that we are living in a brand new, energy efficient home, there's little reason to think we will ever need to.

So long, thanks for reading...

Enjoy!!

Dining area

Living area looking southwest

Cool light fixture in stairs 

Cool light fixture's little brother in front hall

Main hall.  Pantry and closet on the left, 1/2 bath on the right

South guest bedroom

Master

Master bath

Awesome shower

Looking like a home.

When you think about building a house, you imagine what it will look like when it's done.  You don't think about 6 months of looking at concrete and framing lumber and sheathing and plumbing and wire and every other thing that goes into building a home.

In a little more than two weeks, the moving van will show up in front of our rental home and we'll finally settle into our new digs.  As I look around, this is what I imagined it would look like when we started this process.

The kitchen cabinets have all been installed.  This is a view from the dining area.  The cabinets you see in the lower left will support a breakfast bar.  The stove will be installed in the space dead-ahead and the fridge will fill the opening just to the left of the opening to the mudroom.

The hardware flooring has been installed throughout the downstairs and in the hall upstairs.  Most of it is covered with cardboard for protection, but this photo shows the opening for the range with the flooring exposed.

Crown moulding has been installed above the cabinets where they meet the soffit.  We don't like the empty space you see above the cabinets in many kitchens, so soffits eliminate this dust trap and allow us to bring the can lighting down closer to the work surface.  We'll also have this cool LED tape installed beneath the cabinets for task lighting.

Most of the doors and molding on the first floor have been installed.  Because the exterior walls are so thick, we have bench seating near every window in the house.  All of the windows on the

south side of the house are oversized and triple pane.  They're designed to produce heat in the winter time.  Sitting in the window well on a sunny day you're bathed in nice warm air.  Next week we should have the heat recovery ventilator fired up so it will distribute this free heat evenly throughout the house.

Upstairs tiling has begun in the laundry room and guest bathroom.  We chose white subway tile for the tub surround in the guest bath.  This was an upgrade from the fiberglass enclosure you see in some homes and I think well worth it.

We also added upgrades in the master bathroom with a separate tub and shower and dual sinks.  Here the shower stall has been been prepped for tile.  Based on our tile vendor's suggestion, we added a foot to the width of the shower stall to accommodate a built-in bench.  This is actually constructed from thick styrofoam so it can never rot.  Here it is covered with the tile backer board and sealed with some magic purple sealant.  We chose a white porcelain tile that looks like marble.

The attractive orange floor will hold a heating coil that is embedded beneath the tile to keep our piggies nice and warm.  There is nothing like stepping on an ice cold tile floor in the middle of the night and now we can count on that being a distant, unpleasant memory.

Next week the tilers should be finishing up and the plumber should be back to install the fixtures and fire up the heating/cooling and ventilating systems.  Electrician and painters should be behind him and lastly (I assume) the carpeting will be installed on the second floor.

Lots more to come - stay tuned.

How about a little color on this project?

All of a sudden, we've been transported into one of those Extreme Home Makeover shows, except in our version, we started with a hole in the ground instead of a **ithole of a house.  (see what I did there??!!).  We are expecting the movers to show up in 37 days, and there sure seems like a lot left to do.

There is a lot that has been done, you'd know this if you have been following along, and there is a lot that has happened since my last post.

We've seen several different photos from this same vantage point, and you can see that the siding is now finished.  If you zoom in a little, you'll see the vinyl "shakes" we chose for the big peak on the south side (to the right in this pic) and the smaller peaks above the porch roof and front door.  These are the same color as the rest of the siding, but I think it gives it a little texture and a lot extra "cool".

We'll add shutters to the front of the house, probably a darker grey-green, but we have not settled on a color.  The window above the front door looks a little lost in that big expanse, and I think the shutters will give it a little more balance.

Guest bedroom colors

The inside is also brightened up significantly.  The taping is done and the painters are nearly finished their phase one.  That basically means finish ceiling colors on all the rooms and the first coat of finish on all the walls.  They'll return later to second coat the walls and finish all the trim, doors and stairs.

