Stone column decisions....

I've been trying to figure out how to detail this retaining wall. I got out my pencil and paper and here is what I am thinking..... The top picture is the idea for the retaining wall, and the bottom is my "concept" for the front yard / gaslight entrance. I just e-mailed it to the builder to see what he thinks. Hopefully it isn't too complicated and he gets what I'm talking about!

Lucky for me, he doesn't laugh at my pictures (at least not to my face), so that is good!
The opening to this retaining wall is currently 9'3". I am trying to figure out how big this opening should be? They could build the stone pillars in the opening if I want to reduce it, or they could wrap around the current wall if I want to preserve that opening. We'll put in a "double wide" gate, and I want it to be big enough to be highly functional, but small enough that it isn't incredible heavy.... but what is that magic size? I am thinking the arch of the gate should mimic the arched window above.

My builder just called to ask about the detailing of the front porch. I am sure he thought I was completely crazy when I asked him to let me double check the detailing the architect provided against my book, "Traditional Construction Patterns". I was very pleased to see that my architect did detail the porch the correct, or "do" way vs. the dreaded "don't" style! Will it really make a difference, we'll see...but I'll be pleased to know my porch is a "do" and not a "don't" if any architecturally correct people are out there critiquing the place! Do you think the guys would be offended if I left my copy of the book out there? :-)
I let my architect borrow it once and I guess he thought it was a gift to him since he never bothered to give it back --- it is THAT good!

Electrician can't get back out until Wednesday because my special little 4" lights (thanks to the lighting people) are not in stock until then. Luckily, that buys me a bit of time to have Lloyd get back to me about the stone columns with lights and if it is a go, then the electrician can "git er dun" when he returns.

More cold, SNOW and plugging along.

We have passed the electrical inspection, and I had the lighting people come out after the electrician was done. They refused to come out before, but that is one of the dumbest plans ever. Now, they came out and told me all of the things that I did wrong, so now we get to have the electrician come back. Part of me is feeling lazy, and like just ignoring some of their recommendations, but that could definitely be regrettable.

Here is one of the areas I think we need to add electrical. On this retaining wall, we will put posts and I think post lights would finish the look nicely. The question is, should we make the posts stone, or should we make them wooden with the lights on top? I am talking about the opening at this courtyard retaining wall - admittedly, a bit hard to see.


Here are the fire wood boxes we are putting on the porch. The hearth will span from one fire box to the other. We have decided to do a stone mantel on this porch, which I think will look nice.


Here is a close-up of the stone -- I am really pleased with it. I just wish we had warm enough weather right now that they could finish it. Today I went out to take pics, expecting nobody and the stone guy was there working, trying to get some work done while it isn't too cold. What timing we have!

This week they have to finish the roofing, waterproof the porches, and then the bits of electrical still need to happen. I am anxious to see the insulation go in, but we are expecting more bad weather this week, which might make the roofing and stone work very difficult.... darn!

Our neighbors are in the process of moving in... I'm jealous, though as I look around my house which looks like an episode of hoarders, I know we have a long way to go! These sinks, lights, and other miscellaneous items need to get over to the new house. I'm not sure if I am just anxious to get the house done, or just to get these boxes out of here.... I can't wait, it is driving me crazy!

Cold days!

I got a new camera lens and can take a few wider angle pics. This will help on the interior pictures. Yay!

It has been SOOO cold here. The stone guys are working and they have tarps hanging off the house with space heaters under them because it is too cold. It creates a toasty little space under the tarp to allow them to continue working. But, at the end of last week it was not only cold, but windy too so the tarps wouldn't stay on. This meant no stone work for the last few days and it is supposed to snow tomorrow... kids are thrilled, me not so much.

The stone has been stressful because it is a big component of this house. They put it on and we hated it and they agreed that it wasn't right. They ripped it off, relaid it and we liked how it looked but the mortar just seemed to stay dark. We thought that was wrong too. On day 5 or 6 we were going out to meet with the builder and we were discussing the stone mortar and I was starting to panic AGAIN and it was miraculously light overnight! We knew it would lighten some, but it just wasn't getting a bit lighter and then overnight, like magic it was perfect. I got out of the car and told the stone guy I had been getting really worried about it and he told me he was too! He had gone back and checked his formulas and ingredients, and was also relieved to see it that day. It is amazing how the lighter mortar makes the stones look lighter too. It looked so dreary before and now it looks pretty. Thank goodness! The stone goes around the entire base of the house and then the center section will be stone. Here is a picture of the rear porch stone so you can see it....



