Well, the last post was Nov. 27, 2016. That’s right, last year and almost 4 months ago with a note about a first snow of the year.
Some people build an entire house in 4 months, not us, but we have had progression….and a lot of snow!
The snow was really deep this year according to neighbors and much more than the last few years.
Before the snow came too hard it starting getting really cold, negative degrees during the night, so the radiant company got the heat on about the second week of December. Before that we were able to keep the house from freezing with the gas fireplace.
During my blog hiatus, I was able to run the hot and cold water plumbing, and install the HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) ducting, as well as the low voltage wiring for internet, television and security cameras. The electricians also ran the rough electrical. A crew installed the fire sprinkler system which did not go ideally.
The mechanical room may look messy but it is quite well organized.
Hot and cold water plumbing manifold.
View of the ceiling of the mechanical room.
Mechanical room with boiler at right, indirect water heater for potable water that is heated by the boiler and also heats the radiant tubes in the floors of the house, (center), Water softener (left), and hot and cold water manifold at far left.
Once the heat was on, we had one giant hole in the house where the garage door needed to go. It was boarded up for a while, but ultimately we decided this was a better solution.
The garage door put in to help keep the house warm after we got the heat on.
Garage door.
It was not all work and no play during this period of interwebs vacancy. Cooper and I made time to take advantage of the of the snow, the sunshine, and someone got some much needed rest (someone = the dog 🙂
Cooper enjoying the snow.
Cooper enjoying the VERY deep snow during a work break at Wasatch Mountain State Park
With the warm weather, I put a temporary fence around part of the deck so Cooper could go in and out the sliding door on his own and not leave to visit the neighbor’s dogs or the deer that come by the house.
It’s hard to find good help.
Cooper is resting in his den that is under the lowest part of the stairs.
NOW FOR THE MESSY PART!!!
I mentioned the heat was on, so now the insulation went in by a crew of installers and some by L and myself to help keep that heat inside the house. A combination of damp spray cellulose in the walls, netted cellulose in the ceilings and some bat insulation as needed. It is an amazingly dusty mess, but not as bad as drywall, which we’ll get to in a moment.
Insulation contractors blowing damp spray cellulose into the walls of the house. What a dusty mess!
L helping put insulation in the ceiling of the garage.
Most of the doors in the house are pocket doors with Johnson hardware. We wanted to put the doors in before drywall and get the trim around the doors so the drywall would dive into the trim like the wood windows. We also installed the 4 interior windows that are set high on the wall between the great room and the private areas of the house.
Pocket doors in place before the drywall goes in.
The drywall went in without much trouble, other than the horrible mess. Delivery is by a boom truck to load the sheets, as long as 14 feet, into the house. Then 2 crews of a total of 11 men came and installed the entire house in 7 hours! Two days later another crew of 3 worked on the tape and mud. Soon enough, walla! it was done and there was one hell of a mess of drywall mud and dust covering every inch of the floors. Fortunately we covered the floors with vinyl wallpaper from the Habitat from Humanity Restore, and saved a time of work cleaning the finished concrete floors afterward.
Drywall delivery was on a beautiful day.
The drywall job made such an awful mess on the floors. This shows the concrete floors were saved by the vinyl wallpaper we put down to protect them.
great room windows with drywall installed.
Now that drywall is in, we are busy priming and painting all the walls of the house. It’s going much slower than I anticipated, but it is 8,000 square feet of drywall so I guess it won’t happen overnight. Next on the agenda is the exterior cement board install and the interior tongue and groove ceiling installation.
Walls covered with drywall and primed.
That’s about it. Hopefully I will update more often than every 4 months from here on out.
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