Month: July 2026 (Page 2 of 2)

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.