September Postscript

Such a change, in just one weekend.

All the drywall boards are up!  And they are starting to tape and spackle the seams.  Now we have a white house inside - white drywall boards.

View of Living Room, looking toward the Study

No more studs.

Family Room, looking toward the Kitchen

The feel of rooms .  .  .

Looking down on the Family Room, from the 2nd floor Hallway

.  .  .  and space.

Lauren's Bedroom (front west corner of the house)

View from Lauren's room, into Alex's room

In the Family Room, looking at the Stairs

I've let the pictures speak for themselves.  Still lots to do, but amazing what a difference one weekend can make.

Turning the Corner

The Very End of September

I have had a flurry of blogs in the past few days.  Only because there has been a flurry of activity on the house.  With all my excitement about the insulation and drywall going on inside the house, I have not done justice to the fact that the stonework on the front of the house has finally started.

Stonework in progress

The picture above shows the mason and his helper.  They showed up Saturday morning, and worked until dusk.  I am glad to see that there is only one mason doing the work.  And he is taking his time.

Stone water table @ the Garage - one day's work

Stone water table - turning the corner of the Garage

It may not look like a lot, but I'm glad to see his careful attention to the work.  The stone is being laid just as we want - size, shape and color distribution of stone - all good!  (We do keep trying to remind him to minimize the mortar joints.)

I can't gauge how long it will take him to finish the facade.  But if I were to guess, I would say at least a couple of weeks.  And that's fine with me.

The R Factor

End of September

The big push inside the house has been to get everything placed INSIDE the walls and ceiling - plumbing lines, electrical conduits, mechanical ductwork.  The BIG "close in" inspection was Wednesday.  A County inspector had to approve all the work that will be hidden inside the walls once the insulation and drywall start to be installed.  The inspector approved everything.

The Builder was ready to start installing the insulation on Thursday, and had another inspection called in for Friday, to approve the insulation!  It was a big job to do in one day.  But somehow they did it, crossed that inspection hurdle, and all of a sudden we have drywall boards stacked in every room of the house.

But first, some comments about the insulation.  We have a lot of it.  Partly because it is a building code requirement, partly because it is so worth doing to control the temperature differences between the outside and the inside, and partly for sound control.

Standing in the Living Room, looking toward the Study

Insulation is a fiberglass material.  It's ability to act as a heat/cold barrier is described by an R-value.  The bigger the number, the better the insulating ability.  The insulation at the exterior walls of the house are 5-1/2" thick and have an R-19 value.  The insulation within interior walls of the house are 3-1/2" thick and have an R-13 value.  There is no code requirement for insulation within the interior walls of a house, but just about every wall of our house has insulation.  What can I say?

Side/Garage Entry Hall, looking toward Kitchen

In fact, there is so much insulation that all of a sudden I can't see through the studs, and I can really feel each room, even without any drywall up!  (By the way, the garage door is now installed - it is opened up against the wall in the photo above.)

Standing in the Family Room, looking toward the Stairs

I feel like I blinked, and now there is drywall everywhere!  We walked over this morning (Saturday) and found two crews of drywallers all over the house.  Not only that, but in no time they had already put drywall up on the ceilings of the Dining and Living rooms.  You can see it in the photo above.

Looking down on the Family Room - lots of insulation, everywhere

Lauren's Bedroom, with drywall stacked and waiting, but not for long

Upstairs Hallway - all of a sudden it seems narrow!

The drywall is going up fast-and-furious.  The hallway is almost totally covered.  I'm really glad we have the window at the end.

Master Bathroom

I will end for now with a picture of the Master Bathroom.  There are a couple of different things going on here.  The "purple" boards on the wall are water-resistant drywall, and are always used in wet environments, particularly bathrooms.  The "gray" boards are a harder cement board, used as backer boards for tile.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but they are also on the floor.

Monumental Stairs

4th Week of September

After a rather slow August for our house construction, there has been a lot of progress in the month of September.  I can start to believe the house just might get done in two months.  But that is a discussion best saved for another blog.

THE stairs have been installed!  When I say "the" stairs I refer to the one staircase that takes us to the second floor.  I know I have mentioned before that the "heart" of the house is the Family Room, but a close second is probably the stairs.  They are spatially the center the house, around which almost every room abuts.

We made what some might think is a drastic design decision when we turned the stairs away from the front entry of the house.  We have a very traditional entry to the house, into a Entry Foyer.  The Living and Dining rooms are to either side of the Foyer.  In most homes the primary stairs leading to the second floor would be accessed from this front area of the house.  But as homes have gotten bigger, and the orientation of living spaces has migrated to the kitchen and casual living areas, builders have been providing a second, more practical stair.  We didn't want this.  Not only does it take up space, it tends to create long and circuitous hallways upstairs.  Instead we decided to orient the access away from the front of the house.  Our stairs are accessed from the main corridor of the house, and adjacent to the Family room.

