Flooring Installed

The guys from Finishing Touch have the floor installed. They'll sand & apply one coat of finish soon, then cover it all up with cardboard to protect it. I'll try to get a few pics before they cover it up - it will be covered for the rest of the project. They'll be back soon to start the hard surfaces in the bathrooms.



This floor isn't sanded, but the reddish color is coming out nicely.



They still have to run flooring into the pantry, but other than that, they sand it & apply the first of three coats of finish.

Flooring Installation

The flooring guys are busy laying in the new hardwood. This will really transform the upstairs! By tomorrow, they'll have finished most of the install. They will then sand it and do the first of three coats of Swedish finish.




Once the wood is in, the base trim, stone fireplace and kitchen cabinet installation can begin.




Flooring is solid clear-grade Brazilian Cherry, and will take on a much more reddish hue once the finish is done.

Siding Finished

The siding is finished, and we really like how it turned out!



We're still not sure if we want to shoot some colored stain on the shingles or do a clear sealer.



The area around the fireplace will have stone, so its still just sheathing & Tyvek.

Finally an Update!

Summer got us busy, and I've been a bit lax in posting to the blog. Sorry about that. There has been plenty of progress on sheetrock, siding, interior doors & trim.
I posted a ton of pics to albums and will add links to the albums on the left sidebar. Here are a few pics of the finished work:



Den & Living Room french doors are installed. Front doors partially visible at the right are just temporary doors. Sheetrock is finished & textured throughout the house. Trim is going up around all openings - you can see that its installed on the set of doors to the right.



Pantry, Mudroom, Powder & Closet. Mudroom door is not installed yet. Trim is going up around these doors also. Base trim is cut but not installed - I think they'll wait until the hardwood floor is in. Hardwood material is on site, acclimating to the house - should be installed by end of the week/early next week.



Upstairs doors are cherry wood, and will receive a clear finish. Downstairs are regular white painted wood doors.



Siding is going up too. Its almost complete, and is a combination of hardiplank and cedar shingle. Check out the albums for more pics of the siding.



Whoops! The digger hit a main trunk for neighborhood phone lines. There were probably 100 pair in that cable. It was in conduit & when the excavator dug it up, it pulled the conduit riser right off the pole and popped the lid off the splice can as you can see here. Verizon didn't have it on their plant map, so thankfully not our fault.

Lots more pics in the albums. You get to them by clicking the pictures in the left sidebar.

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!