Ceiling and Mantel

Carpenters have been working on the ceiling. That's included tongue-in-groove boards and placement of the "beams". It's surprising how much time goes into setting up the scaffolding, unfortunately because of the room dimensions it can't always be simply rolled and has to be reassembled. The ceiling is 24 feet up. The beams are really boxes built around the boards already set into the ceiling. So far, we're pretty happy with the look.


Above is a view of the ceiling towards the front, finished on the right. The left section is the only section left without the tongue-in-groove.



Above is the view towards the back of the room. Finished beams are on the left side of the picture and down the length.


The mantel beam also was delivered. This is a real beam, 16'4" long and 10"X10". it weighs about 350 pounds. The columns adjacent to the fireplace will be notched and the mantel set in. Once that's in, the carpenters will start on the built in cabinets, and then the stone goes on.
The floor boards start getting placed this week as well, and into the great room once the scaffolding is out.




The mantel will sit about 20-24" above the top of the fireplace. Building code will set a minimum clearance above the FP opening.

I've Been Non-Political So Far

but Dad sounded like he thought Obama was unstoppable when we last talked (must be those Chicago newspapers). But as many commenters on the Web have already pointed out, for a guy who is running a campaign of Hope and his ability to be a Uniter, he sure has an affinity for apparent America haters, including his (never been proud of America) wife and his spiritual influence for 20 years minister.



He is toast. I just hope he makes it through the nomination.

Something Different

Tiled showers and Supplies

Today we have snow, 4-8" expected. It's sloppy wet stuff, and seems to be melting fast already. Max seems to enjoy it! Yesterday, we had a record 74 degrees. Just a teaser for springtime. Below is a view from the great room on a warm late winter day.



Lots of materials were delivered. The wood flooring was delivered a week ago. It sat in the trailer for a couple of days until it was unloaded. Lori and I didn't quite like how it was stacked so we spent a couple of hours ordering out the stacks by size. It looks pretty good, and will be very rustic looking when the finish is applied. There were a lot of wide planks, some as big as 12-14", and quite a few up to 20' in length. The wood needs to sit in the house stacked so it doesn't deform (crown or cup)while it drys with the radiant heat.





Most of the tile has been delivered as well. Below is the sandstone/slate that will be in the entry foyer, laundry room, nook and mudroom. It looks a little orange here but has lots of browns, reds etc and compliments well with the exterior stonework. The sandstone is stacked against the wall. About 500 square feet in total. We lucked out on the price, at about 75% off. In front of the sandstone is the "rainforest" marble that will go in the master bath as decorative pieces in the shower and on top of the tub deck. The sink counters will have slab.



We did see similar tiles at another dealer, but this sandstone has the interesting feature of having fossils showing nicely. Lot's of plant leaves with an occasional shell. It also was considerably less.



Also stacked in the garage and just waiting for a worker or 2 are the ceiling slats. These are pine tongue in groove that will be nailed and glued to the ceiling, with the "support" beams built out as well.



Tiling has started downstairs. Below is a guest bedroom bath. The tiles are porcelain. 2 bathrooms have the same finish, and the exercise room has a different tile coloring but similar style.



The guest master shower is below. The tiling will extend out over the bathtub deck to the right ( sorry no pic)


Also in storage, the master bath travertine, a little darker here than the coloring that we expect.. 16" X 24". This will go on the floor only.

Lazy Sunday

Today the weather turned cold again, and we decided to just hang out. Lori made some chicken soup and we all shared the paper and watched hockey. The Avs lost, but so did the Red Wings so it wasn't all bad (we watched almost 2 full games!)


Chapman was in the hospital a couple weeks ago with some possible kidney problems. His BUN was elevated (blood urea, a measure of kidney clearing ability) and he had to get flushed out. We decided that's his last in hospital stay, come what may. He looks much better now and his appetite has returned. A little bit (little) of sirloin and juice with his usual dry food seems to do the trick. I almost want some. He takes 3-4 pills now, and he got smart about finding it in wet dog food. However, Velveeta works wonders. I think it smells enough to cover any odors and it's soft to allow it to form well over the pill.



