Month: December 2025

We made a quick trip to the house to drop off more lights and to check on the progress. There has been no more progress on the siding installation, although one worker was in the garage cutting sections of trim for around the windows.

Inside a painter was working on all the pieces of trim which will be used for the mounting the gutters (the small blocks in the pictures) and other trim pieces that will be installed somewhere on the exterior. The painting is done inside, where it is warmer (around 50° F). Here are two pictures showing the painted pieces of trim.

But most of the activity was electrical wiring. I have two pictures showing the progress. The first picture is the basement wiring closet where there are two subpanels — one for everything with a motor, and one for everything else on the first floor and basement.

The second picture shows where the subpanel will be located on the second floor with many of the wires coming into the area. While we were there most of the wiring work was being done on the second floor. We are installing a subpanel on the second floor to limit the number of wires that have to run from the second floor down to the basement. There will be a fourth subpanel installed in the garage (also to limit the number of wires run between the basement and the garage).

Since there has been no recent progress on the siding, the construction camera was not useful over the last week, but I left it in place hoping that work on the siding continues soon.

Siding installation continues. Here is the current view of the front of the house.

And here is the dining room siding seen from the deck. I am sorry for the angle; I was as far back as I could get without falling off the deck.

Inside the house, electrical work continues. Here is the master bathroom seen from the foyer. Lots of wires. The temporary furnace was running so the house was 50 degrees inside.

We are still collecting lights. We drove our fourth load of lights to the house this morning. Here is the current pile in the basement.

Finally I have a treat for you. Here is a construction cam video showing the siding of the front of the house over two plus weeks. I have sped up the video a lot so that it is only 30 seconds long.

Work continues on the siding. This week has been focused on the front (street facing) side of the house. While they are not finished, there is enough siding installed for you to get a good idea of how it will look. It is still missing trim around the windows and at the roof. And the real front door does not show up until mid-January.

Inside the house electrical wiring continues. We are using shielded wiring and spacing the wires out to reduce EMF (electromagnetic frequencies) inside the house. It should be electrically quiet enough to host a radio telescope (although that is not our plan).

The first picture shows the wiring in the kitchen corner. The range will be just to the left of this area, and the sink will be just to the right.

The second picture shows the wires coming down into the wiring closet. There is a lot of work to be done to get all these organized.

The propane tanks got installed last week. They will be filled on Monday, at which point the house will be heated using a temporary furnace. In the long run, the propane is for the backup generator and kitchen range. The real heating/cooling is electric (modern air-to-air heat exchangers).

Meanwhile, Daphne has been ordering all the lighting for the house. The lights get shipped to our current house, where we open the boxes to inspect them for damage. Then we drive them to the new house where they get stored in the basement. The electrician will need to see each style to wire them properly. These are not all the lights; there are more on the way.

Finally, here is a current view of the river.

I have construction camera footage of the siding work, but I will wait until they finish the front to splice it all together into one movie.

First we have more work on the siding. Here is what the front of the house looks like right now.

And they have finished up the back of the garage as you can see here.

They still need to add the black trim at the top, but I assume that will come later. All the trim pieces are sitting inside the house right now.

I have a construction video showing the siding of the front of the house (up to this point). If they keep working on the front next week, I will extend the video. At the end of the video, they are installing a vent on the second floor with the cherry-picker. I am sorry about the length (4 mins) and the fact that some days are blurred with moisture.

The electrician was snaking guide wires through all the conduits. Here are pictures from the north side of the garage (one end) and from the electrical room (the other end). The electrical room was dark so the picture quality is poor. But it looks like all the lines are labeled.

And there is more wiring in place in the garage. Those large black cables in front come from the generator.

Finally, to close out this post here is another view of the house from across the river.

The recent snow storm delayed the delivery of our propane tanks. Delivery is now scheduled for late next week. In the long run, the propane is for the back-up power generator and also for the kitchen range. However, during construction, the propane will be used to run a temporary heater which has been installed in the basement with a duct running to the first floor.

Here is the temporary heater (in the basement):

And here is what it looks like coming up on the first floor. (Architect for scale.)

Outside the house, the construction crew continues to add siding. Here are some siding progress pictures from the front of the house (to the left and right of the front door). The trim around windows, vents and blocks still need to be added and the blocks will be painted black.

Meanwhile inside the house the electrician continues to work. We decided on the placement of the outlet and Ethernet jack that will be on the deck (on the end next to the living room). This will allow Joel or a guest to use a laptop on the deck. We also identified the places where we want to avoid any wiring running under the floor — basically anywhere Daphne will be spending a lot of time.