Google Maps…

Google Maps has just recently been update and the “L” Shaped House now shows up in a search of the neighborhood. I don’t know.. it looks kind of big.

The “L” Shaped House…Wrapping up

A couple of loyal followers of this blog have asked “where have you been the last few days”?

Well…Paul Winters and the JLM folks have been busily working to finish up a few details required by the City of Minnetonka before issuing a “certificate of occupancy”. They have also been working to finish installing bath accessories and fixtures throughout the living spaces as they prepare the house for our arrival. The four photos below show the results of some of these efforts. In the first photo we see the house number attached to the front wall of the house as required by the city.

The next photo shows a landing installed at the bottom of the bonus room stairs that “corrects” a tread height inconsistency caused by my desire to have rubber tread surfaces on the first two stairs. The third photo shows one of the towel bars in the master bathroom installed by Paul as he works his way through the house installing towel bars, hooks, and mirrors.

The fourth photo shows new towel bars installed in the kids bathroom on the second floor. These finishing touches make the “L” Shaped House seem more like a home every day.

All this week’s activity provides a nice transition to the really big news that…

WE HAVE A MOVING DATE! 

On September 28th (next Wednesday) our friends from Two Men And A Truck are scheduled to show up at our current home and move our belongings to the “L” Shaped House (the big stuff…anyway). Deb…with a whole lot of help from both Ronda and Ingrid…has been busy sorting, purging, cleaning, and packing the contents of our home into moving boxes since the beginning of July this year. At last count there were more than 100 moving boxes packed and ready to go piled all over inside our home. Deb and Ingrid plan to pack and move the remaining contents of our kitchen into the “L” Shaped House on Monday and Tuesday next week.

Sam and I talked about how our lives will change as the reality of all this started to really sink in on our way home from Karate in downtown Hopkins last night. The next couple of weeks are going to be BIG!

The “L” Shaped House…May 2010

I decided to take a couple of “long” shots of the house from the middle of Cottage lane during my visit to the “L” Shaped House this morning. These views will change significantly over the next couple weeks as the exterior painting continues and the driveway “morphs” across the front yard.

First; the view from in front of Frank’s house…

Next; from in front of the Steinhauser’s place…

Posting…Number 500!

When I started this blog nearly 15 months ago I had no idea it would turn into an effort that includes 500 postings. I suppose this auspicious event deserves a comment or two from the author and few fun facts…

• It’s been fun…Blogs are all about telling stories and this is a really fun story to tell!
• It’s been a lot of work…There are nearly 2,000 photos and 75,000 words included in the blog!
• Nearly 50 people visit the blog each day and view about 3,000 pages a month (Google Analytics)!
• We are getting close to the end of construction (one more month?)…Phew!
• I don’t know!…the answer to the question “what will you do once the house is done?”

400!

This is posting number 400 on the “L” Shaped House Blog. I never imagined the blog would come this far. I remember telling someone in the beginning that I thought there might be as many 250 entries. What started as a vague plan to document the building of our new home has grown into a rather elaborate and lengthy documentary (some have even used the word obsession). Its way too late to stop now and I have both had fun and learned along the way. I sincerely hope that you have also enjoyed it as much as I have!

No posting is complete without a couple of photos…The first is a panoramic view just inside the front door to the house. This seems an appropriate milestone photo.

The second is a panoramic shot of the back side of the house from a spot near the outlet for drains coming from the paver patio outside the basement walk-out doors…The drains have worked perfectly…phew!

The “L” Shaped House…200 Days

Today marks day 200 in the construction of the “L” Shaped House. I decided to celebrate this important milestone by posting a couple of photos taken with my “real” camera (Canon 5D). The first shows a front view of the house with the beautiful winter sky in the background.

The second photo of the dining room and kitchen shows the overall construction progress at the “L” Shaped House nicely. The drywall on the first floor is ready to be primed…finish carpentry will follow shortly.

In the last two photos I have tried to capture two of the first floor sight lines that show the “open” floor plan and architectural “layering” effect Mike Kloti envisioned during the design process more than a year ago (see Mike’s original thoughts here).

OH…Happy 299th posting as well!

Week 24…In Review

The “L” Shaped House is really starting to come together. This series of photos shows the progress as of the end of week 24.