The electrical is pretty much complete, the audio is wired, the central vac is in, the rough plumbing is done. They are working on the exterior trim.

Here are several more exterior pictures... rear porch and walkout basement...




The circular porch and fireplace...


Basement walkout wall... the stone mortar is "dry" here, I like how it matches the windows...


Front exterior.... you can see on the garage windows on the right they are starting to trim.



Interior pictures...
Master bath windows... I love these and the trees.


Front hallway,,,, I still haven't had these headers raised...


Wine room...The space is neat and we'll wrap the steel beams with wood like rustic beams, but the reality is we don't want to spend lots of money here because we are not "serious" wine drinkers. But, we are wondering if we shouldn't build the basic infrastructure correctly for a "wine room" including the compressor and then we could add as much or as little fancy racking later?


View of the keeping room from the 2nd floor. The window seats are not in at the windows flanking the fireplace yet...


Breakfast area...the barrel vault mimic the window arch which is neat.


The stairs... they are covered, but the little glimpse of walnut looks cool!




I think next up is insulation, though I am guessing there are final bits of electrical and plumbing that need to be wrapped up this week before that starts. Our neighbors move in next week. They started in May. They will be looking at a muddy mess for a while I think. I am excited to see drywall start hopefully by the end of the month?

Stone going on, some siding and lots of infrastructure

In the past week or so, there have been a crazy amount of workers out at the house....I think trying to get things completed before Christmas because then they will get paid.

The framing all looked so pretty inside, and then yikes, what a mess! There are holes everywhere for electrical, pipes running all over the place, ductwork snaking throughout and it no longer looks so pretty! I guess it has to go somewhere, but geesh, did it have to go THERE! This is a learning experience in that I was so darned picky in the plans and tried hard to eliminate wasted spaces and random little nooks. Those giant furnaces and water heaters and other air returns, etc need those little nooks! Since there are none, little bits of closets have been eaten away and my little storage attic is mucked up and the one that is going to really be annoying, but he hasn't seen it yet is Nick's workshop --- there is "stuff" everywhere! His giant workshop that he was getting is rapidly filling with mechanicals. I walked in and freaked out --- I did very nicely ask them to try to avoid spreading it out anymore in there --- anything else that gets added should not be placed in the middle of the remaining wall space he gets. I wish I had been down there being annoying and picky before it was all set up because maybe a larger continuous chunk might have been saved.

The real stairs have gone in and that is very nice.... the ladders were getting old. The walnut treads are covered, but I can still see that they are so pretty! There is no handrail yet, but at least the stairs feel nice now!

They are framing (nearly done) the rounded part of the screened porch. It looks very cool!



The fireplaces are all in place, and they are putting stone on the chimneys. The stone has been a big source of worry! They put it up and it was awful awful. I analyzed it and worried about it and finally called Lloyd and asked him to get the stone company owner out there to meet with me to discuss it. He was there within 2 hours and he agreed it didn't look right. They tore it all off! What a project, luckily not much was on! Now, they have put more on and it looks much better. I would still really like to see the top coating of lighter mortar going on as it should lighten the whole thing up quite a bit. But, because they are doing this strange mix of mortar with more lime (or some lightening dye), they can't do it in sections as it might not all come out the same! So, I am keeping my fingers crossed that this "white washing" effect is going to work out well.

As you can see, in the top gable some of the siding is going on.... what a lovely unfinished color, don't you think --- YUCK! I'm going to get up there with my paint :-)

Lloyd called and asked if all exterior lights are picked out. Since they are and I could tell him the backplate dimensions, they will be able to make nice trim boards to set the lights on and the siding will go around them, instead of setting the lights directly on the siding. The same will happen on the stone --- they can make sure the stone piece will be flat enough to cover that same dimension. I sure hope that the heights and sizes I gave them are correct or it will be terrible!

