I am flounder, Gene is Eric Stratton.

The excitement continues at 488.  The drywall is up and we now have ROOMS!  Though the process about sent us both over the edge (imagine huge pieces of drywall being dragged across and dropped on brand new polished concrete floors) we are very pleased with the work that they completed.  The finishers will be here this week to mud, tape, and sand.  So the week between Christmas and New Years we should be able to clean things up a bit and start priming the walls and ceiling.  The storage room is the only room in the basement that we are finishing for now.  I am not sure that we will even let the primer dry before we start unpacking the POD.  Though the POD has been very convenient and their service impeccable, we are very ready to GET IT OUT OF THE YARD and find a few items that have been missing since the move.

To prep for the drywall Andy and Doug spent some very long hours last weekend replacing warped wall studs, reinforcing ceiling beams in the living room, framing in the garage doors, and building attic access doors.  I worked with Andy running speaker wire throughout the house so there is no shortage of good music in our future :).

The saga continues with the roofers.  The owner of the roofing company has apparently ‘lost it’ and is sending in crews with expectations that are impossible to achieve (sound familiar??).  If they finish the day without finishing our roof he fires most of the crew.  Helpful??  I don’t think so.  Anyway, so a really nice man named Charlie showed up yesterday as a subcontractor to our roofing contractor.  He seems to have a lot of experience and is supposed to ‘finish the job’ for Summit.  He was on the roof until dark in 10 degree, damp and windy weather and didn’t finish the job.  Before he left he told us that he is going to tell Summit that they will need more material and another guy to get the job done.  GULP!  I hope we see dear, sweet Charlie again…

As mentioned earlier we are finishing the storage room in the basement which means that the radiant tubing for the heated 1st floor  has to be hung this weekend.  This is Andy’s project and he has been scrambling to get the radiant tube design completed and the tubing attached to the underside of the floor.   It really isn’t a difficult application, however feeding >300 feet of very stiff PEX tubing through small holes at 9 feet is proving to be more troublesome than originally thought.  Keep your fingers crossed that things roll a little easier today and we get it all hung.

On top of Christmas shopping, I have had the distinct pleasure of picking out all of the lighting fixtures for the house.  Wow, has that been a time consuming task.  The big box stores didn’t get any of our business I can proudly say!  I have been purchasing our lighting from Bellacor, Croft and Little, The Lighting Universe and Euro Style lighting.

Enjoy the pics!

Here are some photos to go along with the last post.  You’re going to have to work for this one, the comments are all in the popups for the pictures.

All but one of the doors are in now, Jill stained the front door yesterday and we’ll start wrangling with that this week.

Another banner week at The Casa.  Tommy is nearly finished with all the ductwork and set his unit yesterday, and should be wrapping up soon. His trunk line is something of a work of art - he is a lot like Doug in his attention to detail.

The Electricians from Galloway descended on Wednesday and came back today to finish their rough in, they will probably be back early next week to finish.  The plumbers wrapped up on Tuesday with their rough-in, and completed a pressure check.  A different trim crew will be back after the drywall is hung to set the fixtures, etc.

It got really cold this week, so we put a renewed focus on setting all the doors in.  We started with the french door in the basement, and it took quite a while to figure out the approach and get everything prepped.  The door installation was complicated somewhat by the thickness of the wall - giving a whole new meaning to the term jamb extender.  In order for the hinges to operate, the door is set all the way back in the opening, leaving 8 or 10 inches of the jamb exposed - far more than a standard door.  To make up the difference, we installed some thick pieces of aluminum underneath the door to bridge the gap from the interior to the outside surface.  It took a little bit of grinding and cutting to get them to fit but they will work very well.

Last night we set the steel door in the garage, and that leaves only one single door to the back deck, and the front door remaining.  We’ve had some procurement issues getting an unblemished door from Red Rock, but it should be on the way shortly.  We will most likely install the sidelights and the dinged up door in the interim, hopefully this weekend.

The other exciting surprise was the delivery of the Napoleon wood burning stove on Wednesday night.  We wasted little time in testing out Malissa’s flue, and had some nice fires the past few nights.  Now that the door openings are covered (the ones that still lack doors are covered with plywood) it makes it quite comfortable inside.  The first few fires let of a lot of paint fumes as the stove seasons, but nothing too overpowering.

Once the electricians finish, we’ll install some central vaccum outlets and will be ready for drywall - that may start next week if everything falls into place although I highly doubt it.  I’ve spent a little time building forms and am trying to get the materials to make some concrete window seats, it would be nice if I could get at least a few done to have them in place before the sheet rock is hung.

Happy weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving! We took advantage of the break to spend some more time down at the house pitching in. The week before Thanksgiving we were struggling to get crews to show up as it is deer season here in the Ozarks, and not much got accomplished. Things stepped up a bit last week despite the holiday, and we had progress on several fronts.

