Carpeting…Day 5

Rick Armstrong and his crew stopped by the “L” Shaped House early this afternoon to go to work on the carpet runner in the front staircase. The photo below shows the carpeting laid out on the the stairs after everyone agreed on a width. They plan to get the edges bound this evening and install it tomorrow.

The Dog Door…A challenge

This posting answers the question…Is it possible for a 15 year old boy to fit through a dog door?

It does not however answer the question…Is there anything Harris won’t do for $5.00?

Landscaping…Phase 2 irrigation

The First Impressions guys were back this morning installing sprinklers in the phase 2 planting beds. The first photo shows part of their crew making some final adjustments to the sprinkler heads as they finished up the installation just before noon.

The second photo shows a close shot of a crew member as he adjusts one of the new heads along the plastic edging running behind the fir trees in the front yard. The addition of this (10th) irrigation zone  required that we upgrade our controller to a unit that allows more stations. The third photo shows the new Hunter irrigation controller installed at the service door along the back wall of the garage.

The Hunter Pro-C controller allows for up to 15 irrigation zones and brings some additional features like independent day scheduling and seasonal adjustability to the system. We have also elected to add a rain sensor to the system to help control our excess moisture problem at the site and save water.

The two photos below show the wireless rain sensor and receiver installed in the system.

Carpeting…Day 5

Rick Armstrong’s crew finished installing carpet in the basement stairway late this afternoon. The first photo shows the new carpeting as it comes down the second flight of stairs to the basement floor in the family room. The last five stair treads have exposed ends while the carpet is installed from wall-to-wall above.

The next photo shows the new carpeting from the doorway at the top of the stairs. The last photo shows how we decided to have the carpeting extend down the last five treads while leaving the ends exposed in the family room. The color and subtle pattern in the carpet looks very nice with the carpet tiles on the floor.

Electrical…Generator back-up

Luke from Wire-Rite finished installing the electrical connection for our back-up generator at the “L” Shaped House late last week. We have decided to use a manual transfer switching mechanism that is housed in the enclosure directly under the meter. The photos below show the generator connector in the small enclosure at the bottom right hand side of the main service entrance to the house.

Painting…Day 71

The Carmichael Decorating guys were out this morning to finish up the five hardwood stair treads at the bottom of the basement staircase. We decided to have them re-finish the whole stair tread surface before the carpet is installed even though only the ends are going to show. With this task complete Steve’s guys are getting pretty close to being done at the “L” Shaped House.

Landscaping…Day 47

Despite visiting the “L” Shaped House many times over the weekend I never took any photos of the work completed by the landscape crew on Friday. Jay and his crew spent most of Friday working on the asphalt patches at the end of the new paver driveway and the abandoned cut out where the old driveway used to be. The first photo shows Luther and the crew as they work to re-assemble the pavers after re-working the end of the driveway. Jay decided to tear out the last 10’ of pavers, re-work the crushed limestone base, and re-set the pavers before installing the asphalt patch at the street. He re-configured the end of the driveway by raising the area beyond the white accent “stripe” about 1.5 inches and tapering only the border at the very end to the street. The second photo shows the details of the asphalt patch at the edge of the street.

The next photo shows the end of the driveway from a the middle of Cottage Lane. Here we can see the subtle difference in pitch near the end of the driveway after Jay and his crew finished re-working and patching. Brett Nutting and all the JLM folks spend a lot of time explaining how paver driveways are the only “repairable” surface in the business. This re-configuration of our driveway at the street provides pretty compelling evidence that they’re right.

The last photo shows both the asphalt patch at the site of the old driveway and the state of things at the “L” Shaped House this morning. After beautiful weather all Labor Day weekend it rained all night last night and turned the phase 2 planting bed back into a sloppy wet mess!

Oh…how I hope we get some dry weather soon…

Before & After…The dog wash

So you ask…“what exactly goes into building a shower base”?

As Matt Sletten built the shower base in the mudroom of the “L” Shaped House I tried to take a photo at each important stage. The series of photos here show most of the steps in the process starting shortly after the sheet rock crew finished in the space. I’ve given up calling it the mudroom wash down area (the name I prefer) and reverted back to “the dog wash” (what everyone else calls it) just to make it simpler.

First the compacted cement base is installed on the plywood flooring “pitched” to the floor drain.

Next the PVC liner is fitted on top of the “pitched” base and the hardware for the floor drain installed.

The compacted cement base is installed on top of the liner and the curb at the front edge is formed.

Then Matt installs the Durock cement board underlayment on the floor and walls carefully “lapping” the PVC liner underneath.

We then “paused” as the laminate countertop was installed the along the end wall of the space.

Matt started by setting the 3” square ceramic tiles in the floor of the base.

He then moved on to the 12” square floor tiles and cut tiles for the curb and border…We threw in another complication here by also moving the pet door to the opposite side of the window.

Finally Matt set the 12'” square (floor) tiles on the walls in the dog wash and helped the plumbers as they installed the service sink faucet in the wall.

The dog wash in it’s nearly complete form…(check back here for one more photo later).

The “L” Shaped House…Before & After 1

As we approach the end of the final chapter in this “Big Adventure” and our excitement grows it is sometimes hard to remember just how far we have come. The photos taken along the way (nearly 15,000 of them) provide a wonderful record of this journey. I’ve published a few “before and after” compositions in these pages along the way and plan to publish more in this new series of postings.

The first shows the “L” Shaped House with just the open web trusses covering the foundation (top) and the nearly completed home (bottom) from approximately the same spot in the front yard.

The next shows the transformation of the basement from an “un-holy” mess into what we hope will become a welcoming and comfortable space for guests.

Carpentry…Three porches (wrap-up)

During a noon visit today I took a few photos of the front porch and rear breezeway porch at the “L” Shaped House. The first photo shows how Landon’s very nice work on the inside of the front porch carries through to the outside as well. I find this view of our new home particularly pleasing.

 

The next photo shows the front of the house from middle of the driveway with the side breezeway deck and barn lights along the front of the garage visible on the extreme right. The uniform railing and column details on the three porches tie these elements together nicely and really complete the farm house look.

The last photo shows most of the back side of the house with the rear breezeway entrance visible in the center. With the porches complete we can now see Mike Kloti’s vision for the house in the flesh. Everything from the MiraTEC trim wrapping the structure…to the railing defining the porches…to the Kloti Chops at the eaves…has come together with a sense of scale and proportion that seems nearly perfect!