Stone, Sheetrock, Cabinets, Hex Tile

This week, the foundation around the garage was "tented" so it can be brought up to a temperature that will allow the stone to be applied. Kinda reminds me of the scene in E.T. when the feds come into Elliot's house to check out the alien body.

The sheetrock has started going up, which has had two major impacts. First, it's much easier to see the actual size of the rooms when you can't see through the walls. Second, the house is much brighter with the white walls and ceilings than it was with the exposed framing.

Above is the living room from the opposite direction. The kitchen is at the end of the room - you can see the cabinets hanging on the wall. The refrigerator will go in the space to the right of the wall cabinets, and will be paneled in the same walnut. Below is a close-up of the wall cabinets. Note that they still need to be leveled.

Below is a photo of our foyer. The dark gray hex tiles were just installed with black grout. We think the tiles will look great with the solid walnut partition doors that are being built for us now.

That's all for now. We'll try to post again next week.

Ceiling, Sheetrock, Cabinets

This week, Walter began installing the pine ceiling in the bedrooms. The planks have been primed and painted white, and are a nice alternative to a standard sheetrock ceiling. It was also much easier for them to install around the beams. If you click the above picture, you can see the planks more clearly.


In the above photo, you can see that the back wall of our kitchen is sheetrocked. The brown boxes on the floor are our island cabinets, laid out in their proper locations. The range will go in the middle space (although it's actually wider than the gap in the picture). The entire island will have a CaesarStone countertop, and there's enough room for four stools on the dining room side of the island (note the open space between the two side cabinets - that's for your legs).


This is a shot of the front of the cabinets. They're quite nice. Walter is expecting delivery of our appliances soon, and wants to get the cabinets in place so the appliances can be installed immediately upon delivery.


Finally, one more shot of our deck. They have now finished the siding around the corners, and should be installing the cable rail soon.

This week, we expect a lot of sheetrock to go up. We're definitely looking forward to this step, because each room will finally feel like its own entity. They will hopefully make some progress with the cabinet installation. It's possible that the cedar ceiling will be installed over the deck. And, if we're lucky, we might get some lighting.

That's all for now. See you next week.

Deck, Garage Door, Insulation

Hello. Above is the second floor deck. The ipe planks have been installed, and the cable rail has been ordered. We're hoping that Walter will be able to install the cedar ceiling sometime this week. The installation is amazing, with each screw perfectly in line with the next. There's quite a bit of construction dust on the boards, so the color is pretty dull in these photos. You can see some pictures in a previous post here that show the true color. Below is a shot of the deck in the sun.

The cedar cladding has been applied to our garage door. It's made up of 4" tongue and groove cedar planks that run the full 17 foot length of the door. These are the same cedar planks that will be used for the ceiling above our deck. Check out the second photo below and imagine the clear cedar on both the garage door and the deck ceiling, with ledgestone covering all exposed concrete, and bluestone on the stairs. Should be great!

And below, the insulation for our exterior walls and roof was sprayed this week. The product is called Icynene, and should make for a very energy efficient and quiet house. It has a very high R value, which we needed, considering all the glass we have on the first floor. The below shot is facing the kitchen, where some of the cabinets have been placed in exactly the shape and size of the island (here' a link to our kitchen layout). It was very cool to get a feeling for what it will be like when the kitchen is done.

Finally, when Carey and I arrived at the house, we found a new friend waiting in the foyer. It appears that someone had a little fun with excess insulation, a couple of sticks and three Budweiser caps. Carey and the snowman got along very well.

Flooring

From this point forward, most of our posts will be focused on the interior of the house, as most of the exterior work is done.  Walter and crew installed our flooring this past week, as evidenced in the above and below photos.  The floors are white oak planks in widths of 6, 7, and 8 inches - most of which are 10 to 12 feet long.  They will eventually be sealed with a water-based polyurethane, which will hopefully help us retain the light color (we don't want them to turn honey colored, which is what happens with oil-based polys).  The above shot is taken from the kitchen area of the main room.  The black box on the floor at the end of the room is our fireplace, and the guy in khakis is the mill worker that will be building the cabinetry around it.

Above is a photo showing the floors in one of the guest bedrooms.

And here's a shot of the front of the house.  The siding is now complete (except for one small area by the deck, not shown here).  Also note that the gutters are now in place, but thanks to Nina's skills, they cannot be seen from the ground.

Our ipe deck is now in place, although we neglected to take any photos.  We'll post some early next week.  See you then.