7/8/2013 Lots accomplished in a short time.

7/8/2013

Lots accomplished in a short time.  Now that we are in charge of what happens and when, we are able to coordinate tasks to keep moving ahead, and not wait for someone else to decide when we're important enough to have work done.
We finished painting the entire interior over the long weekend.  Two coats of vapor seal primer (20 gallons), two coats of flat ceiling paint (10 gallons), two coats of primary color (14 gallons), and three accent walls (4 gallons).  Had we not sprayed everything except the accent colors, I believe we would have been at it for another week!  We're very happy with the results, and except for some touch-up, we shouldn't have to do any more painting for a long time.  Fitted in amongst all the painting, we had to uninstall our front and back doors (that someone else had installed incomplete) and reinstall them correctly, and for the first time, fully functional.  The next big ticket item will be our hardwood flooring to be delivered the end of this week.  While we're waiting for that we are continuing to work on the deck when time and weather permit, and are about to finish up with the last of the concrete for the garage and front sidewalk.  The garage doors are waiting to be installed as soon as concrete is poured too.

Getting ready to apply the second coat of primer.

Half of the wall in the great room.

Spare bedroom accent color

Finally!  We have an actual WORKING front door.

7/4/2013 Painting at last.

7/4/2013

Happy 4th of July everyone.  The drywall finishers are done and did a beautiful job inside.  We will be spending most of our long weekend painting the house, fixing the exterior doors, and maybe a little shooting in the quarry.

6/27/2013

Well, we're on our way again.  The drywall finishers have been hard at it the last two days, and it's good to see positive progress on the house.  I stopped early this morning to hook up a dehumidifier to aid in removing all that excess moisture that's being introduced via the tape and mud process.

 

All the corners are going to be rounded bullnose rather than sharp 90 degree corners.  We like the smooth appearance this gives, and considering the round design of the house, it seemed appropriate.

Everything is coming together quite smoothly.  After priming they will do a knock-down finish to give depth and texture to the ceilings.

An artist at work.  This is one portion of the build I had no intention of touching.

We're hoping to have tape and texture done by July 4th, so we can paint that weekend. :)


 

6/22/2013

We camped out at the house last night so we could work on things today together.  We had some serious storms come through, and as heavily insulated as the house is, we could barely tell the wind was blowing outside.  That makes for some restful sleep for a person who gets extremely nervous in bad weather.  Having previously survived having a house dismantled around your ears by a tornado while you are in it will do that to a person.  We got a bunch of stuff cleaned up and put away all our tools so the drywall finishers will have a clean slate Monday.  In order to have the main bathroom ready for drywall finishing, we needed the shower installed.  We've been fighting with the plumbing contractor to get it done right since this project started.  As usual, when you can't get someone else to do something, you do it yourself. 
We did get a rare chance to relax for a short time and actually enjoy our surroundings.  We sat on the partially finished deck to eat our breakfast, and watched a pair of last years twin fawns (brother and sister) wander almost underneath our elevated deck as they sauntered by the house.  They got within 20 feet of us and were completely unconcerned as they passed by.  later we had a little spotted fawn (without his mother) trot right under our bedroom window on his way through.  We can't help but feel relaxed and feel the tensions of the day to day slip away when you are in an environment like this.  We can't wait for this to be our every day, full time home!

Our little neighbor coming up to greet us.

If you can't get the people who are paid to finish a task do what is needed, you simply do it yourself if you want the project to progress.  We seem to be doing that more and more as we go along.  The curved doors will go on after paint and tile are finished

We finally took care of a major problem that's been plaguing us, and now things should begin to progress and get back on schedule with the house again.  All my subs are back in line and ready to get to work.  In the next week we figure to have the drywall finishers in doing their thing, and concrete being poured in the garage, along with some concrete repair in the basement.  Plumbing and electrical are standing by and ready to go when we reach their portions near the end.  We went to our local Menards store and ordered some finishing items for our master bathroom and started picking out paint colors tonight.
I lost several days on the house because I was helping at work to cover shifts for a coworker who is out with an injury.  We'll have a couple of days to get some things done on the house, then it's back to work for another extra day prior to my regular weeks schedule.
Early this week I did manage to get quite a bit finished on the deck platform.  I'm just charging ahead with all the straight portions to cover as much surface as possible, then on a weekend when Debra is able to help, we will slice up all those angles between sections (it goes much faster with two pairs of hands).

The main portions of the deck floor are now around to the half way point.

It's measuring and cutting all those little transition areas between sections that really eat up the time.  It's hard to tell from this photo, but there are no top fasteners anywhere on the deck.  Everything is done using special hidden edge screws. Very secure and very clean.