We, and when I say we in relation to any color choices on this project, I really mean my better half.  Have I mentioned I am color ignorant?  I can tell one color from another, but I really could not tell you what goes well with what.  I have other strengths.  I plan to identify them some day...

Anyway, we do not have strong feelings about the colors of some of the rooms, so we have chosen a neutral cream color that we'll likely change after we've lived with it for a while.  Here is a shot of the cavernous room above the garage.    As you can see, it's pretty basic right now.

Master bedroom color

We do have some ideas about the master bedroom and bath.  The bedroom color is one that we used in our last place, that we really liked.  Here's a shot of the master bedroom.  It's a little hard to see, but it's sort of a light grey, very soothing.

The painters should be finished in one or two more days and then the flooring installers should arrive.  When I stopped by today, the hardwood for the downstairs had been delivered.

Now we get to revisit some of the choices we made months ago.  Initially we thought we would choose a site-finished maple flooring to eliminate the micro-bevel that is standard with pre-finished flooring.  When we met with Kyle, our flooring vendor, he talked us into the pre-finished instead.  With the multiple layers of finish applied at the factory, pre-finished is much more durable than site finished flooring.  It's also twice as fast to install.  Now that time is so precious, I'm glad we made that call.

Hardwood is here

Here is a sample of the floor that will cover all of the downstairs, with the exception of the mudroom, which will be tiled.  More on that next time.

So the next few weeks should be fast and furious.  We'll see the hardwood and tile flooring, tile shower and tub surrounds, kitchen cabinets and countertops, finish wiring and plumbing, trim, finish stair components and closet fixtures all come together magically.

At least that's how it happens on TV!!

Until next time.

Done and done, but not without controversy

Welcome to the New Year dear readers.  We are excited about having a new home in early 2015.  Progress this last week or so seems to support us moving in sooner versus later.

The insulators finished their job and moved on.  I mentioned in an earlier post that they had installed fiberglass insulation in the ceiling above the garage.  The plan called for dense packed cellulose instead, so they returned to carefully remove this so it could be reused.  They will return later to fill this cavity once the sheet rocking has been completed.

Kitchen view.  Taping has begun.

Which it has been.  We toured around the house today and all of the walls, with the exception of one more sheet for the basement stairs, are now clearly defined.  The space looks really great, only slightly different than what I expected.  One of the things that is clearly evident now is the height of the ceiling on the first floor.  These are set at nine feet and it makes the entire space, including the closets, look much airier.  We'll need to devise a clever way to use this extra space in the many closets and pantries on the first floor.  I'd hate to waste such a valuable asset.

The front door has also arrived again and has been installed.  Nate and Jamie brought one small ceramic heater that has been keeping the entire house very bearable.  It was well into the single digits last night.  The house seems extremely tight, even though there are two holes in each door where the doorknobs and deadbolts will be installed and we have yet to have insulation in the guest bedroom floor.

Sheetrock debris waiting to be recycled.

When the last of the sheetrock was hung and the place was cleared and swept, there was an enormous pile of sheetrock debris covering most of the front porch.  I wish I had a picture of it, as it looked like half of the sheetrock that was originally delivered.  At first I thought this was left on the porch because the dumpster was full.  I was really pleased to find a guy there today carefully creating neat pallet size stacks of used sheetrock.  He told me this will be returned to the factory and ground up to make new drywall.  I read somewhere that the majority of construction debris in our landfills today is sheetrock. It's cheaper to use a new sheet than it is to pay a taper to cover the seams of small pieces patched together, so this creates an enormous amount of waste.  Having a recovery loop in place for this makes me feel good about the way this house is being built.

The garage looks cavernous with sheetrock installed.

And speaking of, I mentioned last time that cellulose insulation is the preferred method of filling thick walls, instead of the foam insulation.  Nate mentioned that it is also 50,000 times better for the environment.  If you look carefully at the cellulose insulation, you can see the individual letters that once made up newsprint.  This too is a recovery loop for the newspaper industry.  In addition, the chemicals in the foam insulation create environmentally harmful byproducts.  So clearly we are champions of the environment and I've barely gotten off my ample butt!!

