The Kitchen Carcasses

Well, that's one more week gone by. Where did the time go? Let's see:

Andy installed a few more slate tiles in the mudroom. There is still some grout-work to do there, so maybe we'll get to that in the coming week.Karen is routing a side panel of the kitchen cabinets to prepare for assembly. Benson used the router this week, too. Benson really likes to try everything. Except sweeping. Maybe he thinks he has the sweeping thing all figured out already.
We began to assemble the hearth pieces this week, but we didn't get very far. The hearth will be tiled with slate, just like the mudroom. The woodstove will end up about where Andy is standing.
A friend of Chris' came over on Saturday and helped out for a few hours. Tariq and Benson helped assemble these cabinet carcasses, and it's neat to see them in place. There is quite a bit of work to do on them, obviously. But we're making steady progress.
A wider view of the kitchen progress. The island surface you see here will be at 36" high, and on the East side (the left) will be a raised area where we are sure to gather for pie. And ice cream. Or maybe just pie. Or maybe just ice cream... oh, the dilemmas we will have!
Sorry, Karen. You have a looooong way to go with that little bitty sander. With softwood floors, we thought it prudent to avoid the commercial floor sanders in favor of a more delicate approach. Karen and Mindy have spent hours and hours sanding around the house, and room by room, we move closer to the end.
A bit of innocent vandalism for a nephew in New York. Happy birthday, Hunter!
Chris and Karen's bedroom, with a view through to the bathroom in the background. The wall is closed in now, and that makes a real nice shift from having everything so open.
The two Takagi tankless water heaters are mostly installed. The vents have a few extra pieces to put together early next week. A 1,000 gallon propane tank will be installed on Tuesday, and shortly after that, we hope to turn on the slab and heat the house up a bit. The propane tank will be underground, thankfully. At 5'x5'x18', it's not exactly subtle.
Andy and Mindy's bathroom has seen some big changes. They chose a vanity, sink, and hardware, and that is basically roughed in at this point. The shower base is also installed, but we still have to figure out the walls and put those together.
We built a small vanity for the mudroom bath this week, and applied a single coat of dark tung oil, just like the floor. Actually, the top surface of the vanity was made from extra flooring pieces, so it matches the floor pretty well, and will look great on the slate. The holes for the drain and faucet are finished, and it was tempting to put the vessel and faucet in place. All in good time.
The excavators made some good progress on the grading around the house. This is the window on the North wall. It would have been a huge undertaking for us to get these stones into place ourselves. We plan a similar retaining wall for the garden area and for the entrance to the front door. Which is really on the side. Anyway, it will also have stones there. We hope to see that come together this week after they install the propane tank.

The Loft Floor

This is a direct continuation of last week's pictures - the mudroom bathroom. Andy and Chris cut and installed the slate this week. This is the first half of the room done.The rest of the tiles are in place, with the grout yet to be done.
The grout is done but not totally cleaned up in this picture, and the rest of the mudroom floor has been primed for the mortar and wonderboard. We would like to install the tile in the rest of the room this coming week.
Andy routering (yes, Russell, I know that's not a word) one of the panels for the kitchen. We chose a Bosch router that has a fixed and a plunge base. It is a wonderful machine to use. Stable, smooth, and reliable. We're glad to have a project that required its purchase. :)
The current view of the kitchen, as seen from the loft. It's a mess, I know. The only excuse is lack of time - we'll make things orderly later. This is propped up in place so the plumber can see where things will be installed. Based on this mock-up, he should be able to drill holes in the floor and our cabinets, run the pex needed, and do all the rest he has to do. We are using 3/4" birch plywood for most of the carcasses, but anywhere a wall will be visible we will use 3/4" cherry ply. The faces and doors will be cherry hardwood. Since the countertop will be a very heavy concrete slab, we chose to double up the verticals wherever possible. We want the load of the top distributed evenly around a solid base.