Unfortunately, not all the lumber delivered with the deck was in as pristine condition as the lumber inside the house.  I'm trying to pick and plan so as to arrange and cut each questionable piece to get maximum utilization out of what I have to minimize waste.

6/8/2013 Delays, confusion and frustration.

6/8/2013

Delays, confusion and frustration.  The drywall taper was pulled from our job, so we still cannot get in and paint.  Unknown when (or if) he will be back.  On the good side though, we did get our rain gutters finally installed, and with all the rain we've had lately it is really making a difference.  They have drastically cut down on how much and how fast the ground around the house is washing away.  With the drywall inside the house now done, we have moved to the garage ceiling.  We were hoping to wait until the floor was poured to make it easier to maneuver the hoist, but decided we needed it done now in case our taper comes back, he can finish everything at once.  With nothing but gravel and dirt for a garage floor, we have to put plywood down to make a stable area to operate the drywall lift.  It's a real pain to work with and decreases our safety margin, but we do what we have to do to get things done.  After the nasty fall from the ladder recently, you'd think my guardian angel would be able to take a break, but no.  Closing up the house about midnight two nights ago, my foot slipped off the edge of the 12 inch wide ramp we use to get from the house to the garage, and I fell about four feet onto the concrete garage footing and the gravel floor.  Hurt my arm, my knee, and my ankle is still pretty tender.  My father was constantly doing something clumsy to hurt himself when he was alive, and I definitely have his blood in my veins.  Last Thursday I got a start on the custom shower base.  Because it is an odd size/shape, there is no such thing as a drop-in shower base.  I am making a concrete floor, with a layer of concrete, a rubber membrane, and a final layer of concrete.  The tile will be layer number four.
To take advantage of the beautiful (and rare) sunny day, we moved out to work on the deck today.  I believe I mentioned in a previous posting how incompatible geometry and I are.  I know we chose to build a round house and I should have expected more of this, but really, enough is enough.  It's not just angles, but compound angles and cuts galore.  Thankfully I have my lovely and ever so patient spouse there to assist and keep me moving on a constant, if slow track.  Hopefully things will work out one way or another, and we can get someone in to finish taping our drywall so we can do paint, flooring, staining, etc.

First layer of concrete laid for the walk-in shower base.

We had the gas company pick up our temporary propane tank this week.  With the Geothermal, we are now an all electric household.

Retaining wall block was delivered.

We decided to pump up the air mattress and camp out after working long and late last night.  I don't care if it does have doors, windows, and heat.  If there's no indoor plumbing, it's still camping!

One of our kitchen windows was broken way back in January during the unloading of the semi's.  We finally decided to fix it ourselves.  It took 15 minutes.

Enough with the damn geometry already!  The number of angles and odd cuts is unbelievable.  Add to that, our deck goes around more than half our house.  I keep telling myself, "the view will be worth it....the view will be worth it"........

We are using a Kreg hidden fastener system that will result in no breaks in the top surface.  That will make a cleaner look and should help eliminate splinters, and deck deterioration.  It is taking more than 2-3 times as long to do, but the results will be worth it.

5/26/2013

Well, finally.  I finished all but a couple sheets of drywall upstairs, plus part of the master bathroom before I ran out of screws today.  I'm letting the professionals finish that little bit, plus the lower half of the stairwell, and the basement hallway on Tuesday.  Taping and mudding will start on Wednesday.  Maybe if things go well, we can start painting next weekend?

We are greatly relieved to finally have our portion of the drywall finished.

The pros will come in and finish the lower stairwell and downstairs hallway next week.

I decided to share the orange from my packed lunch with the locals, and a whole bunch of Baltimore Orioles chose to take us up on the offer of a free meal.

We rented the crop land to a local farmer this year, so we will have acres and acres of corn growing below the house.  I think the deer will be most pleased.

5/19/2013

Yesterday I think my guardian angel must have been working over time.  I  had one of the ladders shown in the picture below extended to double the height you see there, and was using it to climb into the attic space over the garage.  I was putting some leftover building materials, siding, trim, shingles, etc, up there so we'd have extras in case of damage later on.  On this trip I had a whole bundle of shingles on my shoulder and was at the top of the ladder.  With the shingles on my shoulder I was too wide to fit between the rafters, so was twisting my upper torso to slide up between them when one side of the ladder shifted in the soft soil.  The ladder rocked out from underneath me faster than I could drop the shingles, and I made a decidedly unceremonious but rapid decent to the garage floor.  This has been the only time I have been glad we haven't had the garage floor concrete poured yet.  Nothing broken or badly damaged (except the bundle of shingles), but plenty sore, and the mega dose of adrenalin left me badly shaken and a little nauseous for a few hours.  By lunch time however we were back to full throttle and business as usual.  This morning when I got up, my neck and lower back were rather stiff, and one knee a little tender.  Other wise none the worse for wear, and back hard at it today.
Slowly (more slowly than we'd like), but surely, the drywall is being completed. Still waiting to hear from our sub as to which day(s) he is coming in to help finish up and to do the taping and mudding.

