Cabinets and Trim

It will be nice to get into the house. Until then, the house is still kind of in the utility mode. There are people in it every day, but they do things to, not with, the house. On my last visit, one of the guys was tidying up - and I could almost a sense the house resting and settling into its skin.

The arrival of the cabinets was a bit of a flashback to the old house. The photo of the installation feels like the mirror stage of the pre-demolition "scavenging" photo from October. The cabinets are looking good - I am anxious to get there this weekend to see how they look for real. So far, we're very happy with the decision to go with a local cabinet-maker. I like the idea that we're working with someone who owns the business and employs guys locally, does a good job, and didn't gouge us on pricing.















The doors, casings, and trim are well on their way. The house was designed with caseless doors and no baseboards, but we opted to fork over the extra bucks to give more of a finish. I never quite "got" the lack of trim in the old Deck House, and think this will look better. Additionally, if a door ever needs to be replaced, this will be loads easier than a caseless style.

I've been revisiting some prefab and green building sites lately - and think that some people have the wrong category in mind when they look at NextHouse. It seems a lot of people are thinking that it's prefab (it's not) or that it's innately green (it's not). I would categorize this as a kit house, and not a DIY version - unless the "Y" in DIY happens to be a professional builder. There's a lot that the builder needs to know and needs to supply, and have the mind of a good engineer to see how things ought to work. I still think we could have done better on the green front, but my green issue is less in the construction than in the destruction of the prior place. The passive solar, our design changes to get better air flow, our use of what will be a killer fireplace, and what we do with flooring and other finish materials will be the places we'll end up making incremental steps.