We did have some excitement at the job site this past week.  Sometime Christmas day or night, the site was broken into and the siding and sheet rocking crews had most of their tools stolen.  They even took the half empty box of sheet rock screws.  The siding installers had their stuff locked in boxes on their trailer, but the trailer was taken apart and ransacked.  They also stole the pump jacks that are used to raise their work staging up vertical poles that are temporarily attached to the house.

The delay was only a few days, but in the case of the dry wallers, most of these were their personal tools, only a third of which was covered by insurance.  At the time of writing, Nate and the subs had a pretty good idea who was responsible, but as yet, there is no closure on this unfortunate event.

Master bath.  Lots of green in this project.

The siders are scheduled to return on Monday, and a bunch of five gallon buckets of sheet rock mud are on site, awaiting the tapers.  Steph and I have made our final paint decisions and have relayed these to the painters and we're starting to think about appliances.  All very exciting!!

Till next time...

Moving right along.

Why yes, that is in fact siding on our house.

The siding, insulation and dry wall subs were all at the house this week either finishing, in the case of the insulators or beginning the siding and sheetrock.

I was surprised how long it took to insulate.  These guys have been on site for nearly two weeks, working Saturdays and Sundays to get all the walls, ceilings and attic all nice and cozy.

They began by stretching a fiberglass net across all of the exterior walls on the inside.  Next, cellulose insulation is pumped in and rolled out until it is very densely packed inside the wall.  Hence the name, "dense pack cellulose".  When you press on the netting, it's like pressing on a mattress.

Next they pumped this into the attic and all the walls that were covered with sheathing above the garage.  We decided this would be a good time to insulate the walls of the garage, as this was not part of the original plan.  When I visited today, fiberglass insulation was installed on all the garage walls along with a plastic vapor barrier.  Fourteen inches of this was also installed in the ceiling of the garage, which will keep the floor of the guest bedroom nice and warm.

When I left the job site today, the same fiberglass netting was being installed in the basement walls and this too will be packed with cellulose.  That should be the grand finale for the insulation sub.

Last week, a big stack of vinyl siding appeared in the driveway and this week the siding contractors began their work.  Here is a shot of the nearly completed north side of the garage.  Only the facia along the roof needs to be installed.

We originally chose a yellow siding with white trim.  Then we spent the late part of the summer and early fall watching the progress and decided this property is too sunny for siding that bright.  We instead chose Thistle, which is sort of grey/green, depending on the light.  The corner boards are the same color and as you can see the trim will be white.  The gable on the south side as well as the smaller gables on the front will have vinyl "shakes" installed.  The color will be the same as the siding, but the change of texture should give it a neat look.

Lastly, the dry wall arrived this week and the installers have been on site for two days.  Finally we get an idea what the space will feel like when it's done.  Here's a shot looking down the second floor hall towards the south.

They should finish hanging the sheetrock early next week and then a different crew will arrive to tape it.  These are the real artists of the drywall world.  I've done my fair share of sheet rocking in my day and I learned very early on that the taping and finishing is the most important step.  I always hire it out, mostly because my wife makes me!!

Here's a shot of the master bedroom from the bathroom door, again looking south.  These guys are fast but messy.  The entire second floor looks like an explosion at a drywall  factory.

So with the Christmas holiday behind us, we can return to perseverating about the progress on the house again.

Happy New Year all!!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

This is not a particularly attractive phase of the project.  The rough wiring is complete as is the rough plumbing, including the supply and return lines for the heat recovery ventilator.  The tech wiring is mostly done and the lines for the central vacuum have been installed in the interior walls.

All of the holes in the building envelope for the plumbing and wiring were sealed and Efficiency Vermont has performed the initial door blower test.  Although this sounds like a sequel to The Three Little Pigs, what actually happens is the doors are sealed with plastic and tape, and the house is de-pressurized to -50 pascals of negative pressure and then the air movement is measured.  This tells us how tight the house is, before insulation and sheetrock are installed.

Our project measured an impressive 320 cubic feet per minute at -50 pascals.  Based on the size of the house, this translates to .6 air changes per hour (ACH).  The threshold for high performance homes is less that 1.0 ACH and the threshold for a passive house is .6 ACH.  This is indeed the "Good" part of this post.