This is the north wall of the kitchen.

This is the master bedroom.  The back door will lead eventually to a small patio.
 

Living room and entry hall.

5/17/2013 More visible progress after a lengthy pause

5/17/2013

More visible progress after a lengthy pause.  The crew got the deck partially framed, the garage partially prepped for concrete, and the escape window partially installed in the basement bedroom.  There was some semi final landscape sculpting and repair of some heavy truck damage to the driveway and two new culverts were installed under it to allow for better drainage.  In spite of all our recent warm weather they still hit ice under the garage floor when they were putting in the drain, so we will have to wait another week or two before we can pour the concrete floor.

Deck ready for floor board and front step install.

Smoothed over and debris cleared up.  Looks much better than the mud field we had earlier.

looking  a little closer to being a house.

5/8/2013 Enjoying the nice weather of the past few days.

5/8/2013

Well, I cannot put into words how much we are enjoying the nice weather of the past few days.  I have been working in the house with the windows and doors (the ones we have actually installed) open, and the boom box blasting.  Listening to the oldies is a lot more pleasant than listening to the jet fuel heater roaring away.  The crew from La Crosse Fireplace came in yesterday and installed the fireplace core.  I say core because it is just the fire box, with no door and an incomplete chimney thus far.  They had to measure, then special order the chimney topper for our house.  We also have to wait for our stone mantle to be manufactured before we can finish framing in the opening around the fireplace.  Once the framing is done, then we have to put up the cement board and prep it for the stone work we are going to install.  This is going to be a multi-step process that will not be done any time soon.  In addition to the fireplace install, the plumbing tech showed up yesterday and finally installed our adjustable shower drain.  I needed that before I could begin to build the cement shower pan.  Also, the electrician showed up to hook up our well pump and the heat pump, so when the electric company shows up later this week to run the lines in from the transformer, we will have heat and water available for the drywall taper next week.  And  while all this has been going on, I have been busily sheetrocking the house inside.  As an amateur judging his own work, I'd say I'm doing pretty well so far.  This weekend Debra and I will be hitting it hard in an attempt to finish before next week, so the taper and his crew can get in and put the finishing touches on the walls and ceilings (hopefully doing an artful job of covering up any "amateur" flaws along the way).

Sheetrock work station

Walls starting to take shape.

Getting ready for the install.  This is an ultra efficient fireplace with a sealed firebox.  The yellow tube draws air from outside the house for combustion.  Our house is too air tight to support a fireplace that used ambient inside air.

Not much to look at in its present state.  Still need framing, mantle, facia, and rock to be complete.

5/4/2013

Well we can chalk up another first for experiences with the house.  I spent the entire day up inside our chimney.  It was strongly suggested that we insulate the inside of our chimney race to (1) prevent any cold spots around the fireplace inside the house, and (2) to make the chimney draft better by keeping it from cooling off on its way out of the house.  Our contractor recommended we use sheetrock over the insulation.  The fireplace folks told us to insulate, and just put a vapor barrier in place to keep the insulation from falling out later.  However when the building inspector came through, he insisted we sheetrock inside the chimney race.  Since the fireplace is being installed on the 7th, we needed to prioritize this job and redirected our efforts away from sheetrocking the walls in the house.  Therefore, we spent the whole day, up to sixteen feet up in a fifty eight inch by eighteen inch box, stuffing insulation and hanging sheetrock.  For the most part, I wedged myself between the ladder and the back side of the chimney, and Debra passed up materials as needed, while sometimes hanging below me on the ladder and helping steady things while I drove nails.  I must say, I learned a new technique.  I've never had to drive nails back hand before.  I never even had that good of a back hand in tennis, let alone with a twenty ounce framing hammer.  But when the situation demands, you learn we can do most anything if we put our minds to it.  Tomorrow we go back to hanging the walls in the main portion of the house.

Not a job for anyone severely claustrophobic.