The tile guys started work downstairs. They are doing the showers in the lower level baths. Last weekend we went out and did most of the selctions. If you look in front of the fireplace in the picture on top, you'll see how Lori has layed out the tiles that go together. She sets them out to make sure she can look and verify she liked her choice. We also picked the tile for most of th eupper level. We were unsure about the nook/mudroom, but finally decided on a sandstone (quarzite) type slate. Good multicolors that will complement the fireplace stone and hide dirt. That's a good thing. I hauled some tile over to the house today. They were short on some of the items, and since we were at the store I just picked then up.

The floor wood gets delivered on Tuesday. Click on the link for some pictures. We chose the eastern white pine because it has wide planks, 6-12 inches, with up to 16 ft planks. Carlisle advertizes their floors as compatible with radiant heat. They have to let it sit for a week and then I expect they'll start installation. We also went and got a new bid for interior doors and trim. The guy we had just wasn't helpful or organized. We went with another supplier and it ends up Lori saved us about $8k with the switch. The new guys have alot of the doors as standard, without any need for special orders or construction.

The top door is the style for most of the interior doors, although we have quite a few with glass. All the wood is alder.
The heat system is working nicely. Thermostats were installed. The house has 8 different heating zones, and the house is holding the heat nicely.
We met with the trim/finish guy a couple of times recently. The great room ceiling will have wood covers, which will be delivered this week too. We discussed all the trim, the doors, closet design, and built-ins, particularly next to the great room fireplace. We had some trouble with a mantle design, but the builder dropped over a sample of a pine (lodgepole) beem which will come in a 16 foot length to fit across. It should look pretty cool when finished.
This piece is about 2.5 feet long and 10x10 inches.
Finish day? Months away, I'd say.

Floor Poured

Concrete was poured yesterday throughout the upper level. The house must have gotten cold because the doors were wide open and it was 8 degrees out when they poured. We took a look today, and it's already set and hard, and it seemed warm enough inside. The upstairs heat isn't running yet, but the heat from downstairs seems to cover it adequately! We may have had overkill on the heating, but it should be very efficient. It looks like they did a good job and were neat with the job. The sleeper boards show through, and the wood floor will be nailed to those boards.
They were supposed to put insulation over the pipes where the refrigerator and island will be. I didn't make it out to check on them (now it's covered and we'll never know). Lori was quick enough to realize that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to pump heat under the refrigerator. The heating guys didn't come up with it, and we were disappointed by that. Who knows what else might be missed.





No sleepers in the nook/mudroom. This will be a tile floor.



The wood floor gets delivered in about 2 weeks, and has to sit a week to acclimatize. Next steps will be some tiling, doors, start some trim, start the stone wall around the fireplaces.

Upper Level Heating; Texture

The walls have all been textured. That involved slopping plaster over the drywall and scraping it around a bit. Once painted, it will have the look of "old world" plasterwork, but not as thick. It looked to take some skill to do, and one person did the whole house with the other guys setting up the scaffolding, preparing the plaster etc. It took 5000 lbs of plaster overall (I don't know if that's wet or dry!). The texture doesn't show up well with photos.




On the upper level, "sleeper" boards were laid out. The heating tubes are arrayed in between. Once finished, we'll run the system for a few days to assure that there is good flow of the heat through the tubes, then the concrete will be poured over. The hardwood floor is nailed to the sleepers.




Lori and I met with the "tile guy" and went over the layouts of all the rooms. He'll likely do the stone over the fireplace as well, after the concrete and before the wood floors.

Santa Likes Me

Tried out my new toy tonight. We got 10 inches of snow on Christmas, so I decided finally to buy a snow blower. I bought a 12 HP 33 inch w X 23 inch h beast. 6 forward gears and 2 reverse. It's way overkill for the current drive, but will come in handy for the new house.

It was delivered today. Some minor prep setup required. Just in time, I got it ready. We got another 8-10 inches today.



It took a little effort getting used to the controls, and how to avoid getting a facefull of snow when I turned into the wind. Once I got used to it, things went pretty quick The snow gets thrown up to 40 feet. I took it out to the street to try some heavy compact stuff. Didn't slow down at all.

We had a nice dinner for Christmas. Missed the folks back in Chicago. Mom and Dad had a houseful, sounds like. Lori likes her new warm-up suit. It matches the one she's wearing, but the new one is better. Thanks Mom.



New House Update: Texturing has started, and in fact the upper level is already done. Haven't been there to see. They will start placing the "sleeper" boards on the floor, and place the heating tubes between. The floor boards get nailed to the sleepers.

