build a "green" house

The house is really coming along, even with the “down time” associated with the November and December holidays. In my previous entry, I mentioned the floors. The tiling is complete and looks wonderful in both baths and the entry/mudroom. The wood flooring that they moved from the office has been re-installed in the livingroom and looks as if it had always been there.

Last week, the kitchen cabinets arrived and the crew began putting them in place. Seeing them there feels a bit like adding furniture, which seems to kick in some sort of “nesting instint” and makes me yearn to bring the rest of our stuff there and organize drawers and cabinets and so on! But, it’s clearly too soon for all that! So, back to tihnking about getting work done!

The above work has all been done by contractors. As to our contribution, we’ve spent the last several weeks working on varnishing trim. The doors were supposed to have arrived last Monday, but a winter storm delayed their delivery, so we don’t expect them until next Monday. No loss, though, since the trim has been keeping us plenty busy. We’re putting two coats of varnish, sanding in between.

Today, we plan to start working on the basement, too. We’re not going to make it anything fancy, but just spruce it up by cleaning and painting and some “water control” work. Along with the fact that we’ve moved the woodstove down there (which has already made it a much more pleasant space), we think these improvements will make the space more useful and usable. We’ll have a cold storage room for canned goods and for storing vegetables. In that room, little “cupboard doors” already exist along one wall, from the waist up, accessing the crawl space. We’re guessing someone once used them to access storage for root crops, and we plan to create a similar storage area.

In the main area of the basement, which includes two large windows, we’re even thinking we’ll make a “family room” for watching movies and playing pool, pingpong, and games. I’ve told the kids that they can choose the colors, & we’ll paint the cement block walls to make them more cheerful and easier to keep clean.

Between the Holiday travel and the house project, we’ve been incredibly busy. Since we were gone for Thanksgiving, we didn’t accomplish much painting that weekend, but this weekend we really hit it. Just a few odds & ends to paint (mostly edging), so we’ll easily be done this week. Whew! Our contractor is gone for the week, so that gives me time to get out some of the doors we plan to re-use and figure out what to do about stripping & refinishing them.

The floors are being worked on right now. Upstairs wood floors are finished. Next they’ll work on putting down in the livingroom the flooring we salvaged from the spare room. Finally, they’ll install tile in the bathrooms and entryway. They anticipate finishing this week.

Next week C will be back & we’ll start on the trim and doors. I’m amazed at how quickly things are coming along. Occasionally I feel really tired and wish for it all to be done with. But then I remind myself that “it’s the journey” ...

AND we’re off! Tonight we put the first coat of paint on the walls of one of the rooms! The crew painted the ceilings and primed the walls. So D & I took an hour or so and put a coat of “Sous Chef” (yellow!) on the masterbedroom walls! Felt good to get started, but we also realize we have a lot of work ahead of us. Whew.

As usual, I feel the pressure to keep ahead of the next contractor, flooring. We’ve kept the old wood floors downstairs, so the flooring work will be primarily in the addition, plus the downstairs bath and entry. So those are the rooms we’ll aim to finish first, so that hopefully they won’t be waiting on us!

Each new step means more work, but it feels good to see accomplishments. I guess that’s what they call a “work ethic,” right?!

It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted an update on the house project, so here goes. We’ve been REALLY focused on this goal, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else that’s not essential.

One of our main “contributions” to the labor is anything involving a paintbrush. So our work has kicked in, beginning with staining the siding. In my last post, I included a photo of the lap siding we were working on. Since then, we’ve done all the trim and now we’re working on the shakes that will go in the gable ends. It’s not a great shot, but here is an image of them drying in three of the handy-dandy drying racks. We’re about half-way through the first coat on the shakes. Anticipate the crew starting tomorrow with putting siding up.

Last week they did some initial insulating, and today the drywall crew hung the ceilings. Next step is for the insulation to go in the ceilings and walls, and then the drywallers will return (probably next week).

I think we’ll move straight from staining to painting the interior! Yikes!

Today, my daughter and I spent about 5 hours staining our first batch of the cedar siding. We took a lunch break midstream—in part because we were hungry, but it was also especially nice to get some fresh air away from the stain!

Here she is showing off the boards of our labor!

It was a slow week for a couple reasons including weather and availability of contractors and our own personal commitments. However, we did see some progress including installation of most of the electrical and plumbing as well as the woodstove. It feels good!

Progress continues despite the cool rainy weather, since now much of the work is indoors. The electricians and plumbers have started their work, and the drywaller was there yesterday to estimate his supplies.

Also, we’ve begun the work of cutting up the old logs so they can be made into cedar shakes for siding the gables and possibly more. We’ve cut about 6 times what’s shown in the photo, but it give you an idea.

Here’s a photo of “before” ... A very quaint little place, which had a lot to recommend it, but also a few issues. Wet, moldy basement, leaky roof, minimal insulation … and we were willing to deal with that stuff. But it also didn’t have enough bedrooms, so I was renting another house.

since I last posted, and we’ve had lots of progress despite the wet weather. Unfortunately, the most recent photo I have is from Sunday, so it’s not completely up to date, but it gives you some sense for how things have changed on the outside. The inside has come along even more, with all the walls framed in. We’ve found opportunities to re-use some old doors from the old house. And this weekend (again, despite the weather) we hope to get some of the old logs cut up so they can be sawn into shakes and lap siding! I love this stuff!

This afternoon, after a nice solo hike and time to hang out with my kids and friends, I went over to see how things are coming on the house … Wow! Here’s a photo of today’s progress. (I tried to go back to my earlier posts and add photos so you could see the progress, but I guess it won’t let you do that. Oh well, I’ll add some before shots as we go along…)