View of the Stairs, from Family Room

The staircase is in three sections, forming a U-shape.  The space is open to the second floor.  The space the stairs take up could be a small room.  When stairs are designed in this fashion they are often called "monumental" stairs.

Standing on the lower landing of the Stairs, looking toward the Family room

Standing on the lower landing of the Stairs, looking up

The hallway at the top of the stairs overlooks the Family room.

Standing at the top of the Stairs, looking down

Right now the house has such an open feeling (because it is still a sea of wood studs) that it is hard to imagine that it will be the openness of the stairway and corridors that visually and spatially "connect" the living spaces of the house.

One last detail about the stairs.  They are 42-inches wide!

P.S.  The "temporary" stairs are gone; not needed any more.

I Spy With My Little Eye

4th Week of September

The little details.  There are so many of them.  I do this for a living, and yet I am still overwhelmed by all the little decisions and details that have to be made, almost on a daily basis.  As the construction progresses I am not only starting to see the results of those details, but also reminded of how important such small decisions can be.

I am reminded of the picture game "I spy with my little eye .  .  ."  If you were to compare two pictures of the house taken in the span of just one week, at a glance there doesn't appear to be much difference.  But, if you look closely you will find many differences.  Take the west side of the house.

West view, 19 September 2013

We almost always approach the house through the path that connects our rental house to our back yard. So the first thing we see is the west side of the house.  This is rather ironic, because when we move into our new house and live in it, we will rarely find ourselves walking around this side of the house.  It is the farthest away from the driveway!

West view, 25 September 2013

So compare the two pictures above.  How many differences can you find?

Do you see them?

Okay, I'll tell you.  The trim around the basement windows is done.  The siding around the chimney is done. The red backhoe has been used to dig the foundations for the rear patio and retaining wall, and the front stoop and steps.  The pile of siding materials has dwindled.  (It was such a small pile to begin with, I am amazed there is anything left!)  And a pile of cement, for the stone mortar, has arrived.  Oh, and the basement door that was leaning against the house a week ago has now been installed.

View from the Buddha, 25 September 2013

Another thing that has changed is that the pile of dirt in the rear yard has also dwindled.  For the past couple of months I couldn't take a good picture of the house from the Buddha, because of the large pile of dirt in the way.  The contractor has used almost all of it to regrade immediately around the house.  By the time the house is done, that dirt pile should have been all used!

Side by Side by Side by Side

3rd Week of September

As was recorded in my last blog, the siding is being installed on the house.  They started Monday.  I took the following pictures Thursday evening.  It looks like they will come really close to finishing by the end-of-day on Friday - just one week!  The guys doing the trim work are barely staying ahead of the siding crew.

Rear of the house - siding is complete

The house looks like it's almost done, from the outside anyway.  The basement door assembly is leaning up against the far side of the house.  Something about that door was not right when it was first delivered; had to be corrected and re-shipped.  The Builder is also digging the foundation of the basement patio slab and retaining walls, which we really need because of the grade change on the garage side of house.  And there are a few little "poke-thru's" on the walls, for things like exterior light fixtures, vents, hose faucets, etc.

Garage side of house - siding on the main part of the house

They have come around the corner and completed the siding on the garage side of the house.  But they have not yet done the siding on the garage "door" wall.  There is to be a stone "watertable" on the lower part of the walls of the Garage.

Front side of Garage

There are multiple things going on at once now.  The Builder has moved pallets and dumpsters out of the way of the electric service path, which will be installed underground to cross the driveway and run behind the garage to the side of the house.  Everything is ready for the electric service; just waiting for Virginia Dominion Power to schedule the service connection date.

Siding wrapping around the Garage

The Builder is also digging the trenches for the entry stoop/stairs foundation.

They weather has really played into the Builder's hand this week - no rain and temperatures in the 60's - 70's. It's exciting to see so much happen in just a week.  We still haven't seen the stone show up, which will cover the main facade of the house.  I will keep my fingers crossed that we will see that work happening next week.

Side by Side

3rd Week of September

I have to admit, I am pretty happy this week about the house progress.  The siding is going up!

East Side of the house - it's almost all done, at least on the outside!

And it looks beautiful.  Steve and I agree it was well worth going with the Hardi-Plank siding materials. There really is a noticeable quality difference from the typical vinyl siding products, which is what we originally thought we would use.  I also like our decision to use two different colors - one for the straight siding and one for the shake siding.

NW view of house, looking at the Study

They started to install the siding on Monday.  In two days they have completed one side and part of the rear.  I hope that tomorrow when I get home to see the entire rear wall completed!