More Siding, and inside work coming along.

The siding guys were back today.  They finished the back porch, and around the kitchen and dining area windows.  

This is the base for one of the porch lights. 

Last night Kyle spent several hours trimming around the new window.  It was decided that it was easier to trim around it than it would be to fix the drywall.  

He's also covering the 2x4's with plywood, then he'll fill the holes, caulk the cracks and paint it with the rest of the trim.  

This is the solar tube in our closet.  We have one in our bathroom and one in the hall bathroom as well.  He just has to finish installing the tubing and then attaching the bottom piece to finish it off.

I noticed that at some point (maybe the first day they were here) the siding guys put the ceiling of the porch up.  I can't wait to see the green siding with the rock on the front porch.

Whoops and Siding

The fire sprinker people installed this head too low, so they came back to raise it, and left us with this nice repair job in the dry wall.  They said we could just "patch it up".  Thanks.

Siding going up.  

The last of the finish carpentry (I think)

The headers above the doors on the main floor were installed today.  Don't they look great?

Front door.

This window in the cooling chimney was installed awhile back but I can't remember if I took a picture of it.  The drywall people will have to come back and fix the drywall now.  It was supposed to be two windows, but we weren't able to get two windows with motors attached so we had to improvise.  There will be a switch to open the window and a fan to pull the hot air out of our house in the summer.

More Finish Carpentry

I'm kind of wishing we had done two of these special baluster panels per section, but I think it will look better when it's all painted.

Handrail going down an the wiring for the stair lighting sensor.

Big newel posts.  :)

Handrail on lower section

This is just to show a little bit of what the trim looks like.  I like how wide the baseboards are.  The headers for above the doors aren't ready yet.  In the basement we're just doing plain trim all the way around but upstairs there's something a little fancier.  I can't wait!

I didn't know there was going to be a big post at the landing in the stairway, but I like it. You can see the stairs all finished too.  The stairs, if you remember this far back, were kind of a joke for us because they were one of the last things the framers put in.

This is the little storage closet we ended up with in our closet because the hvac didn't take up very much space.  I am not in love with the pieces of wood put in to make the "adjustable shelving" here.  I think we'll take it out and find something else a little less clunky looking.

Trim around the storage cubby.  Hopefully someday we'll be able to add doors here to keep my year's supply of TP, soap and shampoo out of sight (although it's behind the door, so it's kind of hidden already.

Closeup for Kyle's benefit, of the wiring for his light sensor.

View of the railing from the front door.

This is where we throw the kids over if they're being naughty.  Eventually there will be a half wall bookcase here for my recipe books and whatever else.

Finish Carpentry

Master Closet.

 Cubbies in the master closet.  The other closets are all done or nearly done, but it was too dark to get good pictures of them.

Kyle has been painting the garage- just with one layer of primer, nearly done.

Interior doors and trim work.  Most of the trim is simple, but upstairs we should have some that are a little fancier- we noticed that the finish carpenters put the basic stuff up there too, so hopefully we get it fixed.

Basement hallway-all the doors in place are making it seem so much more real.

 The lower section of stairs has the new treads and risers.

Electricity and (a little) painting

We have a power meter.

This is the only time is will read 00000, because today Kyle hooked up the furnace and a couple of plugs, so now our furnace isn't being run off of an extension cord from my parents house.

Because we're so far away from the street we have this (box in the ground) transformer.

Kyle wired two plugs in the storage room so that we could plug in a vacuum, a light and a radio.  The two lights show that it's wired correctly.  Phew.

Vacuuming the dirt in the storage room.

First coat of paint in the storage room.

Hopefully two coats will do it.  The cement is pretty bumpy.

In other news, the drywall is done, and we've met with the finish carpenter.  He'll have a bid for us by tuesday, and after he gets started he'll be done in three days.  Then we can paint everything, and lay tile.   After several days of snow, it cleared up today, and I stood in the house in front of the windows and enjoyed the warmth.  I could almost picture being moved in, it's getting closer.

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.