Details, details! Wks 22-23 Roughly 11/25/07-12/05/07

I learned my lesson. I'm not going to even try to do this update in one post. This system doesn't seem to be able to handle it.


As mentioned in the other post for today, we finalized the electrical. There were quite a few changes, mostly in the guest bath where the errant toilet caused them and in the kitchen. Plus, the electrician pointed out some code issues, so we changed things because of that, too, like I have to put up with some can lights instead of using the outdoor lights we planned to use around the tubs. He said it wasn't an electrical issue. The concern is that if someone starts to slip, they will grab for any light not flat on the surface of the ceiling or wall.

So I was too busy deciding to take any pictures until he, Trout and Dave were discussing the shop wiring.

Some of you may remember that Trout wanted a real arch into the little alcove entrance into his shop office. This is how great it turned out. Bob, the electrician, is standing in the archway. He's about 6'7" so that gives you a hint at the size.

The electrical discussions were dependent on things we didn't even think of. For example, Bob needed to know how wide the vanity would be in the guest bath so he could center the bath bar light wiring. He also needed to know how big the mirror is so he could wire the sidelights properly. Fortunately, we already own the mirror and we knew what we were getting to put the sink in, so we could provide those dimensions.



Here's the guest bath vanity. It's now at Kelly's waiting to be modified for the sink that will go into it. We won't tile the top but rather apply that kind of coating put on bars to resist the water.



And this is the guest bath mirror. You may recognize it from the Travels With Trout blog.

We haven't selected the lighting for the guest bath yet, but these are Trout's vanity side lights. He won't have a bath bar light because he picked a mirror that is so tall it would look ridiculous and not be helpful up that high. We're still having the wiring put in though at the normal standard height of 7'. It will be covered up by the mirror.

I haven't picked my mirror yet, but these are my lights. They will all be the same length. One will be used as a bath bar light and the other two will be side lights. They will be set at the standard heights and locations. My mirror will probably be a more normal size.

This is what Trout picked as a bath bar light in his shop bath. He won't have any side lights in there. Note, this is just the silver strip with the lights. The black part is the background from the website.

When we finalized the doors and windows, we also picked door hardware. These are some pictures I scanned in from the catalog. The color we picked is Silver Patina. Not all the pictures are shown in that finish.

This is the front door handle.

These are the handles for all the rest of the doors that swing except of course they will be Silver Patina. This was actually our 2nd choice. The first one looked great but was uncomfortable to hold. This looks great and feels good, too.

The deadbolts will look like this.

The front door bell will be like this, but Silver Patina.And the pocket doors will have the usual kind of "handles".

Now I know.. Wks 22-23 Roughly 11/25/07-12/5/07

When we started on this project many, not just a few but many, people said they would never be brave enough to build a house from scratch. Some had even remodeled places, but doing a whole house was just too daunting. We thought that people do this all the time. How hard could it be?

Well it's not particularly hard, just time-consuming and complicated. And we're at a place now where lots of decisions have to be made, pieces of paper have to be signed, etc. We are also at a place where each day brings signficant visible progress to the project and that's very exciting.

In the past couple of weeks we did the following: finalized the window and door selections, selected hardware and stain color for the doors, finalized the electrical design, selected and bought a piece of furniture for the guest bath and a mirror for Trout's vanity, decided where the AC unit would go, selected lighting fixtures for the master bath, shop bath and front porch, acquiesced on can lights (I hate 'em) where they were mandatory due to code, paid the down payment on the cabinets, etc. etc. etc.

Oh, yeah, and the framers just kept on framing. I'll start with the most fun part. The basic viewing deck above the shop was framed along with the steps up to it. We finally were able to get up there and look around.

This is how the stair framing began. This is a view from the west courtyard.

Here is it a little farther along.

These are the stairs finished.

These are the scuppers that allow the water to run from the deck onto the shop roof. The floor of the deck is heavily raked to allow for that, too heavily as it turns out, so Dave will adjust that to make it a little flatter but still drain properly.

Once we got up there we could not only see the fabulous views. We could also see how the top of the roof looks.

This is the top of the house roof. I was pleased to see that we could get access to all the house roof from the viewing deck. As a result, we told the electrician to put plugs in a couple of places for us to use for Christmas lights.

These are some fairly seeable crickets. They go to the scuppers that take the water off 1/2 the shop roof and on to the garage roof.

