Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I probably won't be posting for a week or so. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Appliances have arrived!

Just came today - the range, hood, dishwasher and microwave. We're reusing our refrigerator - it's going to be tricky getting it back in the house though - that sucker was HEAVY!

Second Floor Paint

Both floor are now painted.

First Floor Paint

We had them paint the whole house in one color and will do any accent walls ourselves in the future. Color is a Benjamin Moore paint called White Chocolate.

Basement Drywall

Basement walls are drywalled, taped and mudded.


Hard to see but this is our future "family/media room"

Laundry Room

The concrete has been poured for the laundry room floor. Dugan used concrete instead of gypcrete because we'll be leaving the laundry room floor bare (sealed concrete). We'll be doing gypcrete in the rest of the basement since we'll put some sort of finish on top of it, probably carpet.

Mud and Tape

This is the wall between the crawlspace and basement. The black material at the bottom is a waterproofing membrane.

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Drywall Complete!

Here's Lola in her future room...

Or maybe it'll be this one?

View from the front - you can see the drywalled ceiling and walls inside.
Dugan is currently working the concrete in the basement and has poured the sidewalk concrete (just a minimal area to patch where the porch used to be)

More Drywall

The spaces feel so different with all of the drywall installed!
Here are Derek and Lola doing a walk-through on the first floor.


Here's a view of the dining/living room, standing from the stairs.

Insulation Complete and Drywall in Process

They finished the insulation on Thursday and have been installing drywall all weekend. I'm having problems uploading photos so I will try again tomorrow!

Insulation

You've all probably read this already in national news, about the crazy weather we've been having in November. Our insulators were supposed to be here Monday but couldn't come due to the snow that has been dumping all over Washington. It's not really the snow that's bad, it's the ice that forms afterwards, and apparently we don't salt our roads like they do in the midwest. It's insane - people abandoning cars all over the highway (we got like, 1" of snow - no it's not a typo, really, like one inch) I'm sure anyone not from around here is laughing about this already. Anyway, they finally made it down today and started putting up insulation upstairs and we're hoping they'll make it back tomorrow to do the rest but it is snowing as I type.

Master Shower Installed

The Master Shower is all nailed in place and the plumbing is finished.

What? No rain?

Amazingly, it was sunny today. We've had an enormous amount of rain this month so I haven't had much of a chance to take outdoor photos. Things are still moving along though, and we'll have our electrical inspection on Monday. Plumbing is almost finished and the fireplace got hooked up today.

Sweet...

This is just one of those really sweet details you can put on your house if you know about them, and I'm glad that Dugan mentioned this. It's an outdoor hosebib, not just any hosebib, it's a HOT and cold water hosebib. There are many nice things you can do with this, like wash your car with hot water! or even better, fill up the kiddy pool in the summer with warm water or better yet - a warm water Slip n Slide! (people living in Seattle know how nice that would be since it doesn't get truly hot till August)

Dewatering the basement

There's our ejector system all hooked up and working out the rainiest November on record!

It actually isn't as big as it seems - the motor itself is small and is just set in a large bucket. I think we can safely say that it's going to be a dry basement.

Almost Done....

Almost all of the siding is up - just the little wings left at the dormers. I think we're almost ready for our framing and insulation inspections. Plumbing is also almost finished. It's been raining like crazy this past week and it's a good thing we're doing the basement dewatering because those trenches that were dug at the basement perimeter have filled up, like a mini-moat around the basement floor.

And More Siding...

Currently finishing up north wall

Front of the house is completely done, minus those little wings at the dormer

Back is completely done



North wall is completely done

Happy Halloween!

It was a cold one this year!

Project Tracker

Project Tracker is now working, thanks to Ingrida!

HTML help!

I need help!! I know there are some html whizzes out there and hopefully someone can help. I tried to put a "project tracker" on the upper righthand corner of the blog, and it's supposed to show 50% completion but obviously it's not working. Here's the website I got it from:

http://www.houseblogs.net/tracker/

I followed the instructions exactly but somehow it's not working. Ingrida, (4408 files) did the same thing and it doesn't work for her either. Can anyone figure out the error in the code?

Tongue and Groove

Here's the underside of our deck - 1x4 T&G decking with a clear finish.

Here's the underside of our porch roof and also with 1x4 T&G, clear finish. The rafters and knee brace are also finished with a clear stain.
By the way, I'm sure people are wondering why this roof isn't bigger, and why we aren't doing a big porch, and the answer is: stupid zoning code. It's only allowing us a 3' cover and a 6'x6' porch, and believe me, I've analyzed the code and had to jump through hoops to even get the 3' cover.

And More Siding...

Dugan and his buddy finishing up the front siding.


They've started siding the back of the house. You can also see the deck door in place.

More Siding...

They finished building the porch roof and got siding on the front of the house. You can start to see the 4" exposures above the belly band there on the front of the house.

Deck and Deck Door

Our deck door has been installed. It's a Pella Designer Series (with integral blinds - you can see them gathered at the bottom)

We got to stand on our deck for the first time today.

Siding Continued...

The windows are all trimmed out. In addition to the trim, there will be a 3/4" casing around the 3 sides, just like the detail in our old interior trim. See below for the sketchup version.

They are also done with about 1/2 of the siding on the North facade as well as the South facade.

Waterproof Deck

Here's the elastomeric coating for our Master Bedroom deck.

Flashing

This is the detail at the base of the siding, where we needed bent flashing because our existing walls are set back from the edge of the concrete foundation wall.

**Correction** This z-metal is really not "flashing", although it looks an awful lot like flashing. The real flashing is the tyvek and building paper under it, and the black felt is lapped over that. The z-metal is really there for the siding to die into because our existing walls are set back on the foundation wall (vs. flush in newer construction) Also, the top of our foundation wall is very uneven, bowing up and down, so the z-metal is really there so that our siding can be straight. It's hard to explain but Dugan's got it together and have me convinced!

Siding

They are starting to install our siding. We're using Hardiplank lap siding, smooth finish, at alternating 10 3/4" and 4" exposures up to a belly band, and above that, all 4" exposures.

Family Visit

We brought the whole family today - Mom, Grandma, Teddy, and of course Derek, Lola and me.

View from Inside

Electrical is pretty much complete. Here's a view from one of the bedrooms upstairs, with the windows in place.

Housewrap Complete!

The house has been totally wrapped and our front door is back on the house! (it'll be painted a different color) Dugan has also started to build the front porch roof. The rafters will be stained and we'll have 1x tongue and groove at the underside of the roof. (there will be sheathing on top of that for support)

Starting to Paper

They started putting up building paper (there will be 2 layers of 15# paper on the walls)and also doing all the window wrap. Don't know if they do it the same way in other states but window wrap is a big deal here in Seattle.