4/25/2013

The gentlemen from Ultimate Insulation have been great to work with thus far.  Professional and patient with the homeowner (that's us), and don't require that we interpret through our GC for every little thing.  I stopped in this afternoon after my conference and they were ahead of schedule on the insulation.  All the living areas, to include the basement are done, along with half the attic.  They figure on finishing up by lunch time tomorrow.  You can actually feel the difference in the house as soon as you walk inside.  I'll personally vouch for the sound proof abilities of Nu Wool.  It's difficult to explain, but the air seems so still, or the sounds so muted.  I can't really decide how to describe it other than you can really tell how the house seems to absorb sound.  We're very pleased with both the product and the applicators.
I had enough time to put up several sheets of drywall on the walls before I had to get home, so am feeling confident that the wall application is going to go much faster than the ceiling.

Blowing insulation into the attic

The basement walls have a protective mesh applied to hold the insulation in place till we get around to drywalling at a later date.

 

The upper gable wall is insulated since it backs up to the attic, essentially making it an outside wall.

 

4/24/2013

Well, they're about half done with insulating the house.  The basement is done, and tomorrow they will put the second layer on the main floor, and finish up in the attic on Friday.  They strongly suggested we insulate the chimney race behind and below where the fireplace will be to keep that spot from being a cold area.  I tried several quick work-around solutions, but to no avail.  I finally  wound up tearing apart the hearth structure and building an insulated floor below it, which we then filled up with Nu Wool before putting it back together.  There will be no chance of any drafts or cold air coming in from behind or below the fireplace now!

New insulated floor below the hearth and fireplace.  This was then sealed with foam and filled to the brim with Nu Wool before the top was put back on.

 

Basement walls and rim joists now completely insulated.

 

4/23/2013

Well, we have another block we can check off the build.  The insulators showed up this morning, and have been  hard at it all day.  We are using a product called Nu Wool Premium Cellulose Insulation.  Rather than trying to describe it here myself, I'll provide a link to check out the product: http://www.nuwool.com/footer/faq.aspx
It's applied within the walls with a pressure spray rig that mixes water with the cellulose to make it form and stick in every little crack and crevice.  The attic space will be blown in with the conventional dry method.  Because this is the first house they've done with full ten inch thick walls, they could not fill the cavity on the first pass.  They filled to about half today, will wait for the moisture level to decrease until Thursday, then fill the rest of the way.  The 2x6 wall between the house and garage was done in one pass.  Tomorrow they will do the basement walls and rim joists.  Thursday they will finish the main floor walls, and Friday they will blow the attic.
We've been using a 60,000btu multi-fuel shop heater to take the edge off when we've been working in the house on those cold days.  Even with the temperatures hovering in the 30's, the heater was only able to raise the temperature 10 or so degrees down at floor level.  Today, after only filling the exterior walls half way, that heater actually made it hot inside!  Combine that with the humidity from the wet blown insulation, and it actually got uncomfortably warm inside today.  When this place is done, we should be able to heat the house with little to no effort.

These are the folks making our house cozy.

This stuff is messy as all get-out to apply, but one sprays, and one vacuums it back into the hopper to recycle it back through the pumps.

Doing the basement stairwell 2x6 wall.  After it's pumped into the wall cavity, they have a special raking brush to shave it flush with the studs.

4/21/2013

Screwed in the last few pieces of drywall on the ceiling today (yay!).  I'll go back tomorrow and place a few little corner pieces that have no effect on the insulation going in.  One of Debra's girlfriends, Diana came out to visit today and wound up rolling her sleeves up and helping out for the afternoon. 

Again with the snow storm this morning.  It snowed very hard for a couple of hours and put maybe 1-2 inches on the ground.  The good news was it stayed warm enough that by the end of the day it had all melted away again.

This has absolutely nothing to do with building our house, but thought I'd show what my view is like when I'm working at my job.
 



4/20/2013

Almost done with drywalling the flat ceilings in the rest of the house today.  Just a few pieces plus the front portion of the garage to finish tomorrow, then the insulation folks can come in and seal it all up.  The new attic stairs came Friday.  We had to return the ones we purchased earlier because they were not "fire rated".  The firewall between the house and the garage is actually the 5/8 drywall garage ceiling, and a regular set of wooden steps would have compromised the firewall according to our building inspector.  No local big box store handles them, so had to go online to pick up a set. 

The crew was there Wednesday and Thursday finishing the siding and putting in the exterior doors.  The permanent front door has not arrived yet, so we have a "blank" in place temporarily so they could side around it and get the frame installed.

Here it is April 15th and there are snow flakes the size of chicken feathers pouring down!  We got about 3 inches in a couple of hours of very wet slushy snow.  Enough already!!
 



Almost finished with the flat ceilings.
 

We can finally visualize what the house will look like with all the siding on (minus the actual front door for now).  The basement level will be finished later with a trowel on stucco kind of finish, and Debra and I will put mortar and stone on the chimney.  Still waiting for the ground to dry more so we can get the pilings in the ground and finish the deck portion.