And this is the view.One day we kidnapped our next door neighbor, Tony, and took him out to see the progress. It was late in the day and we never expected to see any action, but while we were there our builder showed up with the porch posts. So Trout and Tony got to help unload.

Then a car guy in the neighborhood, Neil, stopped by to introduce himself. We ended up going to see his house and shop. He's building a Manta sports racing coupe for Bonneville. I learned from his wife, Joline, that there is an aerobics class in the area. So maybe I'll get the energy to do that occasionally.

Here are Trout and Tony surveying the shop.

Here are all the guys unloading the trailer.

This is how those posts and corbels were put to use. These are the first two supporting the front porch.

This is a close up of a post, a corbel and some of the rafter tails.

And this is an even closer view.


One of the other decisions we had to make was on the height of the bar. The work counter top is 38" high instead of the normal 36". Most bars are 42" high, but if we made it that height there would only be 4" between the kitchen counter and the bar counter. So we decided to make the finished height 45". Trout wanted 48" but that was just too high. This is the framed island, but it will have to be adjusted down a bit.

Remember the fireplace? Here're Trout and Dave doing some handwaving over it. As of 12/5, nothing had changed, so I guess that will wait awhile before we get a picture.

It just keeps looking bigger! Week 21 -- 11/19-23/07

This was a short work week due to the Thanksgiving holidays. Still a lot was done & the place looked even more like a house by the end of the week.

Kelly, our friend & cabinetmaker, came to measure for the kitchen, laundry & master bath cabinets. He said it looked like a strip mall. So this week you can imagine where the UPS store, the fast food joint & the ice cream place are. There's no question but that Brake Max is at the end.

The week started with our first out of town visitors -- Sally from WA & her son, Mark, from Phoenix. That's the front porch they're standing on. I'm standing on the footing for one of the posts that will hold up the roof of the front porch.

This is the shop with a pretty good view of what the viewing deck on the right will be like.

This is just the house by itself. See, it doesn't look so big without the shop attached. And it's not that big. Many of you have houses with much more square footage. The house interior is actually only 2336 square feet.

Most of the interior rough framing was completed this week. This is the kitchen in the foreground.

Remember when we were struggling with the fireplace last week? Dave, our builder, did this mock up for us to look at. You can barely see the strings indicating the shape of the cone. We made some slight changes to make the shape a little more dramatic -- narrower at the ceiling, sticking farther out into the room at the hearth ... Check back next week to see how it came out.

Most of the sheathing was completed. Much of the work done you can't see because it was done on the roof. The guys framed the crickets that lead to the scuppers. You can see some of the scupper holes in this picture of the west side of the house. These scuppers will empty onto the back porch roof.

This is the garage with its scupper holes. Several are required to help drain the shop roof. You can barely see one from the shop roof on to the garage roof at the right. There are 4 coming off the garage roof.

This is a closeup of a scupper hole. The sky sure was blue that day. I must've taken this picture pretty early in the morning.

The route we will likely tell people to use to get to the house will bring them to the entrance on Lynnette first.

If they miss the driveway, they will see the south side of the house.

And if they keep going they will look back over their right shoulders to see the back porch.

If they go on around the corner & come in the back way off Cinnabar, this is what they'll see.

For those of you who think there's nothing to eat in the desert, this is a barrel cactus fruit. There's a show on TV where a guy is put in wilderness places alone to survive for about a week. I saw the one where he was in the Sonoran Desert down here. One of the things he said was that he could find much more to eat here to survive than he was able to in a forest in BC or Alberta.

Progress, Oops! & More -- Week 20 -- 11/12-16/07

This was another very busy week on the job site for us & everyone else, but all problems got straightened out & framing progressed by leaps & bounds.

LEAPS

The inspector gave his okay on the framing...

...while Trout watched...

...including the changes we made to the slant of the viewing deck (see below for more details).

The viewing deck is to the right with the guy working on it in this picture. Dave, our builder, says we are going to be thrilled with the view from there.

One of the decisions we had to make this week was where the rain runoffs would be from the roof so that scuppers & downspouts could be located without interfering with any lighting or anything else on the exterior walls. The designers put the right number for the size of the roof & located them to carry the loads, but placement wasn't high on their priority list. That meant that some came out over doorways or windows or in other places where we didn't want them to be dumping water.

In addition, the framing was altered for the viewing deck on top of the shop so that the water would run over to the adjacent shop roof instead of out over the stairs up to the deck. That required some additional load calculations & rearranging of the "crickets." That's what they call the slightly built up channels that direct the rain water. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know you northwesterners are scoffing at this, but when we do get rain here it comes all at once, none of that gentle misty stuff for us. So the way the water comes off the roof is very important.

