Walls Primed

Forgive me, dear readers, it has been 5 weeks since I last posted! (It is Sunday evening, 4/27, as I write this.)

No, the big delay is not because there has been little or no progress. And, no, it isn't because I lost the camera in the divorce proceedings. Actually the reason for the lack of posting is because of how busy I have been with client work. The month of April is already a record month for me in terms of billable hours. This is good news, since it will help immensely in our efforts to pay for finishing off the house.

Much has been happening on the house, and much of it is visible progress. When last I posted we had just had the drywall installed. Here we see that it is primed. Even the primer makes it look significantly more finished than the drywall. We were excited to see the contrast of the dark walls and the white ceiling.

Becca and Alex were putting a bid in on a house so we went out and checked out the house with them. On our way back, we stopped at our house. Rob had his camera with him and took these pictures. Thanks, Rob!

Here is the skylight over the kitchen island and the kitchen wall in the back. The pantry is to the left.

Skylight and Kitchen

Master bath, ready for the tub?

The exterior of my office in the basement was not primed. We get to do that when we finish off the rest of the basement.

Office Exterior

Becca enjoying the view out my office window.

Checking Out the Drywall

This is the fourth posting and final posting for today. If you haven't read any today, you will want to scroll down to the March 8th "Concrete Poured" posting and work your way up.

We stopped by after the Good Friday service. Karen and Tim followed us up from church, too. The snow was not too bad on our way there. I did some more work on the wiring and we did not leave until almost 7PM. By then, we had 4 inches of snow and the roads were pretty bad. Even worse, were the other drivers on the road. We got home without incident, but it took us more than twice as long as usual.

No more work had been done on the house since the day before, so all I have are pictures of Karen and Tim and the kids.

Kitty in the Great Room

Norah in the Basement

Checking Out the Laundry Room Half Bath

Michael has no idea that this is a new house.

Drywall!

Last week (Holy Week) they drywalled. We stopped by before Holy Thursday Mass. We have a much better feel for the space, now. The rooms seem much smaller. The cathedral ceiling seems lower at the south and north walls than I was expecting. It doesn't look bad, just different than my expectations had evolved after seeing trusses for so long.

Southwest Corner of Great Room

Cathedral Ceiling

Kitchen Skylight Vault

Pete's Closet

Guest Bath

Master Walk-In Closet

Half Bath in Laundry Room

Stairway to Basement

Len's Office (How will I ever get any work done?)

It was my turn to select tile. I am choosing between two tiles.

Len Choosing Tile

Concrete Poured

The insulation and temporary furnace dried out the house. They poured the concrete on Thursday, 3/13. The south side of the main floor, plus the master bath on the north side and the connector to the garage (laundry room, half bath, Mar's office) were all poured.

Looking east through the great room, Pete's bedroom and the master bedroom.

Southwest corner of the great room.

The Trombe wall in the great room is finished.

Master bath tub space.

The next picture shows the exterior without any snow, for a change. You can see the temporary furnace with the tube blowing into the west-most basement window. The propane tank that fuels it is between the porch and the garage. I am hauling a ladder in through the temporary front door to do some more wiring work.

Exterior

Inspection by the Family

Apparently it really has been 2 and a half weeks since I last posted (today is 3/23, Easter).

A lot has happened since they insulated. Not much new in this post, but there are more posts to follow.

Heather visited for several days and Saturday we had Becca and Alex and Len's mom and dad over. Karen and Tim and kids were over, too. As part of the visit, we toured the house.

It was quite windy!

Norah and Kitty enjoyed exploring the new house.

Norah and Kitty enjoyed exploring the new house.

It was especially fun to play in the dirt inside the house.

Mar and mom check out the view out the master bedroom south window.

I guess I really do talk with my hands. Here I am describing something to dad in the great room. Mar is showing mom the pantry while Rob looks on.

Thanks to Heather for all of these photos.

Insulation

The early part of the week they insulated. When we walked in late Wednesday afternoon, the house was somewhat toasty. Fiberglass batting was stapled to the ceiling trusses and cellulose was blown into the walls. Once the drywall is up on the ceiling, they will blow in a bunch more cellulose (R-60). Here is what it looked like:

Inside the great room facing west.

Looking up at the kitchen skylight.

For some reason, they chose to use fiberglass around the stairs. When asked, the builder did not know why.

Around the stairs.

As soon as we get power from DTE (perhaps today, 3/7), they will turn on the temporary furnace to dry out the house. In the mean time, they have a small propane burner in the laundry room.

Warming the pea stone in the laundry room.

While we were out there, I ran wiring for a coax and 2 more ethernet drops in my office.

