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.

Two pictures showing what seems like about a day of additional progress on the siding installation. The first picture is the front of the house (next to the deck). The vent in the wall is air intake for the ERV (air exchanger).

The second picture is the north side by the master bedroom, with Greg for scale. This is the same section from the previous post, but there has been further progress since last Wednesday.

Since the construction camera is facing the front of the house, and since there has been so little progress, I will wait a few more days before assembling a new video.

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.