Rough Electrical

Since the last entry from Sunday, rough electrical has progressed. Wires are now starting to run everywhere. We re-examined placement of can lights in the great room and made a placement shift. We also dropped a pendant light from the kitchen island - the plans called for four, but all of us missed that on plan check.

Even our driveway is getting into the act of a green remodel. It seems the Bay Area Air Quality Management District was concerned that as materials were delivered, they'd be kicking up dust, and adding to air pollution. Our driveway now has rocks to keep the dust down.

Inside, I added some personal touches. These were right in line with the touches described in the Buried Treasure entry back on July 1st. For this, I'd been collecting inspirational quotes for a while. Today I spent some time with a marker, writing some of them on beams. At some point in the future, those beams will get exposed and someone will get the thrill of finding the buried treasure. For now, they entertain the construction crews.

Our Tack Room

With the roof nearly on, progress is moving to the interior. This raises the opportunity to cover interior details between the significant way points. What better place than to start at the heart of the remodel - Our Tack Room.

With the exterior door now in the Tack Room, Laura & I decided it was time for another Job Dog episode with Dash. He eagerly inspected the whole job, demonstrating his enjoyment by rolling in the family room. He willingly posed for this picture of his future realm.

Most folks will see the Tack Room as a really big laundry room. During our early planning, we recognized many modern laundry rooms include a mop sink. That gave us an idea. Instead of that, we decided to size it to include an indoor dog bath.

We also sized it to hold four dog crates (# 400 wire crates for those who know them). Yes, we currently have 3 dogs. Yes, we wanted room for expansion as we intend to breed one of our girls someday. Plus, we figure this pack is going to want to have room for houseguests, just like we will.

Elsewhere, the kitchen skylights are in and electrical elements are about to be strung. Those fixtures meant we had a choice to make on the placement for the dining room chandelier. We'd chosen the locations of doors from the living room and to the back yard without considering this. To allow room for a table away from the doors and the kitchen island, we chose to place the dining room fixture off center on those doors. Now that we can walk through the space, it's sinking in that our rectangular dining room table may need to be replaced. Hmmm. I think it'll be pretty easy to fit in a table from Berkeley Mills like the one to the right. Doesn't it go well with the craftsman theme?

Green Build Tour

When I stopped by today to pick up mail, I got an unexpected treat. The trim for the garage doors was up, and it used the salvaged beams from our old dining room. Just like with the entry portico, which uses more of these beams, I was thrilled!

Our builder, John Hammerschmidt, uses green building principles. Now, many green builds only re-use wood where it doesn't show, like for door headers. Without telling us, John's team had turned re-use into another prominent feature. Facing the garage doors with this wood makes a tie both to the entry and to memories of what was my favorite room in the old structure.

I was about to drive away with the mail when inspiration struck. There are more green features in the house, and some of them would soon be covered by finished surfaces. And, with the job site quiet for the day, it was the perfect time to film a video walkthrough and share it here so you can expand your sense of the project:

It's an Active Job Site When...

...a taqueria truck makes a lunchtime stop.

We arrived a little early today for our weekly, noon meeting. The work laying plywood on the roof was nearly done. And, the lunch truck was just pulling away.

With the roofing plywood up, the sense of space in each room deepened. As we walked through today, Laura & I could get a sense of shape and flow for the entire house. The great room was spacious and open, and the living room, with its tray ceiling was roomy but more intimate.

Great Room

Living Room

And our first, tangible dog feature is on site! The exterior door with the dog door already installed is waiting in the storage container!

Month Three

This month we've gone from dreams still in dirt, to reality nearly in rafters!

Last month, the east wing was still just foundation and floor; the old roof shingles were still on; and for all but three closets in the west wing, everything was open to the air. Now, the new roofline is evident in the trusses and plywood is up on most every exterior wall. The interior framing is up, giving a sense of space to each room.

Progress

Panoramas

By this time next month, we should be under roof, and who knows how much further!

Shadows

The trusses arrived a few hours early on Tuesday. In fact, the truck delivering the trusses arrived just as the truck delivering the appliances drove off. Since I was there to sign for the appliances, I got the treat of talking a bit with the truss guy. The second sentence out of his mouth was to claim that due to the utility lines on our side of the street, he wouldn't be able to use the truck's crane to raise the trusses to the roof. Uh-huh. Luckily, I was able to duck out of further conversation and leave the debate to the on-site professionals.

Magically, by our meeting today with John Hammerschmidt, the trusses were up. Now, it appears we did get an early pruning of the trees around the new east wing. It may've come from the eventual use of that truss crane, or, maybe like John claimed, it might've been done with circular saws by the roofers. The neatest thing was the shadows the trusses cast in the great room from the noonday sun.

The new furnace got placed this week. Now, this has it's own story in the remodel. In the fall of 2005, we noticed the air from our heater smelled, well, musty. We had things looked at. The furnace guy gave our mammoth and ancient Coleman furnace a clean bill of health, but remarked that since our ducting was uninsulated metal, we were really inefficient both in the heating and the distribution.

Hmm. From there, we got an estimate for a new furnace and ducting. That came in at $10K. Now, with our long held desire for a remodel, it made no sense to us to spend that chunk of money, knowing it was likely we would replace it within a year or two. Laura & I crossed our fingers that the furnace would get us through to the 05-06 season, and pledged to take concrete steps to remodel in the spring. When time passed into June 2006, we remembered that pledge and started the design.

Remodel progress this week was evident everywhere in the house. All the shear walls are up around the outside. The trim boards for the window exteriors have arrived. And drain lines to the dry well are nearly in, meaning the trenches will be getting filled in soon.

On our walkthrough, we noticed the three windows in the guest bedroom were framed to the same height. This was consistent with the list of windows, but not with the drawings of the facade. Honestly, we'd missed this on our window review.

John graciously agreed to adjust framing and windows to align with the facade drawing. He noted that due to slow construction activity this year, the window exchange will go pretty fast. He expects it will be only two weeks of lead time to get the resized windows in, instead of a more usual four weeks. And by the end of August, well before the hint of rain, we should be under roof. Our timing of the remodel, like much of our experience, is quite fortunate.