Len measuring for low voltage box height.

(It was not near so toasty in the basement; those gloves and insulated boots came in handy.)

Siding Complete, Trombe Walls

I just realized (it is now 10:30AM, 3/7) that in the two weeks since I last posted, there really has been some visible progress; slow, but visible. The day before Marlene's birthday, Becca and Alex were visiting, so we decided to show them the progress on the house. Heather was supposed to be in town for a few days too, including that Monday and Tuesday, but got delayed a week and a half by work.

The siding was completely installed, except around the front entry and the Trombe wall windows. I was curious why the front entry had not arrived yet. It turns out that it will not be installed for quite a while so that it does not get beat up during activities still to happen. For instance, when they pour the first floor concrete thermal mass floor, they will deliver the concrete through the front doorway. This is not something you want to do with the expensive door and jambs in place. (In this picture you can see Mort, on the roof, installing the stack for the wood stove. The wheelbarrow in front has a batch of mortar that the block mason is using to lay up the Trombe wall.)

West Side

In the previous posting they had installed the windows in front of the Trombe walls on the lower level. Here you can see those have now been removed. I suspect that it was not possible to work the window side of the block, particularly smoothing the mortar do obtain a flush joining of the blocks.

South Side

Inside view of wood stove stack.

The Trombe walls are a thermal mass used to store warmth from the sun in the winter and then radiate that warmth into the room at night. To be effective, they need to have the cores of the blocks completely filled with concrete. We were surprised to see daylight through the walls at various points. Most of these were where the cores had not been filled yet. The one that is visible in this picture, however, could not be explained that easily.

Inside of Trombe wall.

And a trip to the new house would not be complete without looking at tile on-site.

Mar and Becca checking out tile options.

Siding

Tuesday was a big day for visiting the house. Marlene spent 2 or 3 hours in the morning doing a walk-through with the electrician, specifying in detail the electrical layout. Mid-afternoon, Pete and Len dropped off a waterheater donated by Tim's company (they were disposing of it, despite it only having been used for 8 months on a job site).

They were installing siding and getting ready to lay up the block Trombe walls. In the first picture you can see the front of the house and garage. Now that the windows are in and the siding is on, I am not sure I like the way the two windows look next to each other here. Maybe some creative landscaping will help.

Installing Porch Siding

Back of house and garage are sided.

The lower level of the east end of the house is sided, except fo one piece of trim.

East End

The front (south side) did not have any siding on, although they were getting ready for it.

Front of House at 12:47PM

Three hours later, the windows in lower level in front of the Trombe walls were installed.

Front of House at 13:36PM

This last picture was taken by ace photographer, Pete, as we were driving across the frozen, rutted front yard.

Windows!

If you have not seen this post yet, you will want to scroll down three more posts to 1/25. This is the last of four posts today to get caught up.

It had been two weeks since we had been out to the house. Too busy with other deadlines, sadly. Fortunately, the subcontractors had been busy, as well. Our windows arrived Monday (2/11) from Canada and they started installing them that day. They are all in except the Trombe wall windows. They won't go in until the Trombe walls are built. I'm not sure how they plan to keep the place warm enough to lay up the block with those windows missing, but I'm sure they'll figure something out. None of these pictures show it, but they have started installing the Hardi Plank siding, too.

Master bedroom with windows.

They also completed the rough plumbing and the HVAC ducts. Here you can see a bunch of that in the basement next to the stairs. It sure is easy to tell the hot water pipes (red) from the cold (blue) with the newfangled PEX tubing.

Ducts and Plumbing

The laundry room and Mar's office will have a concrete slab floor. The ducts need to be put in before the floor is poured. I am surprised that they did not insulate these ducts at all.

Laundry Room Ducts

The shower in Bath 1 (guest bath) was installed, as was the drain for the master bath shower. The master bath will be tiled, including the shower, so only a drain is needed, at this point. The control valve for the shower in Bath 1 was not centered very well. I am curious how they will fix this. I bet the interfering stud will get moved.

Bath 1 Shower.

Well, we had even more snow this time than two weeks ago, so I skiied to the back corners to take GPS readings to calibrate my aerial photo map. Marlene and Pete checked out ceramic tile options in the great room, while I did this.

Checking Out Tile in Great Room

Some Drains In

It had been a week since we had seen the place, so we visited despite there not being much progress to report.

The roofing was complete and some rough plumbing was started.

Laundry Room Drains
The back of the house is all ready for windows and siding.

We did have almost enough snow for skiing, so I did. Marlene took some detailed measurements and lots of detailed pictures for future reference. A good time was had by all.

Skiing