Drywall

The drywall is up. The next step is texturing, basically covering up the screw holes and heads, taping the spaces between the drywall boards, and smearing plaster over everything. I went through the house today to find outlets that were mistakenly covered. I had gone through the house already and took about 150 pictures of all the wiring, vents, pipes, etc so when these mistakes got made it wouldn't take too much figuring to locate the covered item. However, the house looks a lot different now that everything is covered and it took some 3 dimensional thinking to remember what wall every picture was of. I found several covered outlets. No covered vents as far as I know.
On top is the great room as viewd from the entry foyer.





Vew into the kitchen from the hall/formal dining



View of the kitchen area from the great room.


More pictures at Flickr. Click on the pictures for more info.

Christmas Potluck at the Office

The office had the Holiday decorations in place for the interclinic contest. Word is pending on the final judging. Great job!
We had a potluck with a gift exchange. Alcohol seemed to be the gift of choice, giving and receiving. I think the gin, tequila, and Baily's all were traded 3 times.



Click the link for a slideshow at Flickr.

Too Many Trees on that Course!

Mike sent pictures of what a golf course looks like (almost) east of the Mississippi. Hope he takes a lot of extra balls with him ;) . More pics at Flickr

Happy Thanksgiving!

Phoenix Redux

Scott, Bob, Chuck and myself took another long weekend trip down to Phoenix, Nov 10-14. We stayed at an Embassy Suites on Stonecreek golf course, where we had breakfast every day (and better than my usual powerbar), watched a lot of football, relaxed in the great weather, and had a good fun round of golf. I don't have to talk any smak, the scorecard says it all for me and Chuck. Scott and Bob made a good run of it with the last holes. I think the heat was getting to the winning team, but in the end we held on for a solid win.


View from our balcony



Nuff Said


A view of my office and what greeted me after I got back. The boxes are records of only 2 different cases that I had to review.

Coloradohouse at Flickr has the rest of my pictures, and I'm expecting more from the rest of the guys.

Insulation

Since the last post, inspections were done. Some adjustments were required but everything passed just fine. This involved several assessments. The rough plumbing was checked. All the pipes were pressure filled with water and had to sit for several days to show that there were no leaks. Gauges were place on some of the strategic areas and all the pipes for faucets etc were capped. Electrical wiring was checked, fuse boxes, external hookup etc. The electric meter is in. Finally, framing was reviewed.
The insulation went in over the last week. For all walls that border to the outside, we chose blown in fiberglass (R-20 I think). A nylon net is stapled across each section and the fiberglass is then blown in. This turned out really nice, with good fill and it's tight like a balloon. This was then covered with plastic for a moisture barrier. The drywall will go over it all. Frequently, rolled fiberglass "bats" are used. With the number of wires we have running through the wall, a good tight fit might have been difficult.





Click on the pic for a larger view. Each of the sections between the 2X6s was filled.


The ceiling has some rolls fitted in (R-38). Once the drywall is completed, additional fiberglass insulation will be blown in through the whole attic area. The upper floor has the vaulted ceilings filled with the rolls. I'm not sure why they selected certain areas, possibly due to possible difficult access once the drywall is in.



Kitchen is top pic, great room bottom.

In the basement, the whole ceiling was insulated to help keep heat down below and for sound insulation. Additionally, the walls around some of the bedrooms, and the powder rooms were insulated for sound control. Can't have bathroom noises audible to everyone.

On the left in the above picture is the mudroom wall bordering the outside, with the blown in fiberglass. To the right, the yellow is the fiberglass rolls insulating the bathroom wall (for sound).

Some downstairs areas need to be finished, not much from what I can tell. An inspection is next and they should be able to start the drywall once it passes.

Heating system

The horses from the ranch next door came to the fence to check us out. Actually, we bought some horse treats at a ranch store nearby, and now they know that they have a good chance of getting some tasty apple/oats cookies. It's enjoyable watching six horses come running!




This is the control center for the heating system. The tubes run under the floors and will be divided into about 10 zones for different heating on different parts of the house. The boiler in the bottom picture is really pretty small. Water will run through the tubes at about 120 to 130 degrees. The floor feels warm, and the heat will rise. There is no central fan to circulate the heat. For the upper floor, the tubes are laid out and then covered with gypcrete, with the would floor covering. The basement concrete floor already has the tubes running through.



The joists under the deck got stained as well. The color looks pretty good. This should be a nice protected area.