Malissa finished all of her work on the retaining walls and the flue - she is fairly petite, but definitely has no problem slinging around the heavy masonry blocks. The walls are ridiculously reinforced by now - we have poured quite a bit of liquid concrete behind each one, and filled the majority of the cells with concrete and steel rebar. In addition, Doug sealed the back of each wall with some liquid silicon (added bonus - it is an anti-grafittiant!) to keep the moisture from getting into the porous blocks.

The flue blocks are large squares with a cavity in the middle sized for a clay flue tile. This structure originates in the basement where our wood stove will be, and is stacked all the way up through the roof. Doug and Tim from Summit bent some roofing metal to flash around the exit point, and the exposed part of the flue got some of the liquid silicon as well. Our stove is on backorder, but when it arrives it should be a fairly simple matter to get it hooked up.

Speaking of heating, Tommy got back from his Elk hunt and spent some time at the site last week preparing his ductwork. We got some concrete on Wednesday, and in addition to extending the driveway another 25 feet or so and providing some of the aforementioned reinforcement to the retaining walls, Doug constructed a 4′ x 5′ pad for the outside heat pump to sit on. Not a lot of other visible signs of progress on that front, but he should be able to finish up tying in the ducts and setting the units next week.

The plumbers also spent a few days on site doing the rough in plumbing inside. They have the majority of the vents plumbed in, and in order to keep them moving we got all the tubs and fixtures for the bathrooms. I would have liked to support Buy Nothing Day but we succumbed and made trips to both Lowe’s and Home Depot on Friday to peruse their shockingly sparse selection. I knew there was a reason I bought nearly everything online. But I digress…the plumbers are planning to return tomorrow as well and should have all their rough in finished next week as well. They will make one more trip back after the drywall is hung to complete their work.

The electricians are following a schedule very similar to the plumbers - they are going to finish roughing in next week. The one big step forward was Webster Electric came and dug the trench to hook up the power to the house. We now have two hot outlets! It may not sound like much but after the rats nest of extension cords we’ve been using for the past several months it is a welcome addition.

We were also very glad to see Tim return from Summit last week following their temporary metal shortage. It sounds like in addition to metal they have been running short on love, and dealing with some internal strife. We didn’t get all the details but our salesman Jeff has reportedly moved on to greener pastures following a dispute of some sort. Tim and his helpers have pretty much all of the metal on now with the exception of the ridge caps. There isn’t any pressure for them to finish now but it would be great to be able to close that chapter and clean up some of the metal debris.

One area that we’ve been spending a great deal of mental energy is the application of the siding. I realize that Jill and I are both in hyper-critical mode right now given how new everything is, but there were several aspects of the siding that were just not up to snuff. We all knew that the application was going to be challenging going in, but I think it turned out to be more difficult than expected. The two main issues are that any variance in the width of the horizontal joints is HIGHLY visible given the dark siding color in contrast to the white Tyvek underneath. There are caulkable joints and there are joints that can’t be caulked, and there are enough of the latter that a few sheets will have to be re-hung. The second issue is the fact that despite being made of cement the siding is fairly brittle when you put pressure localized on a single point. This has represented itself with screws punching all the way through the siding in certain spots. This is a little more difficult to rectify, but Gene and his foreman Aaron have been willing to talk openly and address the issues that we’ve seen so far. The primary drawback is that we ran out of material, so they are ordering enough to fix the issues. The lead time on the siding is fairly long - six weeks or more. The silver lining is that I had to order some custom color caulk to caulk the joints and around the window, and that has a very long lead time as well. With any luck we’ll be spending a nice day in late January getting everything wrapped up.

You can obviously judge for yourself on the siding, but I’ve really enjoyed some of the comments we’ve had so far. Considering the part of the country we are in, you don’t see too many houses with dark siding, let alone exposed metal fasteners and all the trimmings. I love watching the look on people’s faces when they try to decide how to react, and we’ve had several people pause for a minute and say ‘Is that the siding?’ When I tell them it is, in fact, the siding, they say ‘Is that the color?’

I’m growing a bit long winded here, but the other thing we have been consumed with over the past few days is finding cabinets for the kitchen and the bathrooms. We found great options at IKEA but the procurement process is proving to be a nightmare. We resigned ourselves to making a trip and bringing them back in a U-Haul, but even that is proving to be harder than we thought. When we check stock of the individual pieces at the stores we are thinking of going to, invariably we are at about a 50% success rate. We’ll see how that turns out.

Our neighbor Eric was remodeling his pond and was kind enough to offer us some of the leftover dirt. For about a week we had huge piles of black dirt that were hauled from his house up to ours with a dump truck, and yesterday Doug went to town on them with Special K, and it finally looks like we have a yard. Amazing how the site went from looking like the surface of the moon to quite normal in just a few hours.

Happy Holidays!

As usual I am ridiculously short on time but wanted to give a quick update. Things have started to move pretty quickly now, and everything is coming together very well.

