Sunday, January 28, 2007

Heating, Electric, and Garage Doors



Even with Steve (builder) away on vacation this week, we had some good progress. His guys kept going, and it seems that Steve kept up on things from the slopes.

So, here's the good stuff that happened.

  • The troublesome window in the kitchen was moved up
  • Tyvek-wrapping was completed on the remainder of the house
  • The lower deck was finished (not sure when the upper deck will be done)
  • The bulkhead cover was put on for the access to the crawl space
  • Wiring continued throughout the house and the electrical panels are hung
  • Holes were cut in the subfloor for heat/AC vents
  • A whole bunch of duct-related things were put in
  • A new well-pump was installed and new pipes run to the house
  • Holes were punched for plumbing and some PVC pipe run into the bathrooms
  • Downstairs framing moved along, including the framing for the half-wall running up the stairs
  • Some more boulders and loose dirt were moved into place for the rough landscaping


On the downside, our dear friends at the electric utility haven't shown up yet to do the real connection of power to the house to replace the temporary service.

With the scaffolding going up around the house, it looks like the siding will start going up this coming week - it'll be good to see that.

We're a bit stuck on the garage door situation. The garage is prominent when you approach in the driveway, so if the doors stand out, it will be a bad thing. I hate steel doors with fake wood grain, but you can get good insulation in a steel door. There are some cool steel and glass doors, but insulating with all the glass is a problem and they wouldn't be the right look (it'd work if the house had exposed concrete or visible steel construction). Most wood doors are panel-style or a very traditional carriage-house design - clearly the wrong look for this house. We have to figure this one out this week, but it's not been easy so far. Maybe we should just leave tarps up.



Sunday, January 21, 2007

Many Decisions to be Made

Good progress has been made in the past two weeks. The roof was installed; it may have taken one extra day due to cold weather, but it's in. We learned the downside of the clean line designed for the roof. On the north side, the overhang is only ~3" - just enough to drive rainwater into the house. This photo gives a pretty good sense of how tight it is. So, while it was to be a gutterless house, we're now putting gutters on the lower roof area, so that runoff really runs off, rather than in. Copper gutters will look fine, but I think if we had paused a few extra minutes before that edge of the roofline was trimmed, we would have grabbed an extra inch or two of overhang. It'll be interesting to see how this is handled in other NextHouse builds.


The interior framing is almost done. We had a few things to review this weekend, and decided to have a half wall that follows the line of the staircase, rather than having it run parallel to the floor line. We've also scoped out how the fireplace will fit in. The fireplace itself is woodburning and a thing of beauty - and highly efficient. Check out www.rais.com for the Rais 60 Insert. If the house were laid out a little differently, we would also have considered a woodburning stove - and Rais has some really nice clean lines for those as well.




In looking at the kitchen layout - especially in our 2-hour marathon session with the electrician, we found that the window placement in the kitchen was terrible for a bunch of reasons: (1) if you're standing in the kitchen and over 5' tall, you would have to stoop down to see out it; (2) in order to meet code for electrical outlet placement, we would have had to put the outlets right in the windowsill, which would look atrocious at best; (3) there would have been no room for any backsplash at the sink, so within a year the windowsill would have been all water-spotted. So, the window will be yanked out and moved up about 4" before the siding goes on in the next week or so. In this shot from outside, the culprit window in the kitchen shows - but it's hard to tell how low it really is. We've looked at 2 rounds of cabinet design, and think we're close to set on that. We will especially like the "pro sports lockers" that we're putting in the mudroom - truly places to stash coats, briefcases, gym bags, etc. We'll also have a good place to put the cable modem and wireless router, and plug in our phones etc.


The pictures tell much of the rest of the story - wires are being hung throughout the house, the deck is going in out back, landscaping is making a terracing effect to manage runoff, and we even have a water tank installed in the utility room. Things that don't show in the pictures but are still big steps: the well is connected to the new house; a call to NStar seems to indicate that they'll be faster about reconnecting the power than they were about disconnecting it; plumbing fixtures have been picked out and we didn't break the bank doing it (but we did downscale the showerhead/faucet for the second bath - our guests will never know, right?) We're going with Kohler for the toilets, tub, and sinks - Grohe and Moen for the faucets, etc. In looking at everything, we decided to use the cleaner lines of pedestal sinks in the guest and half-baths, rather than vanities in those rooms.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

A long hot winter means a roof soon















With temperatures in the 50's and 60's during the week (and 70 astounding degrees on Saturday), we have had the good fortune to accelerate roofing! We'd been working under "Plan B," which was to put some temporary roofing on for the Winter, and then the proper rolled rubber roof in the Spring, since the rubber roof needs warmer temperatures at installation. After a rainy New Years' weekend, and the consequent squeegeeing of the roof, upper floor, and lower level, we all jumped at the chance. So, on Friday, there reportedly were about 4 guys on the roof, putting on the layers that sit below the rubber. While they were working, maybe 4 others were staining the window frames inside and out. If all works out, come Monday the final roofing layers may be put on the main roof, so that the interior is more weather-safe.

While the exterior doesn't look much different from a week ago (particularly with the tarp on the roof), progress has continued. The grading around the house has been improved, and the footings put in to support the deck. We can start to see where the excess rocks and boulders may go to form a retaining wall; this should help with finish grading and water runoff without causing any disruption to the wetlands that are beyond the property border.

A few decisions and adjustments have been made. First, we're good to go with opening up the "view" by replacing the wall with a cable rail on the other transit area upstairs. Also, some adjustments were made to the decks - they were designed to be the same height as the interior, but now they'll drop down a few inches so that there's no issue with backup of water or ice. There were also some technical matters that should make the deck above the kitchen work better, and I hear a solution is near for how to house the big screen that will work like a window shade - need to keep bees and wasps from nesting in the housing and also provide access to the mechanicals, since mechanicals will need servicing at some point (hopefully not before many years of use).

This weekend we "walked" the rooms to make sure we are happy with where the walls are. We decided to enlarge the sauna on the first floor by eliminating the shower we had put in that same bathroom. We'll be able to reduce the overall size of that bathroom, which will allow a larger coat closet (for visitors!) and push back the entrance to the half-bath so that it's not all jammed in with the closet and the base of the staircase. With this, I think the interior framing will go up this week!

We also have some good design ideas back from the cabinet guy, and are looking forward to getting together with him on fleshing these out further.

Found a few interesting links - www.cleverhomes.net has some interesting designs and ideas. Also, I read a short but interesting bit in the NY Times about Freecycle, which strikes me as a generally good idea - a way to move things you no longer need to people who want them. The bit in the Times referenced an example of someone who had an entire shed they wanted to find a new home for - someone came, dismantled it, and put it up elsewhere. This is the kind of thing we would have liked to know about before teardown. Of course, the posts I saw for one community were mostly kids toys, but there's possibility here, especially with the Times article.