Nick has been working with an audio guy to figure that stuff out--- It all gets wired the week after Christmas. I will like having several speakers around vs. the computer blasting music all the time!

It has been cold and nasty here for the last 2 weeks. Today is 59 degrees, so it is a complete mud pit! I remember when the foundation was first poured, we had the kids take off their shoes to walk on it --- that is laughable because it is beyond disaster now!

We are four months into this project.... I have no clue how many more to go! I don't think we are half way yet. I think this is about the 1/3 mark, but really I have no idea. Our neighbors are moving in January 15th --- they started in May, so I think their build was roughly 8 months. Having a basement will increase our build time though. We'll see....hard to not start looking for the finish line! Our garage and bedroom are filled to the brim with sinks and light fixtures which I have ordered on my own. I cannot wait to get this stuff out of here!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

electrical and plumbing beginning

This week the plumbers and electricians are starting. Of course that meant walking through with each group for hours.... and it was 20 degrees... so very cold! It will be nice to get some insulation in this joint, but that is weeks away!

I had to give the electrical guy the disclaimer that he is dealing with a crazy person here.... he seemed fine with all of my craziness, so that is very good news. Of course who knows what I told them, it was so darn cold I can't remember!

They also put the cupola on top... it needs the weathervane still, but I suppose that will go on at the very end. I feel sorry for the electrician, because he is tasked with figuring out how the heck to get a light in there --- and a way to change the bulb....yikes!

Here are a few pics from the week....





garage details and cupola:


Barrel vault in the breakfast room:


The porch passed inspection, so the concrete should be poured on the porches any day now. After the concrete is poured, then the round porch can be framed. I've almost forgotten about that area, but it will be great to see.

The cabinet guy came and we marked out all of the cabinets on the floor. That was frustrating because he took all of the field measurements from our meeting and then went back to "finalize," but he applied the field measurements to an old design. That entailed hours of reconciliation for me, and I hope he gets it right on the next pass!

I have been working on the lighting plan and am finding that it is very hard to size lights --- especially exterior ones. I cut out pieces of cardboard to represent the sizes and that was totally useless. I finally went to the lighting store and brought one home with me (of the larger size). It seemed huge in isolation, but the electrician, Lloyd and I all think it is the right size. We'll see....

Other happenings, the guys fixed the header at the breakfast room (raised it, and it looks great), they made a bench in the master shower and are finalizing the basement framing (that was the warmest place in the house today)!

Coming up.... siding, stone, roofing and Nick will be working on the audio in the next few weeks.

Windows mostly in, framing wrapping up

This week many of the windows went in. They look great! Since they are not all in yet, I'm not sure if the window we added for Nicholas is there or not, but if not, it won't really matter.



Side view....



Here's the master bath window.... I couldn't get a wide angle shot to get the other 2 windows too.



Here's the breakfast room --- this is where I believe the header at the room entrance needs to be raised so we can actually see the arched window!



Spending the last several days in Great Falls was really fun.... talk about some eye candy if you like looking at houses! Here are 2 homes which have sloping up yards and 2 different ways to grade the front. The white house has a small stone wall in the front, and the stone house just slopes gently away from the house and then more sharply.




The porch decking is 100% complete now. I'm meeting with a lighting / electrical person this week and the cabinet guy is supposed to come and take measurements. Other than that, I'm not sure what exactly will happen this week... I know they will need another day or 2 to finish the windows....roofing maybe will start too? I'm not sure when the siding and stone will go on either, it must be pretty soon.

Tyvek and roofing just about done....

The framing is more or less done. There are some little details remaining... it was hard to really walk through and scrutinize because the framers were there working today and we wanted to stay out of their way.....

I don't know what it is, but seeing the house pretty much enclosed this week is really exciting! It looks really cool and Nick and I are thrilled so far. I can't wait to go out tomorrow to look at it without saws and hammers and guys everywhere!

Some of the interior details are appearing, like the "kick-out" returns at corners on the first floor. That will be a pretty detail once they wrap them and trim them out. They did drop the header down to 8' in the hallway to break it up a bit. I'm not too sure about that --- think we'd prefer it dropped, but more like 9' so the crown detail appears, but it isn't so low. Here is how it looks for the moment....