I mentioned in the last post that the exterior doors will be mounted to the inside of the building envelope, so they can swing all the way open.  In order to make sure we do not have any moisture infiltration under the doors, we are having copper "pans" built that will sit under the door threshold and keep all the rain on the outside.  I suspect these little devils are responsible for the some of the delays we are experiencing.

So our move-in date has been pushed out a month, we are now looking at the end of February.  This would be the "Bad".  I've mentioned several times, I can't wait to be living there and these delays are agonizing.

So on to a little "Ugly".  This week, the insulation contractors have installed a fiberglass mesh, that is stapled tightly to the inside of the exterior walls to hold the dense pack cellulose insulation.  Although we see a lot of spray foam used in "This Old House" type shows, cellulose is recommend for thick walls as it is easy to identify and fix gaps in the insulation.  You can see through the installed mesh and if there are any gaps in the cellulose, you just pump some more in.  Not so with the spray foam.  Once this hardens, it is virtually impossible to see and fix any gaps inside the walls.

The downside is: to be blunt, the shit is ugly!!  It's gray, dusty and tends to get everywhere.  If there are holes in the fiberglass mesh, it falls out and on to the floor.  With snow on the ground, water is constantly tracked in, which which forms a nice gray stew when mixed with the cellulose.

But the stuff works, and once the sheetrock is up, you won't see it again.  We stopped by on Saturday when it was sunny and calm, but around 20 degrees.  Even with nothing but a loose sheet of plastic for a back door, and no insulation in the attic, the house seemed nice and cozy.  The south windows were producing just enough heat to keep the first floor comfortable.

 So this is what keeps me positive when things are looking grim.  This beauty is made by Brunswick and I have just the place for it.  Even though right now it's a little dark, dusty and grim.

Buttoned up, sort of...

Well as you can see by this photo, the windows are in.  The poor subs that have had to work in this cold windy shell have fashioned some temporary doors to make the inside almost bearable.

And speaking of doors, this photo highlights the depth of the walls.  Normally, the exterior doors would be hung on the outside of the framing and swing in.  If there is no wall to obstruct it on the inside, the door could conceivable swing all the way to the inside wall and be completely out of the way when opened.

One of the issues with high efficiency homes is because of the thickness of the walls, an exterior door mounted to the outside would only swing in 90 degrees, and then it would hit the side of the exterior wall, which would leave it very much in the way when opened.  The front door opens to the stairs, so if you were coming in the front door and planned to run upstairs to grab something (after removing your shoes of course!!)  you would need to step around and close the door behind you to get to the stairs.

So after much discussion and back and forth with Nate and our door supplier, we decided to mount the exterior doors to the inside of the framing.  The picture above shows where the doors will eventually be hung.  I think this will be a very cool, old fashioned look with the doors set deep into the framing.

So as of today, the rough wiring is all in place, with a few minor changes needed, and the rough plumbing is nearly complete.  Here's a shot of all the tubing to feed the heat recovery ventilator that I talked about last time.  It's sort of un-worldy looking in the basement with all these tubes hanging down from the floors above.

We also contracted with Sean at Techhome to come in and wire us for any audio/visual/phone/security wiring we may ever need.  The plan is to eventually run all technology to a rack in the basement, and this wiring will feed TV's, speakers, security cameras, etc., from one location.  You can use your smartphone to lower the volume, play different music in the basement or upstairs, or see who's banging on the front door.  

There is no better or cheaper time to do this wiring, even if you never use the technology.  If we decided to add this stuff later, the cost would be tenfold, to say nothing about the hassle of cutting and patching sheetrock.

So this short week before Turkey day should see the tech wiring completed.  Next we add the tubing for the central vac and then I think we're ready for insulation.

It was nice and sunny today and warmer than it has been, so I spent some time sort of absorbing the vibe in each one of the rooms, even the closets (very Zen!!).  The house has a great feel to it, very cool site lines from different locations, I can't wait to be living there.

Happy Thanksgiving all!!