And as you may have noticed, we have a flat roof. It's not really because none of the roof trusses are square. All of them slant the direction the designers set for the rain to run off. That's so we don't have a swimming pool inside the parapets on the top of the house.

Other Progress

Part of the electrical trench was dug.

I got over my shock at seeing nasty old LP products on the site...

...& okayed the plumbing fixtures. We went to check on that Sunlight color at the supplier our builder will use. I took a piece of white Mexican Talavera tile to match with the Sunlight tub they had on display. When we walked in the show room, the tub looked very yellow -- especially under fluorescent lights & with tinted windows -- but when I laid the tile next to the tub, it matched perfectly. The woman who will be handling our fixtures said that not many people pick that color, but that the ones who do are usually trying to match the typical Talavera white. None of the other off-whites come close.

The next day (the day I was prepping for my endoscopy/colonoscopy -- oh, yes, I had that done this past week on top of everything else) I took other Talavera tiles by the showroom that weren't solid white but had white in them. They all worked great, too. So the yellow will be the color of our tubs & toilets.

Roof trusses were added & sheathing was put on the roof. I love these pictures with the sky above & shadows below.

This is the Great Room looking southwest at the view.

This is the MBR & MBath.

This is Trout standing in the sliding glass doorway.

And this is me sitting on a dining nook window sill. I think I may spend lots of time sitting at the table in that nook.

OOPSES

The first oops was that the plumber set the guest toilet 2 feet off the location it was supposed to be in. It ended up 7 feet from the outside wall instead of the original 5 feet on the plan. We don't have a lot of room in that bathroom, so this error meant a downsizing & redesign of the vanity area.

We decided to abandon our original plan for a built-in cabinet-style vanity there. We're going to drop a sink into a piece of furniture & probably tile the top as an alternative. We're also going to add a purchased bench instead of the armoire we were originally going to put in the space opposite the toilet. I've already done some shopping for both & getting pieces that will work is not going to be difficult. I have a lot to choose from.

This will probably be cheaper than originally planned, but it is requiring some extra work on my part. This is a picture of the errant toilet position. The pipe on the left is for the tub. The one on the right is for the toilet.

The second oops was that the trusses for the shop were made about 3 inches too long. The company that made them read the plans wrong. So they had to come out & correct them on site. This is Vince explaining the problem to Trout & Dave. Apparently it isn't uncommon.

These are those same trusses from the inside of the shop.

And this is roughly the same area with the problem fixed & the roof sheathing on.

MORE

This is Vince, Trout & Dave discussing the arched doorway under the stairs. This doorway frames the exterior door to Trout's shop office. He wants it to be a full arch instead of the partial one shown on the elevations & plans. He also wants it to be centered on the door, but with the structural needs of the stairs, that may not be possible. This is the only arch in or on the house. I'm not big on them, but Trout wanted one so I conceded to having one on the shop, even if I can see it from the MBR & the MBath.

We ended the week by working with Vince on the framing of the fireplace & banco wall. I mostly stayed out of this while he, Trout & Dave did a lot of handwaving.

I prepared this cleaned up drawing showing Trout's idea.

This is the basic look we're going for but the chimney will look like a cut off cone. The rectangle in the middle is the TV. The hearth will be made of Mexican pebbles. The bancos will be open inside to accomodate electronic equipment, provide some electrical outlets, etc. They probably will not be tiled on top since I intend to put colorful fabric pads on them.

The front of the fireplace will be like this except the shape around it will be symmetrical.

We had some basic info about the gas fireplace we're going to use. The brochure had some dimensions to work from. But it soon became evident that it was too late in the day & the week to get much accomplished on this complicated design. So we bagged that until the next week or so.

BOUNDS

By Friday LMMM was really taking shape -- the shape of a public building! It looks enormous. But then, I guess it is. I know for sure shop envy reigns in the area among all the guys who work on things in garages & would like to have shops.

This is the view of our house from the neighbors to the east. They're building a place now, too. Their house will be much bigger & fancier than ours but the shop will be smaller.

This is the view from the Lynnette driveway -- the main entrance to the house. It's from the southeast side.

This view is from Lynnette on the southwest side of the house. Trout wanted his shop to be hidden in the back. Well, buddy, the trees just aren't tall enough for that.