In the end, we want the hallway to look like this, a dropped detail, but not 2'....


Also, the Breakfast room header is low, at 8' and that will hide the pretty window in there. I asked Lloyd to raise it, and he said no problem, but we are going to get the big window in first so that we can decide how high to raise it. I am glad we are waiting.

Our little charging station framing went in in the mudroom, that is cool and I have a feeling it will be one of our favorite things. It is about 12" wide and it will have shelves up to 8' tall. I think a trashcan at the floor will be super handy to get rid of junk before even really getting it into the house.

The great room is framed, and we can see the chalk lines on the floor representing where the ceiling coffers will go. That freaked me out because the alignment doesn't look good. They are spaced equally, but the windows / doors are not all the same size, so the coffers slightly overlap one of the windows. It looks like a mistake instead of perfect alignment. To fix it (it hasn't been framed yet and won't be until we are ready for the trim guy), we would need to make the coffers unequal. I think this is the right solution, but am not sure yet. We need to think about it a bit. I am wondering if we should just ditch the coffers and do something else in that room. Any ideas? Since the fireplace wall will be stone with a rustic beam mantel, I am thinking maybe we should put rustic beams across the ceiling.... this will be a TBD area.
Here is one with beams....would you do something like this vs. coffers?


Here is the room in question... the fireplace will be on the left.


I think if we do coffers, they need to be in the space between the door and the window, not partially over the middle window like this chalk line shows (the red lines, not the seam in the floor).



Other spaces...

Ryan's room backs up to an attic space and I can't help myself, I am scheming about making a "smurf" door for him into a little secret room. It would be really cool because 2 of the dormer windows would be in the secret room.... And then of course, Nicholas' room backs up to the little upstairs playroom, and a little tunnel would be really fun to get into that room..... I know, I know, I need to stop thinking about these crazy concepts...but when you are there looking at it, it is hard to imagine closing off these little areas!

Today I'm going to post a view from each exterior side.... the Tyvek is covering some of the windows, and some of the windows go higher than it appears because the Tyvek is not cut-out perfectly yet.
Front...


walkout side....



rear view....





garage side...



Other happenings for the week...
There is a pine tree farm near us with 100's of big pine trees. I loved our little "grove" of 3 pine trees in Cincinnati, so I have some pines in mind again when we get to landscaping. Well, every time I drive by that pine farm, I think about it and wonder if they sell any of those pine trees? So, I wrote a note to the family asking about the trees. Mr. Barger, a very nice man called me back and told me he'd be happy to sell me some of his trees. I met him over there and he took me to a different area than I expected --- the trees here were quite tall (25-30' I would guess). Anyway, I thought, uh-oh, these are awfully big, how much do you have in mind for them? He said, "$20 a tree, if you think that is fair?" So, Nick and I have picked some trees we really like and now we just need to find somebody to move them for a reasonable amount! That will be the catch we know, but the trees are great. Thanks Mr. Barger! I think he liked that my brother has a walnut farm and that Dad made a kiln out of the back of a milk truck.... it was fun to talk about some of the woods. The perfect time to plant the pines is Nov, Dec or Jan, so the timing is good if we can find a way to move them. Somebody with a tree spade is difficult to find! If by chance we do find a tree spader, we are going to take a pretty maple tree from our current back yard. It is hidden at the far back of our yard and it will not be missed in this yard, but it would be nice to have a decent sized maple over there.

I bought a sideboard at an antique store to convert into our powder room vanity --- very exciting because it was $159. This compared to the cabinet guy who estimated $1900 to make a sideboard for a vanity. It is EXACTLY the right size. We will just remove the top, put on a piece of granite or marble with an undermount sink, and leave the rear little valance detail....


I am having a hard time containing my excitement because this week we are expecting windows and doors.... whoo hoo! I am really keeping my fingers crossed that they look good because I changed the mullion pattern on the windows SO many times and I was so difficult about it. I am worried about it now.... I don't know which days the guys will work this week since it is Thanksgiving week --- I want to have low expectations so we are not disappointed when we get back from Jen's house.

Happy Thanksgiving Week!