Sanding the floor

Dan the floor guy finished the initial sanding of the loft floors and applied the first coat of sealer, (Emulsion Satin, basic coatings advanced oil and water wood floor finish, 81619-4312).  He then moved down to the main floor and sanded the master bedroom and the great room.  He applied first coat in the master bedroom late today.  More sanding and more coats to follow.

 Scott and Julian added more tile to the shower walls, including starting the strip of the 1 inch glass tiles running around the shower interior. Originally that was going to be a 4 inch strip, but Scott has decided a 6 inch strip will look better.  We will need some more tiles to complete the strip and to use the small tiles in the soap cubby.

John and Chris worked down in the basement today while the floors were being sanded.  They installed a clothes hanging bar in the closet under the stairs and trimmed out the doors and the bathroom baseboards.

Dwayne and partner hung some exterior lights and finished off most of the electrical switches and receptacles.
Doug, John, and Chris worked on trimming the windows and started on the door in the loft bathroom. That door is just a hair too wide and would hit the skylight trim, so as a solution Chris cut the upper right side corner of the door and now it will open all the way. John hung the two doors in the loft knee wall and Chris hung the knee wall door in the loft bathroom, with black iron hardware on all three knee wall doors.

Scott and Julian were hard at work on the shower and finished off the 2 inch tiles on the floor and ceiling. They then started in on the large 1 foot tiles on the walls. Scott's tuck pointing of the heath stones with mortar has dried to a nice dark gray color and looks great.
Our floor finisher Dan R Braucht from Coburn PA, arrived today and got right to work sanding the loft floors. Tomorrow he do some more sanding around the edges and then apply a finish. To prepare for sanding of the main floor the crew has moved all their tools and work benches down to the basement.

Check out the large egg we got yesterday (June 7)--don't know which chicken that biggie came from.

Note: it was a double yolker. We ate it on June 13.

Reading The Log Cabin Lady: An Anonymous Autobiography **** A woman raised in a log cabin in Wisconsin grows up to marry a Boston Brahmin who becomes an ambassador to England and other European countries.  This was written for the Delineator, a woman's magazine in 1922.  Moral of her story is that to learn cultural geography one should understand the psychology of their customs and should be taught and can be learned.

Jonas delivered the first baluster section with the walnut balusters and the curved copper tubing running through the balusters. Wow! The copper has been lacquered so it will stay shiny.  Walnut, copper and maple hand railing with the hemlock posts and pine floor: it can't get any better than that. He and Bill will continue assembling the rest of the baluster sections as they have all the parts and pieces cut and ready to be put together. He also put on the initial finish coat on the maple treads for all the stairs. He set up outside but the winds yesterday were blowing hard and dusty, so he moved his paint shop down to the shed which provided shelter from the wind and dust. We could have had a problem last night because we left the shed door open and it rained; luckily the storm was very short and had no wind.

Doug, John, and Cody have most of the master bedroom flooring installed. They put down cardboard to protect the flooring in the great room.  I stood in the hall between the master bed and bath when the windows  were open: we may not need a fan in there.  What a difference the west (or down hill) windows make in ventilation.
Adrian has extended the HVAC ducting down in the basement. James and Nick continued to hang dry wall, finishing on the main floor and moving into the breezeway. After the breezeway they will work on the basement.  They say they'll have the scraps for Freecycling this weekend.
Kohl's delivered some of the exterior siding and it is stacked in front of the house. Chris painted the soffit pieces since it's the only HardiePlank that didn't come with factory paint. It might have been closer if stacked along the side the house, but we need access there for the geothermal well driller's rig which arrived today. I thought it was supposed to be the size of a Hummer: not exactly but they promise they can get around back.

Eastern tent caterpillars are chewing on the cherry trees and ticks are evading the chickens. And, I picked some garlic mustard on our walk yesterday as I was hacking fallen branches and roses along the trail.

Drywall

The maple floor covers the kitchen, dining room and great room and looks terrific.  With the hearth laid out we can get a much better feel for what the usable space will be.  I can already imagine sitting in front of the stove, Kindle in hand, dogs at my feet, enjoying next winter's first snow fall.  We haven't measured the dogs to window to see if we'll need paw guards on the sills.

Much of the first floor dry wall has been hung and some upstairs.  We can now use white since we don't need water resistance as we did on the earlier wallboard. Now it's easier to see the real size of the rooms and how much light the windows provide. 
The skylight was a good decision in the guest bathroom; it would be a closet without that additional light. 

Drywall

Doug, John, and Cody are laying down more flooring in the great room.  Our two man dry wall crew, James and Nick, has finished hanging dry wall in the master bedroom and are about 50 percent done in the master bath.

More flooring

Doug, John, and Cody worked on the flooring, finishing off the powder room and covering the kitchen, dining room, and powder room with cardboard to protect it during the construction. John and Cody put down the walnut accent strip dividing the kitchen and dining room from the great room. This 6" accent strip echoes the walnut post. They also added a bullnose edger board along the top of the staircase.  They also put down boards to divide the wood floor from the areas that will be tiled.  These divider boards are placed perpendicular to the courses of wood on the floor, so they will provide a buffer between the different rates of expansion of the wood flooring and the tile.
They have put down an outline for the hearth.  Jerry and Chris, from PennWood, agreed that the Lopi stove did not require very much insulation on the hearth, so it can be almost flush with the flooring if we use regular tile. Of course, if we go with the 1” blue stone, that would cause the hearth to be elevated above the level of the floor to some degree. Something to consider. Decisions, decisions.