Karen working on the bathroom vanities. She experimented with some sanding and some stain, but I think we'll end up painting these. The stain of the floor is a very rich color, and the room will probably look best without too many contrasting grain patterns.
The loft is the most empty room in the house right now, so Chris brought some work up there during the week, too.
Snowing in the house again? Mindy was sanding the floor to prepare for the tung oil, and the flash on the camera does funny things with the sawdust in the air. Eli enjoys his window seat.See? Mindy is still sanding. In the winter months, the sunlight will shine well into the house, but it looks beautiful all year round. The well-lit south wall is one of our favorite features of the house.
The loft as seen from the living room. Nice straight rails, and it feels good to have the room closed off up there. We haven't heard for sure if we'll need to install electric outlets along the loft walls. We should find out this week when the electrical inspection takes place.
Two coats of tung oil are down on the floor at this point. It makes for a warm, inviting surface.
Even with just a few dim bulbs on in the house, the windows really light up. When one light is on, we'll be able to walk around the entire upstairs part of the house - with no walls, everything carries between the rooms. Light, sound... yes, I think it will always be a noisy, happy house.
This view hasn't changed too much. The doors are painted, the rear latch is installed... but that's about it. The grey cube is the Osburn woodstove we picked out, and the blue monolith is the refrigerator. These two things are too heavy to move very often, and they would just be in the way if we brought them inside. They'll be ok out here for a little bit, but we'll be glad to get them in and put them to use.

The Powah is On!

The powah is turned on, and we have lights to prove it now. The rough electric is finished for the entire basement level and part of the main living level. That work will continue this coming week. The electrician knows our move-in date, and he's on board with finishing his work in time for that.The outlets along the South wall.
Wiring and a smoke detector hardwired into the wall on the North end of the dining room/South wall of Chris and Karen's bathroom.
We put up some more railing sections in the loft on Saturday. They came out straight and sturdy, just like the house. We think the look matches well. These will end up with a coat or three of poly just like the rest of the non-floor surfaces in the house. We ripped 2x4s to make the ballisters, and a single 2x4 was cut to length for the top and bottom rail. Each ballister is ripped from a 2x4, cut to length, jointed, sanded, drilled with four holes, and finally installed. They take a lot of time, but it's happy work, and it's fun to see them put in place.
Mindy was busy this week on the basement floor. The acid stain is down, and on Monday she'll be back to apply the neutralizer. The color is called "Old Hickory". It's certainly a big change from the natural grey. We are excited to see the finished surface, and have one floor surface totally done.

Like I said... Mindy was busy this week. She also spent some time in Chris and Karen's bathroom, working on the floor there. We chose a dark tung oil as the finished surface for the upper floors. This room will end up with a water-resistant finish, so it's unique in that respect, but the color will be the same everywhere. It's great to see it go on, and Mindy said it was very simple to apply.
Andy is working on the ballisters for the loft. He had a smooth system set up, like a one-man assembly line. While he wasn't taking this picture, Chris was in the loft assembling the kits Andy had put together for each section of rail.
Ahh, we hope Benson will remember with fondness the good old days of playing in the leach field.
Eli being Eli. We used the back "steps" as a mixing area. There was a constantly changing mix of paint, oil, and cement there this week.
Light grey to dark grey. The dark grey will be the finished color for both doors. By the time we left the house on Saturday evening, both doors were painted, reinstalled, and the mudroom door latch was installed. The door to the kitchen will require some drilling for the different style latch the girls chose.

We bought the slate for the mudroom floor on Saturday. Eventually we will install this everywhere in the mudroom, and possibly near the other entrance as well. For now, we will focus on the mudroom bath, since the fixtures are dependent on the floor being in place.We thought this was great to see, so we have pictures of each step so far. The first layer is milky white paint. This took awhile to dry, and the dogs stepped through it at one point, so there are white paw prints leading into the kitchen before they slowly fade. Quite poetic, really.
The second layer is 1/4" of mortar, applied with a trowel made specifically for this purpose. You can add this to the list of things we've never done before - building a house really makes you stretch into new abilities.
The third layer is wonderboard, a 1/4" board of mesh and concrete. This is pressed onto the mortar, and then screwed in place. On top of this will be another coat of mortar, then the slate and the grout. Can't wait to see the next step! We ran out of time on Saturday, so the slate will need to wait until next week.

The Week Mindy Was Right

The four of us had some big e-mail discussions this week about stoves, floor stains, colors, railings, and who knows what else. Mindy had some great ideas about the floor, had done some research on options, and we all agreed that she was right. Anyway, that's the story about the blog title... now on to the work this week!

The power is turned on at the house finally! All the connections were made a week or so ago, but the utility company hadn't flipped the switch yet. So we called the utility company...

