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Month: April 2026 (Page 2 of 2)

What a Difference a Day Makes

We went to the house on Thursday to go rowing (more later). Outside they are working on the gutters. In the last post, I showed you a picture of the mounting blocks used for the gutters. Then crew then adds brackets to those blocks as you can see below.

And then the crew mounts the gutter in those brackets as you can see here.

Inside insulation is proceeding at a rapid pace. They appear to be done with the second floor. Here are some progress pictures from the first floor. First the living room wall.

Next the master bedroom ceiling (which is under the roof). The white board is added as an extra layer of insulation since the rafters did not support enough foam.

And here is the ceiling of the kitchen area (which is under the second floor so rockwool is used).

Insulation should be finished tomorrow except for the ceiling of the basement, which will be done later. The builder said that they will start hanging wall board inside the house this Saturday.

Meanwhile, the electricians are continuing to work in the garage wiring up the garage doors.

As far as rowing is concerned, we went out for two and a half hours, following the same path upstream as our last trip. It was quite windy which made the first half challenging as we rowed into the wind, and the second half challenging since the wind made it hard to keep the boat straight as it pushed us downstream.

Now Switching to Rockwool

In my previous posts, I had pictures and talked about how the insulation under the roof and in the exterior walls was closed cell spray foam. Well, they have finished with all that work and now the team is adding rockwool insulation to the interior walls, where we want sound isolation, and under the floors. Here is all the rockwool waiting to be installed (Daphne for scale).

And here is rockwool installed in the wall between the guest bedroom and the family room (second floor).

And here is the backside of that same wall, where you can also see the closed cell spray foam in the exterior wall.

Here is the team installing the rockwool in the front bedroom (second floor).

The basement walls are insulated with a rigid panel product (Thermax), and that work has now finished. The ceiling of the basement will be insulated with rockwool after the rest of the house is done. We decided to leave the walls shiny and not paint them since it reflects light and makes the basement brighter.

On the outside, they have been putting up small pieces of wood product on which the gutters will be mounted. Here is a section from the garage roof.

This week, we discussed the product that will be used for the deck railing, and also the railing in the porch. Here is a sample modeled by our architect. That little wire sticking out halfway down is a sample of the wire that goes between the posts and comprises the majority of the railing.

We also talked about installing screens to hide the condensers that make up the HVAC system. Next week Daphne, the architect and builder will use plywood panels to decide where to put screens.

Things remain on the new schedule for now, but past behavior is no guarantee of future performance.

Current estimated occupancy date: July 31, 2026 (no change).

We Have Garage Doors

These got installed today. Of course, without handles or a remote control, I have no way of going into the garage right now, but I assume that it will get worked out. These look much better than the blue tarps we were using.

I was Pleasantly Mistaken

I thought the garage was supposed to have its wall board installed this coming week, but it actually happened last week. Here are some pictures.

The wall board installation in the house will probably have to wait for the insulation application to be finished.

Trying Out Our New Row Boat

We have bought a row boat and this morning we went for a 2 1/2 hour row, traveling 2.5 miles upstream and then returning.

Here is a picture of the boat at the water’s edge before we launched.

Here are two pictures of Daphne rowing. We actually took turns rowing but I had the camera.

Along the way, we spotted a beaver and I took a picture with my phone. I was pretty far away so the quality is not great.

Finally, on the way home, I took another picture of the back side of the house from the river.

Insulation Underway

They have been installing the insulation all week. It feels to me that they probably just have a few more days of work.

The second floor and under the roof has been finished. Here is a picture from the second floor family room.

The first floor is part done. Here is a picture from the dining room wall.

In the basement, they insulated near the floor. Then they started installing the wall board that will insulate the basement.

This week they will start installing wall board, starting in the garage.

Mid-Week Update in Pictures

Inside the house they are blowing in the insulation. I can not go into the house while they are doing this, but I have this picture of the hose running in the front door and up to the second floor.

Outside the house they are getting ready to install the gutters. Here is a pile of gutters on the deck waiting to be installed.

And today we had a new row boat delivered. Since the boat cover needs to be shipped separately, the boat has been parked under the porch for now. This weekend we will try it out on the river.

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