Author: Joel (Page 7 of 22)

Lots of people working at the house today. In the basement they were installing the temporary heater that will keep the house warm while they work over the winter. Meanwhile, they are working on the siding on two different walls (front and south side). Here is a picture of the south side of the house (master bedroom wall). The little square in the lower-left corner of the siding is where there will be an exterior faucet.

Thursday, the construction crew restarted the installation of the siding. It is supposed to take the rest of the year, but progress is visible. Here is a picture of the north side of the garage (with the electrical panels), and the east side of the garage (which is not finished yet). Notice that the peaks will be in a different color (not green).

I caught the action on the construction camera and here is the cropped video. In the video, you can also see some more work on painting of the deck framing.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, we went to the house and placed strings between the posts in the backyard. This divides the area into squares.

Then Daphne sprinkled seeds onto the ground according to a plan, which is shown below. With luck, some of these will sprout in the spring.

Finally, I have moved the construction camera to the front, where work will be done next week (I hope).

This week’s meeting was pretty short, mostly an update about where things stand. We did decide where to place the exterior sconce outside of the basement door. That decision needed to be made before the end of the week because it requires a hole to be drilled in the foundation, which will happen on Monday.

We did not decide where to place the outlets on the deck, but we will decide that when we visit the site this weekend.

Meanwhile, siding installation started up again today. Here is a picture of the piece that delayed the work the latest time. Not the green pieces, but the black strips.

And here is a picture of the construction crew starting installation.

Meanwhile, after the meeting with the architect and builder, I had a visit by a botanist. The botanist took a few pictures of the trees we planted and the area we cleared of invasive plants and he will write a report for the Concord Natural Resources Commission.

At the end of our weekly meeting, the builder outlined the upcoming schedule, which I have reproduced below in hopes that I have not jinxed things.

• The propane tanks get delivered on December 2nd.
• The kitchen cabinets get delivered at the end of December.
• The siding installation will take approximately 6 weeks, so until the end of the year.
• Once the siding is done, the deck surface will be installed.
• The electrician will be working until mid January.
• Then at the end of January, we will insulate the walls.
• The interior walls should then be sealed up by the end of February.
• Then the flooring can be installed.

Just got this picture from our builder. This is the delivery of the pieces of trim that are used at the edge of windows (and other obstacles) to hide the edge of the siding. With this delivery the construction crew will get back to installing the siding tomorrow.

This week, the construction crew worked on adding framing to the bottom of the desk, where we will be mounting a lattice to hide the area under the deck. Here is the current state of the work. This is a picture from the walkway that goes under the deck to the basement door, looking north.

The open area on the right (east) side will be where there will be an access door so we will be able to store things under the deck (although it is not a dry space).

Here is a video of the process (I sped this up compared to most of the videos). This overlaps with the previous video I posted, because I wanted to get the whole process together in one video.

On Saturday, Daphne and I went to the site to put stakes into the ground in the area where we will be planting. Here is what the area behind the garage, between the silt barrier and the wetlands now looks like. Each of those stakes are four feet apart.

Daphne has updated were planting plan to include the grid that the stakes outline and the plan now looks like this (you can see the grid in the center of the plan).

With luck, this coming Wednesday a botanist will visit the site and write up a report for the Concord Natural Resources Commission basically stating that we did, in fact, plant four trees and they seem to still be alive. I think the report also indicates that we did a reasonable job at removing invasive plants.

We just had our weekly Wednesday meeting. Since my last update, the crew has been working on the deck. They had previously applied multiple coats of fire proofing paint. But we decided that the fire proofing paint was too light in color and would show through the deck planks. So we added a layer of black paint. Once that was done, the crew started putting in place the framing that would be used to hold the vertical lattice that will be added to hide the ground under the deck.

Here is a video of the work.

And here is a picture of the deck from the bottom. You can see the new black color and the added framing (which is not painted).

And here is what it looks like for the porch.

Inside the house, we worked with the architect to position where we will be adding sconces. The lights other than the sconces are ceiling mounted and we had already reviewed those positions a few months ago.

Here is one of the sconces in its paper form. This is the one in corner of the guest bedroom.

And here is what it will look like in real life.

Here is the sconce that will go over my bed for reading.

We also positioned the sconces in the master bathroom and outside, over the deck.

Meanwhile, the electricians are working in the house. They are currently positioning all the switch, electrical and Ethernet boxes based on our walk through last week. Once that is done, they will start laying the shielded wiring. I expect that this work will take the rest of the year.

We had hoped to start siding the house in September, but there has been delay after delay. The missing piece needed to start up the installation is currently scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, November 18th, so maybe next Wednesday we will see siding installation start up again.

The latest estimate for a move in date is end of April 2026, but there could be further delays. Cross your fingers for me.

We just had our weekly Wednesday meeting. This one was longer then usual because we had two big areas that need review.

But first, the current build status. Almost all the external work is waiting for the siding to be installed, and the siding is waiting for that one piece needed for the edges at windows. That piece is due in a week (its being shipped from Georgia), at which point siding installation should proceed quickly.

The exception to the hold on exterior work is painting the framing for the deck. After four coats of fire proofing paint, we decided that we wanted the framing to be black so it would not show through the deck floor planks. So it is being painted.

