More Planning

This weekend we met with Donna and Tony from Gutowski Cabinets. It had been nearly a year since we first started talking about our cabinetry for the house with them. This weekend they came up to get started measuring and working on final design.

This meeting seemed to be more fun than work. Donna is full of many ideas and really changed our outlook on many of the ideas we originally had. And the best part of her ideas are that they seem to open up many of the spaces in the house and just all around make a lot more sense. Here is another company that we can truly sense commitment to detail and perfection, and attention given to customer satisfaction. They really put us at ease with this part of the project.

All I could keep thinking on Saturday, while watching Tony measuring and figuring the placement of cabinets and over all layout, is what a relief to have people that really know what they are doing taking care of this crucial part of the interior design process.

Some other things that we have been looking at is flooring. I had a couple of conversations with the people at Carlisle Flooring this past week. What we really have been looking at is a reclaimed oak flooring. At this point, we are thinking this would go well with the character of the timbers. All along we have been planning on hardwood flooring for most of the main floor. The question has been whether to go with engineered hardwood flooring or go with the traditional hardwood floor. I think both have their place but the engineered flooring almost looks too perfect for the type of house we are building.

This week should see us receiving our fireplace unit, and also the siding looks like it should arrive sometime on Tuesday. This past week I finished building the platform for the fireplace. As soon as the unit arrives, the fireplace will become one of the many priorities to build and get in place so as we have some form of heat. The remaining windows and exterior doors should arrive the second or third week in October. Fall has definitely been in the air this past week, so even cooler temps won't be far behind.

While on the heating subject, I have been looking at the ground mount kit for the evacuated tube panels for the solar collector which will be our primary source of heat for the house and for our hot water. It will be a push to get this up and running before winter, but it sure would do wonders for keeping the house warm. So for now we will just keep plugging away and see how things progress.

Last weekend my wife and I managed to get the center window on the east wall into place. It is roughly a 6'x6' window. We were hoping for some help with it, but our help fell through at the last minute. So being slightly irritated by all of this I think it gave us the extra umph to get it into place. We were both very sore on Sunday but it feels good having it in place!!!

All of our material for the second floor has arrived and we will soon be getting started on that as well. The material is what is known as an LVL. It is a laminated beam which in our case is 7 1/4" wide. This will form a cavity on the second floor for the plumbing and electrical. It is a little more structural material than what is really needed, but the width worked out well and it will give us a very firm second floor.

Our roof is finally complete!!!!

What a long process it has been. Much more difficult than it should have ever been but at least when it is raining we know we will be dry inside and catching the rain on the outside.

Speaking of rain after a very rainy Saturday, an inch to be exact, we estimate that we caught about 1200 + gallons with Saturday's rain!!!! This is off all of the roof except for the balcony portion which is not tied into the cistern yet. What a great feeling that was to see that much water off of one rain. I spoke to a person that also does rain collection about 2 miles from us. He said he has about 16,000 gallon rain collection capacity and has been overflowing a good part of this summer due to the rainy monsoon season that we had this year.

Just a quick garden update, we managed to dodge the frost earlier in the week by covering the garden. As it turned out, the low was about 34 degrees. The great harvest continues. We really have had a great garden this year considering it is our first one up here and the soil still could use a lot of work. Although again tonight it looks like frost may be a threat!!!

Waiting.......

It seems we are at the point right now where we are waiting for a lot of things. In a couple of weeks, we are expecting all of our siding and trim from Washington to arrive.

In about another month, we should have the rest of the windows and all entry doors delivered. Getting the windows straightened out and ordered has been a major task in itself. We still cannot believe something could be so difficult. But it seems that, for the most part, we have the rest of the windows ordered barring any more problems.

We are waiting to get the master bathroom tub in before completing the framing of the walls of the bathroom. That should happen within the next two weeks.

In about a week we should have the BIS fireplace insert delivered. Once this arrives we will get the fireplace chase built and then the unit and double-wall packed pipe installed.

And, last but not least, believe it or not we are still waiting for the roof to be completed!!! Although it is not completed, we have actually started to catch rain. Gutters and down spouts are in place and hooked up to the drain pipe connected to the rain catch tank. That's the good news. After a rather heated phone call to the roofer last week wondering when we are going to wrap this roof up, work still continues to progress slowly. Metal fascia work remains as well as the rest of the snow jacks and the ridge caps.

Labor day weekend found us working on the great room east wall. We removed all of the OSB sheeting covering the rough openings of all of the windows. We did some more framing for the upper arched windows, insulated the wall and ran the remaining wiring needed for the great room. After all that was completed, we wrapped the wall with Tyvek, and installed two of the lower windows. The large center one is going to require a little help to lift it into place.

This weekend was spent wrapping more of the house with Tyvek. The rest of the time we were laying out interior walls and getting the plates fastened to the floor. A lot of time was taken discussing some possible changes as to the location of walls and one rather large change would be the location of the back door. This would make for a even roomier kitchen. The jury is still out on that whole change.

And just a quick garden update. The produce is really starting to rippen with tomatoes starting to become almost overwhelming!!!!