Insulation and Drywall

Kyle finished up the electrical last week, and the next day, we had the 4-way inspection, and a few days later, the insulation was done.  That same day, the drywall was delivered, and the framers came and covered the south wall with plywood (something to do with how much glass in on that wall).  

These are all kind of out of order, but here's looking up into the cooling chimney.  The exposed joists will be wrapped and painted to match the trim.

Standing in the kitchen, looking out to the living room.  The dry wallers only did the ceilings on the first floor on saturday.  Hopefully they'll come back on monday.  

The garage ceiling.  This picture also shows how the exterior wall insulation looks.  It's a plastic sheet, then they punched holes in it and blew in some sort of cellulose fill.  It's pretty cool.  Interior walls have the regular pink batting.  The insulators also sprayed foam in any cracks to seal the house up really well.  Joints on plywood, electrical boxes.  They were pretty thorough.

Rock and Stuff

It doesn't seem like anything major is happening right now, but the little things continue to move along.  Here's what's going on right now...

Kyle is still working on the electrical.  It's taking a long time, but he's plugging away at it.  I'm sure he'll be even happier when it's done than I will be.  

The support for the fireplace is in.  Kyle also framed inside of it, it will be a  second small closet of sorts for A, since his room has the smallest closet.  The support will have a slab poured over it.  Then we'll wait until we sell our old house to actually put the fireplace in.  That will be really nice.

I love my front door...

The gas lines are all run.  We have a gas water heater and dryer and this gas line for the cooktop, and a gas line run to the patio for the BBQ grill.

The rock is getting close to being done. 

Close up of the rock- this is the east side of the house.  

Kyle put some supports down through the floor into the joists so that when he builds the stair railings, they're sturdy.

The trench for the water line got filled in, so we're waiting for one more utility to come and lay their line, then we'll be ready for the driveway (although I think we have to get the drywall delivered before we can pour the driveway, and we need to get the electrical done and have the 4-way inspection, and the insulation done before the drywall can come, so hopefully all that stuff happens soon while we have such nice weather.

It's been awhile..

The water meter is in and the water line going to the house is down.  I'm not sure if it's actually connected up to the house yet or not...

We've had three or four different trenches dug up the entire length of the driveway.  It would have been nice if we could have just done one trench and been done with it, but all the different utilities needed their own trench apparently.  Now we're just waiting for gas or electric to come do their trench (I can't remember which one isn't done yet...).  Then we can cover everything up and be done digging up the driveway.

The rock guy has been prepping for putting the rock on.

The window came.

And were installed in an hour.  They were fast.  One window got broken during installation, so hopefully they come back and replace it soon.  There are two windows in the cooling chimney that we ordered from another company, so we could get them on an electric switch so we can open them by remote.  Cooling chimneys aren't very useful if you can't open the windows.

Just looking at the light coming through the windows makes me happy.  It was really warm in there even without the house being sealed up all the way.  The back corner was actually too warm.  That's why we have to have the layer of quickset and tile everywhere on the first floor- it will moderate the heat so it doesn't get too hot in the winter. I can't wait to see how it works, and if it affects our utility bills at all.

Kyle picked up the exterior doors, and Frank from our builder came and installed them.  This is the only one that was done when I walked home from school with CP.  This is the garage to outside door.  All the other doors are more interesting to look at.

The fire sprinkler people came and finished up in a day.  They still have to connect the system to the water source, but other than that, fire sprinklers are done.

Kyle finished framing the basement, including around all the hvac ducting.  

This is the shower for the guest bath, and in the background you can see my soaker tub.  Kyle's going to need it after all the work he's been doing.

They cut a floor in my living room and build a cement block wall to support the (future) fireplace.  It will all be covered up again, but it will be there down the road when we are ready to put in our fireplace.  

Kyle also ALMOST finished the roof.  He has to put a few pieces of flashing in, and shingle the top of the cooling chimney.  I think that's the plan for tonight, if he can get to it before it gets too dark..  Looks like rain and snow in the next few days, so hopefully he can get it all done.

The rock did get dropped off today, I'll have to go out and look later to see if they started putting it up.  

Tile

We were at the Arizona Tile store to look at their brand new- amazing line of wood-look floor tiles, and I didn't like the new amazing line.  It was cool looking, but not what we were going for.  While we were there we found a few other things we liked.  They had this tile (Eclipse Beige) in a wall display, and I loved it, so I think we're going to do this for our master shower.  It will have a line of accent tiles around it too, (that we haven't picked out yet) but we're thinking we'll have them match the decorative tiles in the floor.