The first half of this week’s meeting was a discussion with Donna of Packard’s Kitchens. Donna is responsible for putting together details of the kitchen cabinets and coordinating with the manufacturer. Donna, Daphne and our architect spent an hour plus going over all the design details for the cabinets so we can get the order into the manufacturer by this Friday. This is being done in a rush so we can get the cabinets shipped to us before January 1st when the Canadian tariffs double. We will then store the cabinets in the unfinished (but heated) basement until we are ready to install them.

Here is a picture of the “girls” going through all the details, while the guys stand around.

We wanted to do custom colors for the pantry cabinets (the main part of the kitchen will be natural cherry wood). Unfortunately using custom colors added a month to the manufacturing process. So instead, we picked out colors that were as close as possible to our original choices, but were stock. (You can see our original color choices in a prior post.)

Here is what we ended up with for paint colors (the white and blue samples) shown against all the various wood textures in the kitchen.

The result of this session were corrections to the details of all the cabinetry that needs to be build so it can be ordered. Here is an example of the adjusted plans.

The second half of this week’s meeting was a walk through for the positions of all the switches and electrical outlets (including Ethernet and phone ports).

The process started many months ago when I put together a proposal for where I wanted outlets, switches and Ethernet ports. This was then refined by the architect including adding more outlets to meet electrical code requirements. A few months ago, we went through the house and reviewed all the light switch locations.

Then, in the last week, the electrician put in all the wall boxes based on the plan. For example, here is a section of the wall in the kitchenette area on the second floor, where we both have kitchen outlets and also support for our upstairs media computer. Each box will have one switch, one outlet (for two plugs) or one Ethernet jack.

As the electrician did this work, he found all the locations than have to change because of the way the walls were framed. A lot of boxes will be moving a few inches in one direction or another to make it work. We will need one floor outlet in the living room because the living room windows go almost down to the floor leaving no room on the wall for an outlet that is required by code. But we were able to make everything else work (except for the outlet for the pantry oven, which we are still struggling with).

Finally, I should mention that when the Cherrystone carpenter came by last week to measure for the game room shelves, he realized that some of the blocking was not positioned correctly. This meant that more blocking had to be added, which you can see in this picture. The blocking is needed to have a secure anchor for the shelves and Murphy bed supports. It will all get covered with plaster and you will never know it is there.

Next big step for me is to meet with a botanist who will write up a report required by the Concord Natural Resources Commission as part of the conditions of them allowing us to build a house on our land. Basically, we planted four trees and the botanist will certify that they are still alive, and also that we did a reasonable job removing invasive plants. We will need reports every year for the next three years.

Although we visited the house over the weekend, we did no more landscaping work. Also, there has not been a lot of visible progress in the house since my last update.

Most of the work lately has been installing more electrical plus and switch boxes. We will be reviewing all the locations next Wednesday in what may be a long session.

Meanwhile, the HVAC installation team is mostly done. I did notice that they have finally put the second floor air handling unit in the small attic space above the front bedroom. Here is a picture of the air handling unit, although it has not been connected to the ducts yet.

Last weeks construction camera was mostly boring. I did capture part of a day of siding installation, which I have edited in the following video.

Finally, the water level in the river is up a little from last week because of recent rain. You can see that the inlet in our wetlands (which our neighbor calls “Mary’s Ditch”), now has some water in it closer to the house.

Right now we are trying to engage a botanist who will write a required report to the Natural Resource Commission that will attest that we did, in fact, plant 4 trees and that they are still alive (if the botanist can tell now that the leaves have fallen).

The missing siding components show up on November 14th, which will allow the crew to make more progress on installing the siding.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are missing a component of the siding that is necessary at the edge of windows. That piece is currently scheduled to show up in min-November. Meanwhile, the construction crew can add siding from the corners until they get close to the window frames. Then they have to stop and wait. Here are a few pictures of new sections of siding.

The HVAC team is finishing up their work this week. They have installed the ERV (air exchange unit) and were installing the second floor air handling unit while I was there this week. The condensers, which go on the concrete pad in the picture above, have to wait until the siding is done in that area.

Meanwhile the electrical team is busy. They have done more work in adding in the wiring for the backup generator. Here is the new set of panels in the garage.

Meanwhile, they are in the house nailing in place the electrical outlets in every room. Then, next week, we will review those locations before they get wired in place. Here are some of the outlet locations on the kitchen wall.

And in the last few days, the construction crew installed a new awning over the living room windows. This awning is designed to allow us to open the casement windows even when it is raining. The underside still needs to be finished and it needs shingles, but you get the idea.

We approved the colors for the pantry cabinets. We will paint them blue on one side and while on the other side of the pantry. The white keeps the pantry from being too dark (its the wall opposite the window that will be white). Most of the kitchen will be finished in natural cherry, although the section closest to the pantry where the dish washers are will also be painted blue.

Most of this Wednesday’s meeting was spent discussing the custom cabinets and shelves that will be built for us by Cherrystone Furniture. Cherrystone did the office, dining room and bedroom furniture in our current house (much of which we will be keeping after they refinish the tops). And since they build furniture to spec, they can do whatever you want (although it is more expensive than off the shelf). They will also be building new desks for Daphne and me, and building a custom bed for Daphne where the head can be raised without any metal or motors.

Even with the siding delay, the builder says the current move-in date should be next April. Although, I am still expecting some slippage. As it gets closer, we will need to start to plan out when we get the new furniture built and old furniture refinished to avoid being in either the old house or the new house without any furniture.

Finally, we are still waiting for a price quote for a non-Canadian cabinet maker for the kitchen cabinets before we decide whether to risk Trump increasing tariffs unexpectedly.