• We poured the elevated concrete decks on Friday last, and everything went extremely well.  The day was VERY cold and overcast, which meant that we were waiting for them to set and Doug was finishing them until nearly midnight that night.
• The siding crew has descended, and despite a few fits and starts are rolling along.  First the metal flashing was the wrong size, and the screws were damaging the sheets without washers.  Both have been addressed now and it should go much more quickly.  We got the cedar planks and are testing some stain colors to determine how to finish the front wall.
• The spray foam team from Bolivar Insulation came yesterday and started applying the foam to the underside of the roof deck.  Amazing stuff, and a little bizarre seeing them in their tyvek suits standing on a ladder blasting it on.  They are about halfway done, and will probably finish today.  We got all of the walls built over the garage and the decks and front porch to give them something to spray against - they are just sheets of plywood scraps cut to fit into the intricate spaces.
• Micah and his crew finished polishing the floor on Monday, and they covered it up with a layer of rosin paper and some plastic sheeting to protect it from everything coming up.  I can’t say enough how amazing the floor looks, better than we had ever imagined.
• Malissa came and started building the retaining walls on the back of the house, she will probably be done by the end of the week.
• And finally, the only bit of sour news…Doug called Jeff from Summit on Monday wondering where the roofers were, and was told that they were *out of metal*.  Initially there was no ETA, that has since been updated to Friday of this week but I’m not holding my breath.  One has to wonder how they could fall that short, but so it goes.  It wouldn’t be an issue but we are at risk right now given that the foam decking has started - if there were a leak in the roof it would not penetrate the foam, and could get sandwiched in below the roofing metal when it is finished.  Clear weather is predicted through the end of the week, and we have asked that they come out and replace all the tar paper with heavier duty membrane if there is threat of wet weather.

Whew…enjoy some pics.

The Lid is slowly but surely progressing. The roofers are here almost everyday but every time we look up, we pause to wonder what changes are really happening. The good thing is that once it is on we shouldn’t have to think about it again for another 50+ years! We very happy with the look of the stainless steel roof. It does have more oil canning than we were expecting given that the 24 gauge metal is the strongest gauge available for roofing. I guess that is something we will just have to learn to live with.
Micah and his crew have been here on and off this week to work on the floors. It is hard to believe that simply applying a densifier, sanding and polishing a concrete slab could result in such a rich and vibrantly colored floor that resembles a high quality marble. Granted, the process is a little more than simple, but still…
The decks are soon to be filled with concrete! Last night we put the final rebar and steel mesh reinforcements down and with a last-minute decision to heat the decks from below the concrete pad, all of the prep work is complete! Citywide will be out with 4-5 yards of a high quality, fiber-rich mix in the next day or two and then the fun will begin. The concrete will have to be wheeled through the main living area in a wheel barrow to the main deck which will be somewhat time consuming and probably fairly exhausting, but with the recent drop in temperature we should have ample time to create our deck masterpiece. Brooming and edging will be rather interesting due to the height of the main deck, but with good planning it should go smoothly. The master deck should be relatively easy in comparison…
The cedar panels and painted hardi panels have arrived and we expect Gene and crew to be out Monday at the latest to begin the siding. Oh, how we will miss the ICF green–ha! We hope to have a whole slew of new pics for you next week but here are a few to get you through until then

The week before last our windows were delivered by Springfield Mill and Lumber. I don’t have much in the way of perspective as I’ve never carried windows before, but I can assure you they were quite heavy. By the time we unloaded all 20+ windows and doors from the truck I was more than a little winded.

Last week the framers came back to complete their final tasks, including wrapping the house in Tyvek, installing the windows, and framing in the walls in the basement. The windows look fantastic, and provide another big change to the look of the house.

As mentioned previously, the Tyvek was a little controversial in that the framers insisted it wasn’t necessary. Doug said there were some mild protests as they were installing it, but as far as I’m concerned $500 is very cheap insurance against water issues.

Additionally, the electricians completed their rough-in electrical last week. We’re not hooked up to the electric service just yet, as the siding installer asked that we wait until his work was done rather than have him side around them.

One other note, we completed the permanent columns for the back deck and the master bedroom deck. We got some larger diameter steel pipe and cut it to length, and after cutting away a square of the ‘b’ decking and welding a plate in place, we jacked up the roof, popped in the pipes, and welded them in place. For an extra measure of stability (how can you be surprised at this point…) Doug filled the back deck pipes with concrete. We’ll do the ones on the master deck sometime this week.

Once the roof decking was complete, the roofers arrived to do their magic. They had a lot of great feedback for the framers, saying that it was one of the most flat roofs they had ever worked on. That is fairly important to avoid ‘oil canning’ - the tendency for the 24 gauge metal to show any imperfections in the underlying surface.

They applied ice and water membrane around the edges of the roof, and then attached tar paper over the surface with button cap nails.

The rolls of metal are pretty impressive, as is watching them bend the metal into shape on site. They still have a few days to go but are getting close.

I don’t have much time for details at the moment, but wanted to get some pictures posted. The framers completed the roof deck which made a pretty amazing transformation in the profile of the house. The low slope roof (4:12) is exactly what we were hoping for.