Us: Hello, we are building a new residence on Skyline Trail. The poles and lines were installed and inspected, but the power is not turned on at the house yet. Will you flip the switch so we have power, please?

Them: Well, let me look. Ahh, well, it says here that you haven't paid your bill for installation yet. We can't turn on the power until you pay the bill.

Us: Ok. Umm, wait... we haven't received a bill yet. How much was it for?

Them: Oh, we haven't sent it yet.

Us: Oh, ok. Well, how much is it, and we'll come in tomorrow with a check.

Them: Oh, we don't know. We haven't generated the final amount yet.

Us: So... ummm... what if we pay $2,000 tomorrow, and if that's too much you can just issue us a refund later. We would really like the power turned on.

Them: Um, ok.

Us: Yippee!

We have the beginnings of a septic system now. The tank is in, the lines are connected, and the leach field is dug. It's neat to see the grading of what will be lawn next summer. The slope of the land was really disrupted during the excavation process, and now we can begin to see how things will look when construction is wrapped up.
The view from the house. This was taken through the screen, so the image is a bit odd.
Benson, Ethan, and Eli were taking some pictures the other night, and the next few shots are from their budding artist portfolios. This first pictures is Andy preparing some wood for a bathroom vanity. He and Chris cut the framing pieces for two vanities and assembled one of them before the tornado of the two younger boys got to be too much. Benson was a big help, and is getting really good with the drill.
Proof that Chris does actually work once in awhile.
I don't really know, but this much is clear... Benson is taking the picture, Ethan is holding earmuffs in front of his face, Eli is just behind Ethan, and Andy is smiling at something Chris must have been talking about... which is odd, because Chris is always so somber.

The Sanding, The Tub, and Some Other Stuff

We had a very busy Saturday... which always feels wonderful.

The electrical panel is up near the last pole, and all of the electrical lines are connected. The power may actually be on at this very moment. After so many months of work, that's a pretty neat thing.A few months ago we put up a picture of a chipmunk eating seeds on a little bird feeder. Well, apparently the chipmunk let a seed drop by the wayside, and it happened to fall on good soil. We have a sunflower! And we probably ought to mow the lawn...
Andy framed in the doors to he and his wife's bedroom. They'll have two french doors here soon, and it should be a real pretty spot with the sun coming in through the window in the morning.
So tell me this... not to define gender roles, but how do four men end up outside scrubbing a tub while the girls are inside using power tools? I mean, that just doesn't seem right. The tub was quite a transformation, though, and it was fun to watch it change. Most of the marks on the porcelain came off with elbow grease, and there are just a few spots on the inside that will require a solvent of some kind. We have painted the outside surface and the feet, and now there is a real crisp line between the inside and outside surfaces.

Eli likes to work, and sanding a floor is one job right at his level. We will be sanding the floor to stain and seal it before the tub and vanities are put in place. This is the only bathroom in the house that will end up with the original wood floor. The mudroom bath will have a slate floor, and the two bathrooms downstairs will have acid stained concrete floors. We still haven't fully decided on a floor stain. Andy and Chris have decided to agree with Mindy and Karen, so... yep, we're waiting on the girls to tell us what we all like.More sanding. Eli is in the way back, Mindy is working the DeWalt, and Jenn Baird is working the Craftsman. Lots o' work being done here, and it's nice to have friends out to help.
The kitchen floor is not the final resting place for the tub, but Karen decided to take a break and enjoy it here anyway. The faucet came in the mail on Monday, so we're excited to put it in place and see how it looks all together.
This was a photo from one night during this week. Karen is sanding in her and Chris' bedroom, and the lamp really throws some good light around the house. Andy and Mindy's french doors can be seen leaning against one of the loft posts on the right.
The jointer was put to good use this week as we prepared wood for the loft railing. We've decided on a square look for the railing, so we are busy ripping and smoothing 2x2 stock.
This was Saturday's crew. Lots of happy faces. Some are yawning, some are chewing oreos, and one is trying to look a little bit taller with a creative use of blocks.
So yes, the blog wasn't up on Sunday afternoon. Chris and Karen decided to run down to NY for the afternoon to visit Chris' sister. Karen was busy with the camera as we were taking a "shortcut" through the Bronx. Russell was clamoring for a blog update last night, and if nobody else, he'll appreciate this pic.