First…the house from the middle of Cottage lane.

Next…The inside of Helen’s room showing the progress on the second floor.

Then…The first floor (living room).

And finally…the family room in the basement.

Roofing…Wrap-Up

With the roofing at the “L” Shaped House complete it seems like a roofing wrap-up post is in order…We start with the details of the shingled roof over the main house. The first photo shows the roof over the West side of the bonus room taken while Gill Riehm was installing the roofing system. It it you can see the sheathing, underlayment, flashing, and shingles. We used a Timberline Natural Shadow shingle in charcoal (black).

The next photo shows some of the materials used in the roofing including the ice & water shield from Tri-Built and the GAF Timberline shingles. We have installed a GAF Cobra ridge venting system on the “L” Shaped House. The system includes an open ridge covered with a mesh exhaust vent capped with Timbertex ridge cap shingles.

The next two photos show more of the metal flashing details included in the shingle roofing system. The first shows the valley flashing, drip edge, and step flashing coming together at the valley between the master bedroom and book nook roofs. The second shows one of the metal flashing “kick outs” where the bedroom dormer roof meets the book nook end wall.

The last shingle roof photo shows the drip edge that helps support the asphalt shingles at the end of the (Kloti Chop) eave. The whole point is to direct water away from the house walls. The metal soffit materials will slip up under and behind the roof flashing as the siding is installed starting next week…we hope!

The front porch of the “L” Shaped House has a standing seam metal roof. The photos below show some the installation and flashing details of this roofing system. The first step is an ice and water underlayment. The first photo shows the wall  flashing and drip edge pieces screwed to the sheathing to make a cavity that the metal roofing can slide underneath. The metal roofing material is held with galvanized clips that are bent over the standing seam and finished with a cap.

The next photo shows the details at the outer edges of the porch roof. The front edge gets a flashing piece that will accommodate the half round gutters; the ends get a drip edge flashing. Once again the siding folks will bring the metal soffit materials up and under the roofing system.

The last photo provides a closer look at the details at the outer edge of the porch roof. Here you can see how the end of the metal roofing material is trimmed and then bent back on itself  to form a “sealed” edge at the end of each section. The cap that covers the standing is also visible in the photo. It “snaps” into place and is trimmed and folded at the end to form its own seal.

 

Oh…and by the way…Happy 200th posting!

Deb’s Dad…A tribute

Deb’s father (Bruce Condit) died Tuesday (one week ago) in Bottineau North Dakota. He spent his last morning tending to his cows in the pasture and visiting with the neighbors. He fixed dinner for Deb’s mom (Nita) and suffered a heart attack sitting in his easy chair in the living room. His passing was sudden and unexpected.

We spent the weekend in Bottineau saying goodbye to a Father, Grandfather, and Friend.

The View…From across the pond

One of our goals in this home building adventure is to end up with a house that “fits” the neighborhood. We purposely placed the garage behind the house to present a more modest front toward Cottage Lane and the folks across the pond. Helen and I walked to the far side of the pond and took a few photos as the sun was starting to set last night. I think that The “L” Shaped House is going to “fit-in” nicely!

Cottage Lane Postcard…The dirt pile collection

With the framing completed (a few little details remain) a series of photos taken from the top of the dirt pile in the front yard seems appropriate. Starting at the bottom with a photo of the new footings together with the existing foundation, moving up to a photo of the first floor framing, and finally to the top with a photo of the “L” Shaped House in its current form, this “postcard” celebrates three important milestones in the construction process.

Milestones…100 Days!

From: Tuesday, June 22, 2009
To: Thursday, October 1, 2009

It’s been 100 days from (what I call) the start of the project to today.

Or 3 months and 8 days.

Plumbing…The plan

Digging up the basement floor confirmed that the existing sewer connection is in nice shape. We knew the sewer had been upgraded sometime after the home was built in 1942 but before The Danielson’s bought it in 1978. The main line goes out the front of the house as a 4 inch PVC pipe and looks good. Paul and the plumbers have put together a plan that will look something like the sketch below (I’ll update it as soon as Paul corrects my work and Helen is done complaining that she is out of the decision making loop).

The dungeon-like atmosphere that is the basement today (this will make a great “before” picture).

Oh!…for those of you paying really close attention to the blog…Happy 100th Posting !!!