Gould Home

I am going to start with a schedule update from the builder. Our goal is to get to an occupancy permit and then move in. Here is the current plan. (Minor updates added July 8 pm)

• Week of July 6th
  • Interior finishing work (e.g. slats)
  • Civil engineers finalize the septic system layout plan on July 9th
  • Stairs being installed
• Week of July 13th
  • Interior finishing work
  • Cherrystone installs floating shelves in the game room
  • Counters get installed on Wednesday (July 15)
  • Septic system gets installed
  • Driveway gets paved (pending tests of grounding system)
  • Porch screen and railing gets installed
  • Existing furniture gets picked up for refinishing on July 18
  • Ceiling registers (heating/cooling) installed
  • Shower door installation (July 17)
• Week of July 20th
  • Leaching field (part of septic system) gets installed
  • Front yard gets landscaped
  • Hardwood flooring gets installed on second floor
• Week of July 27th
  • Luxury Vinyl Tile flooring gets installed on the first floor
• Week of August 3rd
  • All appliances get installed
  • The safety systems gets finished
  • The internet and entertainment systems get installed
  • We try to get an occupancy permit
• Week of August 10th
  • Movers pack us up on August 10
  • Movers drive to new house and unpack on August 11
  • Refinished and new furniture from Cherrystone gets delivered on August 12
  • Nextdoor neighbors at our old place move furniture from their unit into our unit so they can refinish their floors on August 11 or 12.
  • Sale (closing) of our old house on August 15.

The scheduling is tight and things could go wrong. For example, the grounding rods have been added to under the driveway but the electrician does not have the correct meter to test the resistance to ground and we need to verify that we have good grounding before we fill in the driveway and then pave it. But a delay here is only an annoyance, since it is not on the critical path.

Also, I do not know whether we will have trouble getting the occupancy permit. I assume the appliances need to be installed, but not the entertainment system and internet in order to pass inspection. The entertainment system and internet can not be installed until there is no more dust being generated, which mostly means that the floors are all finished (which is the last dusty stage).

Also the move is, as typical, a chain involving our old house. Our old unit is being bought by the son of our nextdoor neighbor. He needs to get the floors redone and have some other work done on our old place, which he needs to be finished by end of August so he can move by month end. But our nextdoor neighbor is also refinishing her floors so she wants to first move all her furniture to our unit so her floors can be redone.

While we have contingencies in place if things slip a week, we are hoping that the schedule holds, because if not, things get a little messy.

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Now for some updates and pictures.

I will start with the “slats”. This is a decorative fixture designed by Daphne that is being added to the living room, dining room and front hall. I have posted pictures of the installation progress before, but finally we have about one half of the slats installed. Here is what it looks like in the living room, including a close up showing the details better.

I am somewhat upset that the construction camera was not facing in the correct direction for this work, but I moved it when I was there.

Meanwhile, the slats still have to be added to the dining room and front hall. Here is the ceiling of the dining room showing the backing, which is now waiting for the black fabric and then the slats.

The stairs going to the basement have one coat of polyurethane on them. They will eventually get three coats. Meanwhile, they are starting on installing the stairs to the second floor.

Of course, after the stairs get installed, they still need to add the railings (on both sides on both flights of stairs).

In the master bathroom, they have added the built-in shelves behind the toilet. These will be used for things like toilet paper.

And in the laundry room, they installed the clothes hanger, shown below with a few of the bars lowered. The bars are held against the wall (when not lowered) by a small piece of plastic, which you twist away to free the bar. Three of those small pieces of plastic have already broken so the crew is going to find a better solution.

Outside, the driveway has been dug up so the grounding rods could be installed.

Meanwhile, in the backyard, Daphne continues planting. Here are some winterberry bushes, which have been planted, and which will eventually expand to hide the generator.

That’s all for today. I should have another update this weekend.

We spent Sunday morning working on the landscaping in the back yard, but before I go into details, lets quickly update work on the house itself.

First, the landscaping company has finished leveling out the south side yard. At the far end, you can no longer see the access pipes for the dry well since those have been cut to ground level. This area is not finished, because we will be adding hair cap moss to the center of the swale, but that has not arrived yet. Next up for the landscaping company is the septic system and front yard.

The driveway has been cleared of asphalt and gravel. Next week the grounding rods will be put in place under the driveway, and if they can get the resistance to ground low enough, they will then go ahead and pave the driveway.

In my last post, I showed a picture of the stairway to the basement, where they had removed the temporary stairs. Well, now the real stairs are in place, although they need to be finished so we are careful not to track dirt onto them.

Work continues on the finishing details in the living room. Here is the area that will have slats. The oak slats have been finished (separately) and will be installed soon. Meanwhile, the black backing fabric is in place as is the cherry edging (which you can see behind the plastic). You can also see the beginnings of the cove lighting where the wall and ceiling meet on the right side.

And in the laundry room, the platform on which the washer and dryer will sit, has been built. There are some pipes that come through the floor under this, but the main advantage of the platform is to raise the level of the washer and dryer doors (both front loading).

