more windows, beams, stairs...

hello. so above you can barely see it, but walter and his guys carved "country crib 07" into the foundation for our front stairs, which you see below. please note that each stair will be clad in bluestone, so this little note will be a time capsule piece for someone else to discover many moons down the road.

above is a shot of the poured steps. more earth will be brought in to fill beside them, so no need for a railing.

as you can see here, more windows have been installed, and hopefully all will be in while the weather stays dry. we had a bit of a misting today, but nothing that would cause the wood windows too much harm.

above are the beams that tie into our rafters (and thus help secure the roof), and also help prevent the walls from splaying outward due to the weight of the roof. These will be exposed in all the bedrooms with a cathedral ceiling above, which is why walter has protected them with this wrap.

here's a shot of the west wall in our main living space on the first floor. each bay has two awning windows in the middle for cross ventilation. that's why the frames on the middle two windows are wider than those on either side.

and above you can see how the windows will frame the fireplace. below is the view out the window to the left of the fireplace. it's really gorgeous in reality, but the picture doesn't do it too much justice. we chose a roof today, and we hope it will be installed sometime in the next couple of weeks. that's all for now folks.

Windows

Our windows were delivered yesterday, and Walter and his crew have begun installation. The four largest bays have been installed, as you can see above. They are incredible. The outside of the window frames is a clear anodized aluminum, which simply means, they look like unpainted aluminum. The insides are douglas fir, and look beautiful.



Above is a shot from the backyard.



Above is a shot from the kitchen area of the main room. Notice that each bay has a sliding door. The fir will be left unpainted, finished with some sort of polyurethane I think.



And these windows are in the den. That's all that's been installed so far - hopefully we'll have the rest in by this weekend. We should also have our front steps poured and our 2nd floor ceiling beams in by then. Soon, a steel roof and cedar siding. This thing is really becoming a house!

Look for another post Sunday or Monday.

senor hausbot

hey. check out our HOUSE! doesn't the north facade look like a sad robot?

this week the front stairs progressed, and we're still trying to find the tastiest recipe for lemonade. the stairs will look great, and they will be a very comfortable climb, but the land is so steep! we trust walter, though, and we'll all figure something out, and it will be beautiful.

and, once they climb those comfortable steps, this is what our guests will see when they enter the front door. straight ahead is a window with a view to the back yard. to the right are the stairs that will take you to the second floor (bedrooms, covered porch). to the left will be two coat closets with a bench in the middle. this is also where we'll have two floor to ceiling sliding partitions that close off the den when we need to use it as an extra bedroom. when it's not a bedroom, the sliding partitions will serve as the coat closet doors.

above is a shot of our rainy day covered porch on the second floor. instead of traditional wood collar ties here (usually bolted to the rafters, to pull the walls in, as the weight of the roof wants to push them out), we opted to use a 3/4" steel rod with staggered turnbuckles. they serve the same purpose as the wooden ones that will be used inside the house (and will be exposed in the bedrooms - see next week's post for pics of those), but are more appropriate for outside, and also just look pretty cool.

DEFINITELY stay tuned next week, as our windows, interior collar tie beams, and roof arrive this week. over the next couple of weeks, we'll see some pretty major steps. cheers.

stairs + chairs

hello.


Most of the time this week was spent trying to figure out our front stairs. Walter + his team had to unearth most of the fill that was near our front entry in order to install a concrete block foundation for the main entry stairs up to the house. This area was particularly difficult to design, because I never did a real land survey in that area. Nor do I actually know how to do a real land survey. Anyway, the area was a lot steeper than I had anticipated, so we've been going back and forth between my sketches and figuring it all out on site. Billy and I are comfortable at this point making lemonade from lemons and pretty much letting the guys wing it from here. We'll see how it turns out.



Above is the full house view from the front as it is right now.



And a BIG thank you to Walter for making us some really cool chairs for our future fire pit! He made a bunch of them for another client, and was thoughtful enough to make a few extra for us. How great is that?

Rafters

Hello all. This week we gained roof rafters, and you can start to see the barn influence. The above shot is from the backyard.



Above is a shot from across the driveway. The workers have begun to apply the Tyvek housewrap to the sheathing.



Above is the view from the driveway as it turns toward the garage. Check out the sweetness that is our covered deck!

It turns out that we'll need a separate foundation for our entry steps. That big mound of dirt is backfill that had to be removed to make way for said foundation.



It appears mighty tall when you're approaching the garage. I think this is really going to be an impressive sight when it's done.



This is up on the roof deck. It's not the best picture, but you can see that the floor is waterproofed and sloped to allow for proper drainage.



And here's the lovely Nina, standing in the master closet wall.