We're thinking this one (Skylights Cafe Melange) as the backsplash in the kitchen, but we're not sure yet, since we didn't have a sample of the granite to see if it looks too busy.  We may end up going with something simpler.

The floor tile for the kitchen and living room (and maybe the master bedroom) is from Daltile (Timber Glen Espresso).  The website had a picture of it installed on the floor, but a really light grout was used and it looked terrible.  If you're going to install tile that is supposed to look like wood, don't use a light grout.  

We still need to pick tile for the bathroom floor and accents, and the laundry room and maybe our bedroom. but it's starting to feel like things are coming together.  I'm deating wether to go with something like this (Marazzi Montagna Belluno) for the shower and floor accent tiles (except these are 6x6 and I think that would be too big for the floor- it would work for the shower...)

Or, do I go with something more stone looking with more color.  Too many decisions...

And then they did.

They finally put up the stairs, but not until the end of the day.

Cutting the stair's treads

One of the cut treads

We were hoping that we could have some type of secret passageway underneath the stair landing, but with how low it actually turned out, we may not be able to. I still harbor hope that we can do it, but it will be kind of challenging.

Stair landing

Finished stairs

 They didn't put the final tread on the stairs because they didn't want it to be ruined with all of the subs and everything.  We can finally get downstairs without a ladder!

We finally have stairs!

Interior walls completed

 The interior walls were completed.  We are kind of worried about the size of the great room sitting area. We will have to see when all of the furniture is placed.

Looking from the guest bedroom into the master bath

They still haven't done the stairs...

It's become a joke, that the stairs seem to be the last thing the framers are going to do.  It's okay because they've got a lot of other things done.

Roof extended over gable

I don't think the scaffolding is OSHA approved

Cooling chimney

Cooling chimney from inside

Finishing sheathing

Last sheathing to be placed

Sewer Line

The sewer line got back filled yesterday - finally.  The dog has had lots of fun climbing in and out of the trench - as did most of the kids.  We are glad that it is covered now.

Sewer lining going down to Main

 There is still some left to do in the in-law's back yard.  We are excited to get the fence up for the dog.

All covered

Right next to the corner of the house

Clean-out next to the house

 I am really excited about this part of the house.  We are planning on having a sewer dump line for the camper.  We won't have to go anywhere to dump the camper after our camping trips.  Also on this side - the port side - we'll have a frost free valve put in so we can fill the camper up with water, too.  Unfortunately, I won't plumb a 30 amp plug on that side - or maybe I will.  I am doing the electrical.

Sewer dump line for the camper

 There isn't a p-trap on this part.  Is that a mistake?  Should we put one in?  I have both thought of that it is needed and not needed.

Sewer dump line

Basement Framing Finished (almost)

"All we need is paint!"  That is what CP exclaimed when we were putting all of the tools away Saturday night.  We had finished for the day and he was excited that we were that much closer to finishing the house.  Unfortunately, it is going to take a little more than paint to finish!

CP's Bedroom

He'll only get sunlight in the morning with this being a northeast bedroom. We are OK with that.

Hallway with Linen Closet

So I have a question for anyone who reads this: Should we make all of the door heights in the basement the same?  The doors to the left side of the hall are lower because of the beam needed for the load bearing wall.  The doors to the right are about 6 inches higher.  Should we worry about the difference in height? Would it look funny to have doors in the same hall different heights?  What about closets in the bedrooms?  Should they have the same heights?

Storage Room

One of the three storage rooms.  This will be a toy storage, for now, to keep the toys out of the family room (yah right - like THAT will happen).

Fmaily Room Looking at Hall and Bedrooms

I like the angled bedroom wall - it opens the hall a little bit and gives it more character.

The reason that the framing isn't complete is because we have yet to find out what we need to do to support the fireplace on the main floor.  It is going to go in between the two kids' bedrooms in the last photo.  So until we have the calculations and drawings from our engineer on what we need to do, this will have to suffice.

House Colors

Most of the house is going to be covered in Hardie board siding.  I'm thinking about this color scheme:

Except I think I want the trim to be a little lighter- more creme.  Something like this: (minus the red accents)

I also really like the stone in this one, so hopefully we can find something similar.