Now on to the landscaping and repurposed logs.

The plan for the backyard is to have a network of paths with native plants filling in the area between the paths. We are not allowed to have improved paths in the 50′ no-build zone near the wetlands. This means no paving stones, no gravel, no mulch, etc. That said, we do have permission to repurpose any downed wood on our property, and there is a lot of it. This morning, Daphne and I assembled our collection of logs and branches in paths as you can see in the following two pictures — the first picture looking southeast from the bottom of the stairs to the deck, and second picture looking north from the near the dry well.

Daphne also built a set of stairs using logs (that had been cut sometime in the past by the previous resident and left around). This goes up a particularly steep section of the north side of the backyard. That’s the backup generator you can see on the left side of this picture.

Finally, here is a picture of the waterfront past the silt barrier, with Daphne for scale. These paths go down to the boat launching area when the water is high, pretty much where Daphne is standing.

That’s all for now. Next week the builder gives us the latest completion date estimate. Fingers crossed.

The builder is on vacation this week, although he has been calling the teams working on the house every day. We had our Wednesday meeting with the architect and the head of the construction crew.

Outside, they are working on adding a layer of dirt and mulch to the yard and some gravel around the house itself. Here are three pictures of the progress, backyard, south side yard and north side yard. The small spot missing mulch is where a snapping turtle buried her eggs so we are waiting for them to hatch (around Labor Day) before covering that area up.

They also added a bluestone block to the bottom of the stairs down from the deck. This bluestone block was the last piece recovered from the old house and patio (the other bluestone was used in the boat storage area under the porch).

Inside we had a moderate punch list of decisions to make. For example, we had to chose what type of door stops we were going to use on every door in the house. We will mostly be using an adjustable hinge door stop but a few doors that we will often keep open will have magnetic door stops. And the pantry door has a special door stop to keep it from hitting the cabinets.

We (meaning Daphne) also settled on the location and length for the handles on all the cabinets. Here is a picture of the process.

We also picked a location for the drying rack, which will be used instead of an indoor clothes line in the laundry room. Each of those wooden bars drops down so you can hang things on them.

The porcelain panels in the master bathroom shower are now mounted.

An extra layer of plywood has been added everywhere on the first floor, except for the pantry, because the luxury vinyl tile is thinner then a hardwood floor. The pantry has, instead, a layer of shielding since it is just above the electrical utility room (you can see the shiny surface in this picture).

While we were there, the crew was working on the cove lighting for the living room. They have finished putting the acoustic panels in place in the ceiling, and now need to add the slats (which were being finished by the painter, working in the driveway).

Also, while we were there, they were installing the real steps into the basement, having just removed the temporary steps.

One of the things we are very worried about is water erosion on the property. Recent rainstorms demonstrated that some of the water coming off the garage roof went down onto the ground near the heat exchangers and would eventually erode their platform. A diverter was added to the roof, but the diverter was not working, so we wanted to have it redesigned. However, it turned out that the construction crew had already addressed this issue and the new diverter seemed to be correctly funneling water into the gutter (we tested by spraying water onto the roof).

I have no schedule update since the builder is on vacation. When he gets back we will reevaluate the end date. Meanwhile here are some of the big activities planned for the next few weeks

• The septic system should go in next week or the week after.
• The counter tops have been measured and the material will be cut and then installed, perhaps in two weeks.
• They are close to installing the hardwood flooring on the second floor, but they need to first finish the slats in the living room, so the electrician can wire up the embedded lights, which requires access from the floor of the second floor family room.
• In the next few days they will remove the remaining pavement in the driveway and install the grounding rods. Once the electrician ensures that the resistance to ground is low enough, they will pave the driveway.
• We confirmed the locations for the porch screens and railing so that will go in soon.

The landscaping has not started yet. Delayed a few days because of rain. But it should start tomorrow and the heavy equipment has already arrived.

Most of the house work is inside. They have been finishing up the trim. Here is what the trim looks like around the dining room windows.

And here is trim around the mirror (not installed yet) and window in the master closet.

The master bathroom vanity has been installed. Drawers will be installed later. They have measured for the counter top so that will be cut and installed soon.

Upstairs, they have been finishing up the closets. This is the linen closet on the second floor.

The first section of the game room cabinetry (and Murphy bed) has been installed. We decided that we need to add a piece of trim at the top. The floating shelves will be added next.

In the living room, they has started installing the slats, actually starting with the acoustic panel backing which will be behind the slats.

Finally, upstairs the flooring has been delivered and is piled up in the various rooms. It will be installed soon, except for the family room, where they still need to access the first floor ceiling from above to wire up the lights.

It will be two more weeks before we determine whether we can meet the end of August date for the occupancy permit. Fingers crossed.

The crew is working inside the house. Some people are doing cabinet installation and some people are doing trim on doors and windows, with some painting and tiling mixed in. The crew has been good about moving the construction camera (on a tripod) around but most of the work does not make for very interesting videos. In my opinion, a compelling construction video includes visible progress, but most of the video just shows the living room where they cut the pieces of trim that get installed elsewhere in the house.