Jonas installed the remaining railing posts in the loft. Three of these posts are positioned right next to a timber post, so the railing posts were split in half and then installed so that it looks like the railing post is embedded in the timber post. Jonas and Bill will now start on building the railings and balusters in their workshop and bring them to the house in sections that will fit between the installed posts. The maple treads for the staircase up to the loft were delivered and are ready for installation.
Adrian is extending the major ducts in the basement and connecting them to floor vents on the main floor.

We've lost count of the 4-legged-furry field Popsicles (voles) the boys have snacked on.  Gambol found 2 today: ate the first one quickly but he played a little too long with the second one and Buddy took it away.  Gambol tosses his finds in the air and rolls his shoulders over the critter (tenderizing it perhaps?). Buddy can't be bothered; he just gulps them down.
Reading Hiding in Plain Sight Marta Perry

Maple floor

Posts were routed for the flooring. It looks like the floor was put down first and the tree and other posts placed on top.  Red rosin paper is placed under the maple floor to help prevent squeaks.

 Dwayne showed off the main electrical panel—there will be a transfer panel and then the generator panel to the right of the main.

 Adrian has HVAC stuff laid out like puzzle pieces.
Jonas is working on the second and third posts on the landing—2 are now attached with hardware and he is notching out the third right now.

Flooring upstairs almost done

 

upstairs catwalk to loft

The crew is moving into their new workshop in town today; that will be used to not only carve our timber frame rear entry but also the support stringers for our stairs going from the basement to the main floor and then to the loft. Our basement windows came into the supplier warehouse yesterday and the crew will pick them up today. Installation might be today or early next week, depending on how the workshop move goes this morning.

 

floor in upstairs guest room

The crew is just about finished the flooring in the upstairs bedroom. They still have to put down the last board or two against the wall which involves some special, time consuming fitting. In the basement we now have some wall insulation and blocking that will help support the stairs and keep the stairwell a bit warmer.
In addition, the paint guy applied the initial finish on all the windows. This was an effort to protect the windows from the dust that will be flying around from the drywall mudding and sanding.

from catwalk into great room

The heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) guys were out yesterday to scope out the project and get a feel for the way they will get the conditioned air up to the second floor. One of the HVAC guys worked on the system in our current house. This house’s deep well geothermal heat pump will not only heat or cool the house, but it will also provide a reservoir of warm (110 degree) water that can be used to “kick start” our tankless water heater so it won’t have to work so hard heating water from 55 degrees. We expect that will help with the precipitates that caused the failure of the first tankless heater. Because of the difficulty with the ducting we will have 2 zones:  the two bedrooms and baths and the rest of the house.  The drywall separates the two zones.  Master control will probably be in the master bedroom, at least for the bedrooms’ zone. 

stairwell into basement and bathroom in basement are more heavily insulated

This bathroom will be decorated in rugged utilitarian and could be used as a dog washing station.

Loft floor

Electrician Dwayne recommends a pivoting pendant about 8" in diameter to light the sinks. He will work on getting the wire to it without having a box in the loft floor, a better solution. We still might like a wall of desk/bookshelf/something along that wall, but now it's not necessary.

 

loft dormer and new floor

Catwalk with mitered edges looking into bedrooms

The crew finished the floor in the loft. If I stand beside the walnut post and look up I might imagine that I see a little more red in the great room ceiling (eastern white pine) than in the dining room ceiling (southern yellow pine). The dining room/kitchen/catwalk/master bedroom ceiling boards are 1 3/8" and are the floor upstairs. The ceiling has a bevel and the floor is flat. The nails on the edge board will be pegged to cover. Looks great.  If it were maple we could play basketball in the loft! says Jonas. 
Shingling progressed a bit but the rear entry timberframe still has to be built.
HardiePlank    New construction-- Navajo Beige and Booth Bay Blue, Select Cedarmill [Old Construction-- Navajo White and Slate Blue,  Select Cedarmill.]  Now the choices are based on zip code.  We remember Dave the Builder commenting on how difficult this siding was to saw and how many blades he went through; now this crew will use a cutting press like what is used to cut metal flashing.
We have a hanging block for the front entry hanging light (P5595-50)
Dining room chandelier will be Quoizel Inglenook  (TFIK 2817VA)
Buddy and Gambol each caught a vole on their afternoon walk.  Hurray for Panacur .  I think both dogs are going to be regulars.

Floor joists installed

Our weather report for the pre-Thanksgiving week looks grim for outdoor sports including building so The Crew put in a full day (7:30-4:00) today.  The floor joists are ready for the OSB and the accumulated piles that the chickens were beginning to investigate are gone.  If a hen eats pink insulation does she produce pink marshmallow peeps?
We are beginning to think about the topping off ceremony. Jerry suggested a hemlock bough since the timbers are hemlock.  It may occur on Dec 12 depending on weather and more. Save the date but stay tuned.
On other fronts we spent most of the weekend cleaning up from the ice storm.  We pruned all of the locusts in the meadow, including taking off the tubes and stakes.  They are now mostly 2" diameter sticks.  The brush piles are thorny but tripled their volume.  We also lopped off branches of fallen limbs from the upper Jennifer trail and made brush piles there, too.  Gambol, in his blaze orange hunting vest, was in his glory all day.
Check out Good Morning America:  look closely at the left side just after she pulls the release.  I think that's our meadow.

Basement floor

Two cement mixers arrived about 0730 to pour the basement floor. The crew waited until the cement set up to give it a final smooth finish.