Sheetrock Starts

All the hard work is getting covered up now, as the sheetrock starts going in. This is a pretty exciting phase - each space is starting to take its final shape, giving a true sense of the lighting & scale. Those 10 foot ceiling on the upper floor lend a huge feel to each room.

By end of today, the upper floor should be finishing up, and Emmet will start rocking the middle floor.


Looking into the corner of the kitchen - powder room, mud room & pantry.



"A big lid" - high, open ceiling produces a really big feel.



Dorrinda is standing in the Living Room. We originally planned a pool table in here, but we may go another direction at this point.

Progress Update

Progress for the last month has been mainly around preparing for the final push. Kincaid has gotten a lot done:

-electrical hooked up
-water main dug in & connected
-deck construction nearly complete: need handrail, top layer membrane, T&G in soffits.
-framing complete & inspection passed
-exterior shear completed & inspected (ready for siding)
-gutter installed
-ceiling fiberglass insulation installed
-spray-foam insulation installed and inspection passed (see pics below)
-pocket doors installed
-Den entry wall change implemented (changed to french door entry)
-kitchen cabinet layouts finalized & cabinet material is 75% cut
-sheetrock started today



Spray Foam is a *much* more effective insulator than the fiberglass "pink stuff". I don't remember the R-values and all that, but its quite a bit better. Kincaid uses spray foam in all their houses - in fact, Curtis Kincaid has a very busy Spray Foam business, shooting foam for residential and commercial projects.


There are two types of foam used in this project. The foam on the left wall (exterior wall) is a harder, more dense foam that has a high insulation R-value. The foam on the right is a shared interior wall, so it gets an open-cell foam with less insulation R-value & more sound absorption qualities. This stuff will be great for the Theater space!



After shooting the foam, it is scraped off the stud surfaces in order to provide a suitable surface for sheetrock. Makes a big mess, but sweeps up easily. This is the downstairs office.



Curtis is shooting the open cell in this pic. He's already layered in some closed-cell foam for insulation in the room above. Now he's filling the joist space with the open cell foam for additional insulation & sound deadening. The open cell foam kicks out a lot of steam as it expands. Other than steam and foam particles, neither type of foam makes any fumes. Once its done expanding, there's almost no off-gassing - its completely inert.



Here's a shot of the kitchen area. The ceiling gets fiberglass insulation and its foam everywhere else. Kincaid was nice enough to wire up switches in the upstairs in order for us to get a sense of the lighting. It was great to see some lights on, and it really helps us visualize how well the areas will be lit.

Electrical, Low Voltage & Plumbing DONE

Rough-in for electrical, low voltage & plumbing is finally DONE! This has been a ton of work for everyone involved, and they all did a *great* job. We threw a lot of changes at these guys & made a lot of last minute decisions too. Inspections are signed off for electrical & low voltage, with plumbing tomorrow. Shear nail (exterior sheathing, etc.) inspection flagged a couple minor issues that are actually not issues - just needs engineer sign off. Oh - they also finished setting the retaining wall too...

Here's some pics of this stuff before it all gets covered up:


Main panels in upper garage. The generator hookup is the white box at bottom left. We are told that power doesn't go out that often, but if it does, this will make things easy.



Plastic hot & cold water running from the main entry to the house, under the stairs.



Its pretty tight down in the office bathroom, but Jerry made it all work. Its all coming up out of concrete too, so there's no wiggle room.



Double shower heads in the master bath...


Coming up next is exterior siding, interior foam insulation & sheetrock.

Cabinet drawings are ready for us to review, electricity is hooked up & we've chosen most interior surfaces. This thing is coming down to the finishing-out stage with about 2 months to go!

Electrical Begins this Week

Wyatt Electric came out on Monday and wasted no time getting started on the electrical. In just a couple days they've made a ton of progress! Its hard to get pictures that really do the work justice, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Dave Wyatt has his own home theater space, so I'm having him do my low voltage wiring, along with the theater surround speakers. He'll run smurf (flexible blue conduit) between the source gear cabinet & the ceiling mount projector location. We managed to run up the bill a bit on things like art lighting, extra coax & network drops, and dedicated power circuits for important stuff like the espresso machine. I also had him install one of those generator back-feed switchover things. The power doesn't go out that often around here, but I'd hate to have the fish tank freeze over & lose my whole crop of rare sea monkeys.

Plumbing continues to make progress - Jerry is running hot/cold water pipe now, which is that red & blue plastic stuff. I guess thats what all new houses are getting these days, but its my first experience with it.

If you are looking for a good heating & air conditioning guy, Dorral is very good - his company is Precision Heating of South Eastern Idaho (yes, he and his crew drove all the way over here for Kincaid). If its a big job, especially custom - give him a call at (208) 346-6172.

Dave Wyatt's contact info:

Wyatt Electric
4321 224th Ave NE
Granite Falls, WA 98252

Wyatt's a great guy so far and seems fair. Matt is the guy pulling the wire, and he doesn't mess around - the house is showing a ton of progress in only 3 days.

Home Theater planning

The family room is going to be set up as a small home theater space. Kincaid will build a "ceiling cloud" drop ceiling section, which will house the air diffuser and some theater style lighting. It will also bring the ceiling mount height down a bit for a video projector.

I've been using Google's SketchUp to visualize the space. Its a pretty easy program to work with, and it really helped plan the space out. I may do some more of these for other spaces too.



Looking through the back wall, one can see the projection screen, speaker locations, ceiling cloud, and theater-style seating. I plan to provide 3 "formal" seats, along with plenty of room for bean bags or a couple of club chairs. I may decide to go with a curved sofa sectional instead of traditional theater seats.



Inside, at the back corner. Screen size should be in the 80" range, which should be plenty for this room, which is 14' x 14.5'.




Room section shows the proposed shape of the ceiling cloud.



This room section shows the shape of the ceiling cloud at the ceiling. Notched detail around the edge is for uplighting to create a "floating" ceiling look. Next to the person, the equipment location is shown.

No Combustibles In This Area!

The see-through fireplace is installed. This gas fireplace has a large enough glass front and back that we'll be able to see the trees outside as we walk around inside. Sitting in the Great Room should provide a nice cozy fire, in addition to a view. Hey you can have your cake and eat it too!


The fireplace arrived, but there's nowhere to put it just yet.



Cutting in the opening for the fireplace. We lose the window in order to run the venting required. Too bad - we'll miss having the window, but the fireplace itself is like having a middle window. We'll still get plenty of light during the day, and it will be way cool at night.



The fireplace is installed. We'll box around it & face it with stone inside & out. Custom casework will fill out the sides to provide bookshelves and hearth.



The fireplace mounts flush with the outside wall. Stainless trim kit is on order, and we'll face this area with stone. Not sure if we'll do a hearth out here, probably not.

Upper Deck Progress, HVAC installed

The framers built most of the upper deck last week, as well as finishing the framing in the Master Bedroom/Bathroom & Dining Room areas. Dorral and his crew were also back from Idaho to finish the furnace installation.



Upper deck is nearly complete. The decks are mostly cantilevered, with only two posts required to support the deepest sections.



This pic is from the deck doors closest to the Billiard Room. The deck wraps around to the Eating Nook & provides a nice view of mountains and the greenbelt.



Another shot from the trail, this time with upper deck in place.



Frames for the built-ins in the Dining Room are done. These will be cased with wainscot, columns and then painted.



Upstairs heating/AC unit is installed in the corner of the garage. Most of the ducting is also installed throughout the ceiling.



The heating/AC unit was mounted up high so we can still have some storage underneath. We'll have a sink and potting bench in this corner.