That said, I did pull together three brief but interesting segments from the last two weeks of work. The first is work on the pantry cabinets, the second is the installation of the front door, and the third is the assembly of the kitchen island, all in one brief 30 second movie.

Today we held a bagel brunch on the new deck (the house is not finished, but the deck is usable). This gave us a chance to debug the deck for parties. Here is a diagram I made a while ago with a suggested layout for the deck. This is not quite how the party went.

We had 20 people at the peak. People brought their own chairs, which tended to be camp chairs with wide arms. That limited how many chairs we could fit. The group basically stayed in the red area, except to get more food at the tables.

There were also three chairs against the living room wall, which meant that the living room door was blocked. That’s OK since you can still use the pantry door to access the house. Some people stood near the railing to be included in the conversations when more chairs did not fit.

The area in red was preferable to the rest of the deck because of the shade provided by the retractable awning (although the shade did not extend all the way to the diagonal railing). To take advantage of the whole deck, we probably need to bring our popup out since the house does not shade the area near the stairs at all.

First lesson learned was that we probably want to use narrower stacking chairs, which will allow us to fit in more chairs. Second lesson learned is that the party size matters. With the deck layout the way it is, an ideal one zone party would probably have no more than 16 people. If we wanted a bigger party, we should shoot for mid-twenties which makes it more likely that we could end up with two conversation groups rather than all cramming in the section near the river.

Another lesson learned is that when we set up the food tables where they are shown, we can no longer get into the garage through the side door. Since that is where we will store the tables and chairs, it means we want to take all those out before setting up the food tables. You can still get into the garage through the garage doors, but that would mean squeezing by the cars.

Also, a minor note. The power outlets are low and the way the covers work, they open at the bottom. (The outlets are against the garage wall behind the tables.) When leaning over the tables, I could not see the plug openings through the weather proof outlet covers, even when open, to position the power cord prongs. I had to move the table out to plug things in.

Still a successful trial run for deck parties. I welcome comments from our guests on their ideas and opinions.

We were on site on Saturday morning to remove more invasives, and do more planting. Now that we have permission to remove invasive plants in the wet lands, I went at a big crop of buckthorn using the weed wrench. Here is the pile of invasive buckthorn that I removed.

While we were there, the guys from Cherrystone furniture showed up with pieces for the game room walls. Here are some pictures.

Cherrystone is also doing the master bathroom vanity, which is now sitting in the bedroom waiting to be installed.

While I was there, I took some clean pictures of the kitchen with the island in place.

And I noticed that the upstairs bathroom’s shower walls have been installed.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow we will throw our first party on the deck at the new house.

Another Wednesday and another meeting at the house. Here are some progress pictures.

Outside they have added the railing to the stairs leading up to the deck. One section is missing and is on order. In this picture you can also see that they have sonotubes near the heat exchangers. These will be used to support a screen that hides the heat exchangers from the deck.

The porcelain for the upstairs shower has arrived and is being stored in the garage. The porcelain for the master bathroom is at the tile installer being cut.

In the kitchen, they have added the vent hood, although inside the cabinet is a missing piece that they have to custom build.

The crew has assembled the kitchen island. We then positioned it where we want it in the kitchen. In this picture the small green ladder represents the refrigerator and the board on the left side is the edge of the dining room table. We wanted to make sure there was the right amount of space on both sides of the island, and ended up moving it a few inches back and forth until is seem right.

The kitchen island will not be attached to the floor. This is actually critically important. Not because we ever plan on moving it (and it will not sit on the floor’s vinyl tile, but on built-in supports). But, because as long as it not attached to the floor it can be consider to be “furniture”. If it were attached to the floor, it would be consider built-in and would need to be wired with plugs, which Daphne does not want.

At the end of the front hall, they have added the cabinet which hides the ventilation system intake.

On the second floor, they have finished installing the kitchenette cabinets.

As I mentioned before, the cabinet maker made an interesting decision to sometimes paint the interior and sometimes leave it natural, as you can see in this picture.

In the basement, they have finished installing the ceiling rockwool insulation (which is under the floor of the main floor).

They also finally installed the cleanout port in the dryer vent so I can easily clean out the lint. Unfortunately, it is taped closed so we are going to try a different attachment approach.

In the basement utility room, the security team installed the main alarm panel. It is not power up yet (there is a note for the electrician to add an outlet).

And that’s the end of our progress update. We will be having a brunch on the deck this coming Sunday, our first party at the new house. Without any plumbing fixtures inside the house, it will be more like camping.

Quick weekend update. They have finished the front door, except for mounting the doorbell and adding downspouts. Here is the outside of the front door. The green board is there to protect the stone.

And here is the inside of the front door. The door handle has not been added yet.

Also, in the last few days they made a lot of progress in the pantry cabinets. Here is its current look.

The painters were working on the second floor on Saturday morning. I expect the painting on the second floor to be done soon.